As many of you know, I recently had the 1M in for its 1200 mile service. The transmission fluid was changed to MTF-LT-2 fluid. Today, with the help of the service managers at two dealerships, I think I have found information that all of us in the US need to be aware of.
Here is the link for my first thread and what happened:
http://www.1addicts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=592893
But, in all fairness to the the dealership, let me tell all of you what we have discovered this morning.
1. Service bulletin 00-01-10, dated 6/9/2011 either has been changed, or something has happened, because there is no mention of the requirement of MTF-LT-5 fluid requirement in the copy provided to me! I have a copy of the Canadian version (previously posted on this board), and there is a specific line stating that the fluid required was MTF-LT-5.
This has been left out of the US bulletin (I have a copy provided by one of my Service Manager friends showing this!!).
2. The dealer I took the car to - to their credit - actually did have information showing MTF-LT-2 as the current fluid. They had NO service bulletins showing the requirement for MTF-LT-5 fluid as the required fluid for the 1M. I then checked with a friend who is the Service Manager at another BMW dealership where I purchased the car from, and again, no bulletin showed up in the system stating this.
3. The Service Manager at the dealership where I had the 1200 mile service done personally took it as a challenge to find what was stated as the correct fluid. To his credit, it took him almost 3 hours to finally get an answer from BMW after numerous phone calls and emails.
What ultimately happened is that he ended up getting in touch with BMW Technical Department in Germany (I believe he said it was Germany, but I may be mistaken), and they ended up emailing him stating that yes, the correct fluid for the 1M 6-speed transmission is MTF-LT-5.
So, they are getting some MTF-LT-5 fluid overnighted, and are going to change it this week. They are also going to change it again in 4 weeks.
Evidently BMW NA has burried this so deeply, and made changes, that US Service departments can not find this information. It is especially troubling that the Service Bulletin copy provided by my friend at the other dealership had no mention of the MTF-LT-5 requirement. This US bulletin is essentially the same one quoted on this board that was the Canadian version, with the exception that the MTF-LT-5 requirement was omitted.
Bottom Line...thanks to this board. No wonder the US Dealers are confused. I had 2 Service Managers at 2 different BMW dealerships looking this up, and both could not find it. It took the personal efforts of one of the Service Managers to physically call BMW Technical in Germany several times to get the correct answer.