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      12-04-2011, 11:32 AM   #1
jk
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Question "old school" maintenance?

i'm curious about members' experience, knowledge, guesses, theories about using an "old school" maintenance schedule versus just doing the officially recommended maintenance. does it make a difference? how much? only after 100k miles? what's the cost/benefit trade off?

edit:e.g. i use synthetic in my current vehicles, changing at 7500miles. i understand the bmw prepaid schedule is 15k miles. is this right? and is this RIGHT in the sense of adequate for proper long term maintenance?

Last edited by jk; 12-04-2011 at 03:54 PM..
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      12-04-2011, 08:13 PM   #2
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When I test drove the x3 yesterday the sales guy said one service per year (or every 24K kms). That seems just wrong to me... my current car requires 8K intervals.
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      12-04-2011, 08:46 PM   #3
jk
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what i've seen written elsewhere boils down to saying that bmw offers "free" maintenance as a marketing tool, pays for minimal maintenance to keep it cheap for them to provide, but it's enough to get the vehicles to the 6yr/100k mile duration of the extended warranty without too much expense. then it's a quickly deteriorating old age, encouraging purchase or lease of a new vehicle 3-6 years after the initial purchase. i.e. if you want to keep the vehicle over 100k miles, you need a more intensive maintenance schedule. this makes intuitive sense, but i don't know diddly about auto mechanics, so i'd like some input from others.
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      12-04-2011, 08:55 PM   #4
Falconx3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jk View Post
what i've seen written elsewhere boils down to saying that bmw offers "free" maintenance as a marketing tool, pays for minimal maintenance to keep it cheap for them to provide, but it's enough to get the vehicles to the 6yr/100k mile duration of the extended warranty without too much expense. then it's a quickly deteriorating old age, encouraging purchase or lease of a new vehicle 3-6 years after the initial purchase. i.e. if you want to keep the vehicle over 100k miles, you need a more intensive maintenance schedule. this makes intuitive sense, but i don't know diddly about auto mechanics, so i'd like some input from others.
I think you hit the nail on the head.
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      12-04-2011, 10:23 PM   #5
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So, what kinda service intervals (ie oil changes) are reasonable? 12K kms?
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      12-04-2011, 10:54 PM   #6
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We'll do the 15K, on our dime (euro or farthing?) at one year or 8K, whichever comes first, for no good reason. I'm old school do-it-yourself from the days of 1K mile oil change and valve, timing and carb sync.
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      12-05-2011, 03:35 PM   #7
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I did a break in oil change DIY @ 1500 mi. and the next OC @ 8000 mi.DIY the next OC will be @ the dealer @ 15000 mi. Thereafter I will doe OC @ 7500 mi intervals. My 2010 Z4 gets yearly OC @ the dealer because it only gets driven about 5000 mi per year. It is very easy to do the DIY OC(See Lotus earlier posting) on the X3.
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      12-05-2011, 05:09 PM   #8
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Thanks to advice on this forum I now know there is a dipstick for measuing sump oil. At 11000 km my oil looks black and in need of a change.

Now I have got to find Lotus' notes on DIY oil changes if I can't work it out myself.

What about transmission fluid changes as well, any info on that yet?
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