Cream Sauce

Hello,


I own a 2006 525D M-Sport with 22000 miles.

Every time the service light for different things came on I took it to my own mechanic who changed the relevant parts and used original BMW parts.

Recently the brake fluid light also came on and I am going to take the car to my mechanic this weekend.

My Question is is there anything else that needs to be done to the car other than the service lights that come up ?


Thanks to everyone very much in advance.

Kind Regards,
Cream Sauce

Gee_115

Depends on what you are changing, any electronic parts will need coding/programmimg.

SilberGrauE60

While there is a "service light" for the cabin air filters, I do not believe there is one for the engine air filter. This is one thing that I have changed after inspection.

If your thoughts were going to the transmission fluid, engine coolant, differential fluid; these are generally considered to be "lifetime" fills by BMW, which amounts to 100,000 miles, based on my experience on this board.

ssmokn

Definitely worth checking the air filter when it is in there. I checked my engine air filters and cabin air filters at 7500 when I bought my car. The engine air filter was in need of replacement. The cabin air filters were pretty clean. I shop vac'ed some bugs out of them but other than that they looked much cleaner than I expected.

Cream Sauce

Never changed any electronic parts, also never seen any service lights for them either.

I am not 100% sure but I think there is one for the engine air filter I will confirm this later, but when I took it to my mechanic last time I remember him draining the oil fully and also changing that part.

Regarding the brake fluid I remember my mechanic last time said there was no point as the car was at 15000 miles or so, now it is at 22000 miles and I am going to change it, but so to confirm it looks like the service lights give you all the information you need.

petrolhead2

AFAIK brake fluid changes are time dependent ie every 2 years, rather than mileage dependent, as brake fluid slowly absorbs water over time and its boiling point drops.


Ian

AUSaxon00

There are many additional maintenance tasks, other than what is shown in the iDrive, that can be completed by most DIYers. And even if you don't do these tasks yourself, you can have them done by a competant mechanic that you trust. A couple of examples are power steering fluid change, transmission fluid change and differential fluid change. I follow the "ultimate maintenance schedule" from Bav Auto pretty closely. You can find it at the following website:

http://blog.bavauto.com/9906/bavaria...nce-schedules/

Good luck with keeping your car running smoothly.

Cream Sauce

Many thanks for your comments and that link.

However as Silber said "If your thoughts were going to the transmission fluid, engine coolant, differential fluid; these are generally considered to be "lifetime" fills by BMW, which amounts to 100,000 miles, based on my experience on this board."

This is also exactly what I believed, the car is only at 22,000 miles for 6 years.

AUSaxon00

Maintenance is certainly a personal choice, even where manufacturers or others give guidelines. Where one owner will change their transmission fluid every 50k miles, another will leave it in for 150k miles. Who's right? Who knows. Maintenance is all about risk mitigation. Personally, I would rather spend a few hundred dollars every 2 or 3 years changing oil than spend thousands on a new transmission after 5 or 6 years. If you only plan on keeping the car a short time, then you may decide there is little risk to justify the maintenance. In fact, one guy I know says that "preventive maintenance" is the act of fixing things that aren't broken.

With regards to BMW "lifetime" fluids, you can find many opinions here and elsewhere, so I won't belabor that point. By BMW standards, lifetime fluids would include transmission and differential oils, but not even BMW considers engine coolant or brake fluid to be "lifetime" (i.e. 100k miles).

While your car is obviously very low mileage (6 years and 22k miles), if you look at the maintenance schedule from BA, you will see that the tasks are given in terms of both mileage and time. For example, the transmission fluid interval is 50k miles or 2 years, whichever comes first. So, low mileage doesn't necessarily mean you don't have to perform those maintenance jobs.

Cream Sauce

I think you are correct regarding engine air filter light, however obviosuly when I changed the oil my mechanic also replaced that part and I think thats pretty much standard for a oil change.

There is one for diseal partical filter but it still has a lot of miles reading on the idrive.

So cut long story short it looks like service lights give you everything you need.