When I say "They" I mean the dealership.

They say I need an oil change every 15,000 miles or every year, whichever comes first.
They say I never need to change my brake fluid.
They say I never need to flush or change my coolant.
They say I never need to flush or change my transmission fluid.


I don't believe any of it.

Not only that, but the car lies, and I'll tell ya how. The service section in the iDrive says that I need to change my front brakes in 12,000 miles. However, it said that THREE THOUSAND miles ago, too! And it STILL says 12000 miles. In the meantime, my damn front brakes squeal like you wouldn't believe and I can't get Motor Werks of Barrington, to service my BMW for new brakes / rotors with my BMW maintenance package because the car computer doesn't say its OK....Can you believe that? Because "the computer" doesn't say its ok! Sigh..

 

brake fluid should be changed every 2 years, and BMW changed mine under the maintenance program, so that one is not even consistent with what BMW says/does.

 

My brakes have been driving me nuts from the noise but the dealership siad they are fine.......Dont get it......

 

What "they" told you is all GIMMICK! They want the car to break down faster so they can make more money of you from service or new car purchase! I personally change my oil every 5k.

Does anyone have like a (non-bmw) recommended service interval checklist? Like at 60k you need a minor tune up and all these crap need to be replaced then at 80k you need this replaced etc etc...

 

So you're saying fully-synthetic oil does need a change every 5k miles? And they really are lying to me about all this other stuff?

 

That's how i like to do my oil service interval. I drive a 535i and the oil gets really dirty after 5k because of the twin turbos and i plan on keeping the car for awhile. Some people do it every 7-8k but 15k is just rediculous! It's all a marketing gimmick! BMW makes such good engines that will last for 500k. They want the consumer to keep on spending on service visits and new car purchase but for them to achieve that they will need their cars to fall apart sooner by changing the oil at 15k and NOT replacing all the fluids you mentioned above. Why do you think it costs so much to maintain a BMW? It's all about the benjamins brotha!

 

With todays modern synthetic oils its just wasting money by changing the oil at under 10k unless its a very very high performance engine and none of BMWs engines you can buy fall in to that group. Engine tollerances are much better and oil technology has moved on leaps and bounds from the 70s when 5-6k oil changes were the norm. The oil looking dirty is normal and what its supposed to do its just carbon and the filter will remove anything that shouldnt be there becuase it looks dirty doesnt not mean its knackered it will still have miles of life left.

The brake fluid is every two years, mine shows on iDrive as a service item.

 

The brake fluid change is a part of the normal maintenance program. They already flushed mine once and I didn't even have to remind them.

 

hmm... i still don't buy it sorry. it's no rocket science. if you see a thick dirty oil at 5k, why wait til 10k? just to maximize the life of a $50 synthetic oil? i will rather maximize my $50k engine by having a cleaner oil every 5k than wait to have a more sludge build up.

 

You wont see thick black oil at 5k. It will be black but thats just carbon in the oil and the oil is supposed to pick up the carbon. The oil will be the same consistency as when you put it in and have plenty of life left, if it was old mineral oil then yeah i would change it but it isnt its synthetic oil and last for 1000s of miles without deteriating. Look at third world countries they are running old mineral oil in cars that never have an oil change just a top up, cover hundreds of thousands of miles(sometimes) in harsh conditions. Then you have other people who look at the very latest lubricant technology with the new engine technology and think the oil is bad at 5-8k miles. Even if you look at trucks they do 10s of thousands of miles without oil changes every 5k miles and they go on to do mega mileage, alot of which have done it with oil no where near as good as the sythetics now around.