Howitzer

Garry Romani from Newport, RI BMW emailed me back with some numbers on discounted parts for my 530. I thought I'd share with you what it would cost you to preventatively replace these parts after say 60,000 miles or so on your E60 (except for the radiator).

11517527910 water pump with gasket $91.50
11537509227 thermostat with housing $68.00
17137542986 overflow tank (expansion tank) $63.00
17117519209 radiator maual or automatic $323.00

Not that bad considering what it could cost in damage to other parts if it were to fail while driving, as well as the cost to tow the car and so on. The only thing I'm not clear on is what the labor would be for replacement of these parts. An independant BMW mechanic is what I'd recommend, though. Forget the stealerships!

tachyon

Are you concerned about premature failure of these parts in the E60?

I know this was an issue with the E39 5 series (1997-2003) and the E38 7 series (1995-2001), but I haven't seen any indication that the E60s are prone to this problem.

But you are right ... the cost of those parts does seem cheap, and if I had 75,000 miles on my E60 it might be a good idea to go ahead and change them out.

Thanks for the info.

e6t.lab.rat

thanks for the heads up!

we can find the thermostat for almost the same price online (oem), as for the others i'm not sure. nonetheless, these prices are great!

your "average" do-it-yourselfers, with the proper tools should be able to tackle any of these repairs. i'd say 3.5 wrenches out of 5. if you're not up to repairing this yourself then absolutely have an indy mechanic do it for you for half the cost of what a dealership would charge you.

05545i

FWIW, i've already been through a radiator and water pump on my 545

jprovence

I have not gone though a waper pump yet. Plenty of other things want to leak though. I would add a vacuum pump to that list. It was $320 for me from my dealer. I got a the vacuum like and pump for around $400 even. I also just had to replace the oil pressure sensor too. It was leaking oil very bad. It was $6.75 at NAPA. Found out its the same part BMW has been using for more then 20 years. No reason to pay over $12 from the dealer lol. I have a lower radiator hose on order now too. It is leaking coolant. It is about $40.

neoe60

My radiator leaked at 43k mi, replaced under warranty

v_therussian

Nice post! Thanks for the heads up.

I also recently priced out a few things that may be needed for the tune-up, since my car's at about 61k miles mark now. Here's the quote from Garry:

NGK spark plugs 16.25ea
Micro filters charcoal 39.69 ea
O2 sensors
11787537993 169.39 380 mm lead before convertor
11787537984 169.39 340 mm lead before convertor
11787544654 169.39 430mm lead after convertor
11787544655 169.39 380mm lead after convertor

Not sure if the 02 sensors need to be changed unless they fail, but I priced them out just in case anyway.

No Onions

anyone know of a bmw master mechanic in san diego that's got reasonable prices? as stated in another post, i just purchased an '05 545, so this will come in handy sooner or later (hopefully later).

v_therussian

Why not do one of two things:

1. Search the forums for an answer to your question - chances are, there have been postings about this.
and/or
2. Start a new thread about this - as opposed to Kanye Westing OP's thread, which is about preventative maintenance (happens to be a good subject and many people would find this info useful). Besides, if there's no postings about a mech in SD area, I'm sure it will also be a useful thread.

No Onions

sorry, i'm new and don't understand the basics in this forum and i'm not trying to rick roll anyone.