bha7176

I don't know, after doing lots and lots of research lately on changing the fluids in my wife's 325XI and my 550i, and all the different opinions on which oil to use, which diff fluid to use, which not to use, why this is good and this better, the stories of the guys who drain their diff's at 70k miles and say it looks like new, etc etc etc, not to mention the options like SAF-XO, Purple, Red Line, Mobile and on and on I'm starting to think this is all a bunch of bullshit.

I mean really, what gives and why is this so complicated? Maybe with advances in technology and oil additives BMW "stuff" really is lifetime fluid and we are all just wasting our money, and worse yet, the longevity of our cars.

I love working on my cars, and did enjoy researching this stuff - but I've begun to come full circle already and am leaning towards saying the hell with it.

I don't want to go to that side fellows. Please help to convince me that we need to change all these fluids and that it's actually good for our cars.

Please.

jay bimma

it all depends on how crazy you want to get with maintance......i drained my rear diff fluid at around 60k and it looked brand new (light color & clean). on the other hand, i also drained my tranny fluid around 60k and it was pretty dirty. i realize that the tranny fluid has a dark color to begin with but it didn't look very good!

i say the p/s fluid & tranny fluid are a definate between 60k-100k. you probably don't need to do the transfer case & front/rear diff but if you plan on keeping you car for 100k-200k then it would be benificial. i also did the coolant at 60k but that looked new as well.

brake fluid is obviously every 2 years regardless of mileage.

Krozi

Good. I do my engine oil changes every 5k. Did a tranny flush when I got my ///M with 17k miles. Now I'm at 20k miles and just did a diff flush, along with another engine oil change (so the number is even and I can do 5k oil changes). Also did a coolant flush at 17k. Going to do another coolant flush once the car hits 30k, then at 40k miles I am going to do another tranny and diff flush. At 35 I am going to do power steering flush.