115,000 mile 1-series 135i Review

[BrokenVert]

Originally Posted by chesterfan1230

DAMN!

He's mad because I've temporarily borrowed his 261Ms and he wants them back

[Hops128i]

Thanks to the OP for this post. As my 128i is my first bimmer, it's reassuring see owning a bmw doesn't always mean out of control maintenance costs.

I was wondering, what is meant by "Standard Scope"?

[BSM 335I]

Thank you for your detailed status report. Considering that your in south FL as well makes me feel that much happier to read this report lol.

[Ash83]

1. Where did you do the service after the warranty was over? [edit: Sorry i did not see that you mentioned Breman BMW]
2. I heard that our cars require a Service A thing that has to be done at ~65K miles which cost almost $1000? My SA told me about this when he was trying to convince me to get the extended service plan for $1300?

[ianc]

Congrats on the high-mileage oner!

What is really freaking me out here is the $450 charge to replace the spark plugs!

Replace Spark Plugs 236.93 + 213.12 = 450.05

Spark plugs are $40 ea and the 6 of them take ~2 hours to replace?

ianc

[Tom K.]

Originally Posted by Ash83

2. I heard that our cars require a Service A thing that has to be done at ~65K miles which cost almost $1000? My SA told me about this when he was trying to convince me to get the extended service plan for $1300?

Your E46 requires an "Inspection 2" around 65k miles, but mine was only about $600.

Your 135i requires a different Inspection every 30,000 miles, but as it is simpler and does not necessarily include an oil change, it should be much cheaper.

And the only way the Extended Service Plan will make economic sense (even at $1,300) is if you will need front and rear brakes during the period of coverage, and/or if you haven't had the plugs changed yet

Tom

[m_thompson]

I am approaching two years of ownership and it just turned 8,200 miles. Three "service actions" so far, and reprogramming the radio/nav. No other repairs. This is the most reliable BMW that I have owned.

[RPM90]

Originally Posted by singular

Wow - a lot of miles. I have two years on mine and only 19K miles. It's my DD, but I'm only 10 miles from work. Good to know your car has held up so well.

How do you like your Conti's? I'm about to replace my second set of run-flats with non-run-flats and I've been eyeballing DW. I'm surprised your driving DWS (snow tires). Do you really need those in south Florida? Could that be one of the reason their you're car rides so loud?

I run the DWS Conti's and I like them a lot.
I'm in the Chicago area so I needed and wanted all seasons. The DWS are not snow tires, they are all season, and they are fantastic in the rain.
Also, they are really quiet for a performance tire, and noticeably quieter than the OEM summer RFT's, and they give a better ride with no perceptible loss of handling or grip compared to the RFT's.
I don't think I would run them in Florida, but as I said they are great in the rain so they're not a bad choice for rainy Florida.

[RPM90]

Originally Posted by Bimmer-Bob

Nitrogen is not as susceptible to temperature-induced pressure changes; I think it's used in racing a lot for that reason.

Living in South Florida I don't know why you don't just run summer tires year round. Better dry and wet performance than all seasons - kind of perfect considering the only two seasons there are dry and wet.

Nitrogen is also much drier as most typical standard air compressors don't filter out the water. The water in the air in the tire has the biggest effect on why it's not as stable as nitrogen. As ambient air temp goes up and down so does the pressure with regular air due to the varying amounts of moisture. And, when racing tire temps can change greatly as well. Dry nitrogen remains more stable and keeps the pressure more consistent.
Plus, nitrogen doesn't permeate out of the tires rubber as readily as regular air does due to nitrogen molecules being larger.
Overall though, if you check your tire pressures regularly, nitrogen isn't needed. A greater concern is to use air from a source that filters out moisture.
But, for those that can't be bothered with regular maintenance the costlier nitrogen may be the option.

[Bimmer-Bob]

Originally Posted by RPM90

Nitrogen is also much drier as most typical standard air compressors don't filter out the water. The water in the air in the tire has the biggest effect on why it's not as stable as nitrogen. As ambient air temp goes up and down so does the pressure with regular air due to the varying amounts of moisture. And, when racing tire temps can change greatly as well. Dry nitrogen remains more stable and keeps the pressure more consistent.
Plus, nitrogen doesn't permeate out of the tires rubber as readily as regular air does due to nitrogen molecules being larger.
Overall though, if you check your tire pressures regularly, nitrogen isn't needed. A greater concern is to use air from a source that filters out moisture.
But, for those that can't be bothered with regular maintenance the costlier nitrogen may be the option.

Thanks for the technical explanation.

[HappyNDing]

I was wondering about how many 135i owners have gone over their warranties so thanks for the report about your experiences. I am doing about 13K miles per year so it'll be a while for me to hit 100K miles but HPFP issues aside, I guess the N54 seems to hold up well otherwise.

[kaZu45]

Thanks for the review!!

[CarForHire]

Wow

Coming up on the end of that HPFP extended warranty?

[BMWjames]

[Diver]

Lotsa miles...

[outsider]

Question for you all since I'm new to the BMW world... what is a scope check (I think it's a diagnostic?) and why does it cost different amounts? Wouldn't it be detailed as "Scope Check Type 1, Type 2... or something to tell it apart?

Also - why the different prices for oil changes?

[Trojan4evr]

thanks for the info OP. great to know car is doing good.

[NewYearsBoy]

WOW.. Great read.. Im almost at 20k....

[nachob]

Originally Posted by Tom K.

Did anyone notice that his car has averaged about 15,000 miles between oil changes? What happened to those folk who have been telling us that it must be done at 3~5k intervals or the motor will blow up, our teeth will rot and our hair will fall out?

OP, thanks for the report.

Tom

I don't like the 15K oil changes. 10K max for me if you drive like a normal 50 year old. I actually do periodic on-ramp close-to-redline and belive in being safe so I change it every 7500 miles.

5000 miles only makes sense if you autocross/track the car or drive 5000 miles per year. These cars take close to 7 quarts, so you also have to take that into consideration. There is a lot of expensive synthetic oil to carry the load.

On the other hand, my wife's GTI only has 5 quarts of oil. They recommend 10K oil changes, I do 5K mile changes on that one because there is less oil, it burns some of it as most VW turbos do.

3K mile synthetic oil changes for non-racing applications, or where you only drive 3K miles per year, is just downright wrong. You are wasting a precious resource that our guys are dying in the middle east to keep going or ruining the coastline of the Gulf. Don't get me wrong, I am not throwing stones here, I am a car guy too but 3K miles is just downright wasting oil on our cars with 6.9 quarts of full synthetic. 7,500 miles is twice the BMW recommended interval!

Finally, in the case of this gentleman, he drives a ton of highway miles, so in HIS case, 15K is probably fine. I drive mostly city so you have to take all those things into account....highway or city miles, how many miles per year, how much oil in your car, full synthetic or semi synth or organic, aggressive or casual driving, plan to keep the car for life or care that whoever buys it gets some use out of it.

That's my two cents worth on 3K-5K oil changes.

[LaLakers91tc]

Originally Posted by ianc

Congrats on the high-mileage oner!

What is really freaking me out here is the $450 charge to replace the spark plugs!



Spark plugs are $40 ea and the 6 of them take ~2 hours to replace?

ianc

dealer markup is quite ridiculous
On my n52, I purchased sparkplugs through my parts account with the dealer (same prices as tischer) for ~20 each, and put em in myself in half an hour. If you are able to do that, I think its a much better option than forking over $450

[spellbmw]

Just finished a 2 week roadtrip here on the West coast: 2963 miles of driving and turned 26,000 miles. Apart from one HPFP failure at about 6000 miles, the car is running great. Glad to see a report that after warranty work and performance remains reasonable. I love this car!

[RX7guy]

I'm wondering how long the clutch will last!

Pretty good to have almost 120k and original clutch