DIY maintenance at 120K miles?

[Erik-AA]

Hi all, I just bought a 2010 128i with 122000 miles on it. Love the car! But the service light is on (the car-on-a-lift symbol) so I started looking into what I need to do. What I'm hoping you can do is tell me if I'm on the right track and if I have missed anything or if I'm over-doing it. Thanks! I'll put the big questions at the top and the details further down.

I'm an experienced mechanic* and I generally do most of my own work. Don't see any reason why this car should be different in that respect. I kept my last few cars until 250k - 300k miles, hopefully I can do the same with this one. So I read Mike Miller's maintenance schedule and some other posts. The good news is that the previous owner was meticulous or even maybe OCD, he took great care of the car and "whenever the computer said it needed something I took it to the dealer and had it done". I have the service records. So the car has certainly not been neglected. But on the other hand it has not had some maintenance that would be normal practice for many cars but is not listed in BMW's schedule.

Question 1: What is the expected life of the clutch in this car? (6MT) Yes I know this is quite variable, FWIW the PO is a reasonable-seeming adult with a long commute.

Question 2: At 120k miles and 7 years, would you replace any cooling system components now before they fail? Or wait? I have some experience with plastic radiator tanks failing on other European cars I have owned. And what's all that stuff about electric coolant pumps?

Question 3: Looking at the service records, the only thing that jumps out at me is two oil pan gaskets. Maybe the shop messed up the first one as they are pretty close together. And a lot of brake work. But no oil filter housing, no coolant pump or fuel pump.. Is there anything I should definitely check up on?

So what I think I should do now is:

- Spark plugs and air filters. What about the fuel filter? It's in the tank?

- All fluids, including manual trans oil, diff, power steering. I'll skip the brake fluid and coolant and engine oil for now as the PO had them done recently.

Am I missing anything?

Thanks for your advice! I may be ahead of the curve for miles on a 2010, but surely there are some others ahead of me. I look forward to hearing from you.

The * on mechanic above:
I'm old school, I worked as a professional mechanic in the 1970's and have worked on many cars since then but not professionally. I'm a licensed motorcycle mechanic. And I'm not afraid of computers and electronics, that's my day job. But the last BMW I worked on was the original 320i in maybe 1979. My 128i has no dipstick? WTF??! :-)

[juld0zer]

1. Clutch life really varies, but apply the traditional estimates here from your professional experience. The main thing to remember is your car has a self adjusting clutch which will provide a pretty consistent pedal weight right up to when the clutch is no more.

2. Depends on how much money you want to plow into your new acquisition. It can become a money pit so if you can afford some time off work to repair things yourself then just take it as it comes. On these cars, pretty much every part of the cooling system is known to fail. Electric coolant pumps, radiators, gaskets inside heat exchangers, plastic pipes, radiator fan...

3. Perhaps the car has had the VANOS recall done, at which they found the bolt heads missing and had to fish them out of the sump? Pretty hard to mess up a sump gasket job

[NorthernDancer]

Yes, as you suggest, just do plugs, filters and fluids. Brake fluid is important but its been done. Enjoy the car.

[Erik-AA]

Thanks for the advice!

I am enjoying the car, a lot. My first BMW, and it is several generations newer, and more sophisticated and better handling, than anything else I have owned.

Just a little daunted by all the maintenance stuff and "expensive to own" reputation. But I've owned plenty of other European cars and hopefully this isn't too different. You just can't neglect it the way you can a lump of American iron. I'm OK with that.

[Erik-AA]

So can anybody tell me the required quantities of fluids? Amazing that this basic info is not in the owners manual.

And is any service manual available? I bought a CD on ebay but it does not work.

Thanks in advance...

[tsk94]

I bought this for my E82: http://www.bimmerworld.com/Tools/Rep...-3-Series.html

It's for the E90's, but most of which is carried over to the 1 series. Not cheap, but good service manuals..

[desertman123]

Originally Posted by Erik-AA

So can anybody tell me the required quantities of fluids? Amazing that this basic info is not in the owners manual.

And is any service manual available? I bought a CD on ebay but it does not work.

Thanks in advance...

• Engine takes 6-7qts of full synthetic LL-01 approved oil
• Manual trans takes just under 2qts of 75w80 API GL-4 gearbox oil, common oils are Redline D4/D4/MTL
• Differential takes just under 1qt of 75w90 API GL-5 diff oil (STINKY), Redline is also used here
• Coolant uses just under 2gal of 50/50 BMW OEM coolant/distilled water
• Brake fluid... just buy a 2-4 larger bottles of DOT4 fluid and flush it (don't forget to do clutch fluid as well! it shares the reservoir with the brake fluid - the slave bleeder is very easy to find under the car)
• Power steering - (1) 1L bottle of Pentosin CHF-11s or CHF-202 (one supercedes the other, can't remember which, whatever you can find is fine). Some people will have you remove a certain banjo bolt to drain the rack.. I just used my oil sucker, emptied the reservoir and drove around for a few days, then did it again and again until my bottle was empty.

With the water pump, it's a case by case deal. If it's the original factory pump, some will argue you have a ticking time bomb. What'll happen is it fails, your coolant gets hot and throws it into limp mode and you gotta tow the car. Nothing will be damaged if you pull over immediately. Otherwise you'll warp the Aluminium/Magnesium head. Best to replace that, along with the thermostat. While you're in there you can replace a coolant hose or 2 which is probably started to dry out by now.

Inspect the valve cover gasket, and make sure the valve cover isn't cracked. While you have the engine cover off, take the plug for the eccentric shaft sensor out and make sure there's no oil in there. If you end up doing a valve cover gasket job, it's a good opportunity to change out the eccentric shaft sensor.

Also see that the belt/tensioner was changed. It's not uncommon for the oil filter housing to leak oil onto either of these parts and make them fail. It's also not uncommon for an N52/N54/N55 to suck it's accessory belt into the front main seal when it tosses its belt.......

@juld0zer I don't believe the N52 ever had any VANOS recalls

And get rid of that clutch delay valve! There's bunch of guides here and on E90Post on how to remove it, and it makes a pretty decent difference in clutch feel.

Also I believe there's someone on E90Post with a 330i with 200k+ miles on the original clutch. I think BMW uses a Luk brand one, which is quite stout.