sjeppell

2006 530xi

Newbie here….looking for a little direction on how to get the most out this site. I just traded up from a baby benz to my BMW a few months ago. I bought the Bentley manual, searched on "oil change" in this forum and watched a couple of videos on how to do this before I got started

https://video.search.yahoo.com/video...yfp-t-901&tt=b

and


The Bentley manual was nearly useless. It provided the tightening torque for the drain plug but no pictures to show which bolt was the drain plug.

Both videos showed the drain plug being being extracted parallel to the ground.

My car actually has the drain plug facing straight down (much more convenient for draining the oil, but a real surprise since there is a very similar looking 17 mm bolt located in the same location as the two videos posted above. I removed that bolt first only to find no fluid behind it!

When I searched this form for "oil change drain plug" I found similar posts talking about the oil coming out parallel to the ground.

Is this kind of thing common with BMW's? That bolt locations for specific models move around from year to year and you just have to have enough experience knowing what engine parts look like to figure out what to do?

twh

I think the AWD and non-AWD models have different oil pans and with different oil drain plug locations and orientations. Mine is a 2006 530xi (N52 engine). My plug is parallel to the ground. I do recall that my first oil change I was also thinking there was another bolt nearby that looked like it could be the oil drain plug.

sjeppell

Thanks twh ... I'll be more careful to look for xi specific info in the future.