320I E90 Gear box oil change

[Grace Wong]

Maybe KL price expensive ??? Will survey around more prices. Thks anyway.

 

[jarance]

Huh....so cheap ? Is kepong KL workshop, the mechanic is previously from BMW, what they quoted is using so call "quality oil". Hope they are not rip me off.

They quote you the special lady price or "sway-yee".. :listen:

 

[Herbert]

Grace,

Want to service you car......just buy the lubricant oil & filter and ask our Uncle Jarance to replace it for you. Then buy him a couple of cold beers. :rock: :rock: :rock:

 

[jarance]

Grace,

Want to service you car......just buy the lubricant oil & filter and ask our Uncle Jarance to replace it for you. Then buy him a couple of cold beers. :rock: :rock: :rock:

No... Ask Astroboy instead.. just buy him a packet of ciggi.

 

[Grace Wong]

Dear all, thanks for all the advises ! Looks like lady always treated as "Sui Yu" liao...

 

[jarance]

Dear all, thanks for all the advises ! Looks like lady always treated as "Sui Yu" liao...

Not really lar. One of our lady here Alby325 is quite knowledgeable. Sometime she know more than the mechanic.

 

[Grace Wong]

Wish can be like her, otherwise driving BMW is really BMW (Burn My Wallet)

 

[Hikaru]

Just to share the major i just did on my gear box: -

1.New heat exchanger RM1,200
2. Oil Sump Nut RM50.00
3. Auto Oil RM70 x 6 Litre = 420
4. Auto filter with gasket = 500.00
5. Labour 100.00

Just about 1k plus if i didn't change the heat exchanger. I also replaced all the coolant. Guess not that cheap after all.

 

[Grace Wong]

That's about the price earlier my mech quoted me...when suppose to change the heat exchanger?

 

[astroboy]

Heat exchange is to use radiator coolant to cool down oil. We have 2 heat exchangers.

1. coolant /engine oil
2. coolant/transmission oil

They look like this:

When they fail, they will allow coolant to mix with oil, hence compromise the oil's lubrication properties. Prolong use will damage engine or transmission depending which exchanger is compromised.

The only telltale is to visually inspect the oil for discoloring, oil mixed with water will form teh-tarik color. Engine oil we can inspect either by opening the filler cap or dipstick (some BMW models no dipstick). However, for transmission, there's is no dipstick. Therefore I have to clue how to check.

There's no recommended change interval for the heat exchanger. My e90 is 9 years old 120k km mileage, hasn't change any of the exchanger.

Some say coolant reservoir will see oil contamination when one of the exchanger fail. Some say no because coolant viscosity is lower than oil, hence oil won't get into coolant reservoir via the failed exchanger. I am not sure.

 

[Hikaru]

Mine had problems where if I go on the highway above 3000rpm for about an hour, the gearbox overheat sign will appear. If i go below 2.5k RPM the gear box will be fine for the whole journey.

As what astroboy said is correct, i changed the gearbox heat changer for fear of potential mixing of collant and transmission oil causing the gear box to overheat.

The gear box wasn't shifting cogs smoothly as it did before e.g. minor jerk and occasionally thumps especially from 2nd to 3rd.

Now that the gear box has gone through medium overhaul, hopefully it will last me longer but i still feel some albeit minor jerk if I don't keep the revs up. If I go for it like I am doing a small standing start from 0-100, the cogs shift seamlessly.

Honestly, I will live with the minor jerks and hope that nothing major will happen.

Perhaps when u feel that the car is not shifting smoothly, u might want to get the mech to have a look at the condition of the transmission oil. Best to do a change instead of a flush.

 

[Grace Wong]

Appreciate the comments, I learn some knowledges from the past conversations.Thanks everyone!

 

[Herbert]

Mine had problems where if I go on the highway above 3000rpm for about an hour, the gearbox overheat sign will appear. If i go below 2.5k RPM the gear box will be fine for the whole journey.

As what astroboy said is correct, i changed the gearbox heat changer for fear of potential mixing of collant and transmission oil causing the gear box to overheat.

The gear box wasn't shifting cogs smoothly as it did before e.g. minor jerk and occasionally thumps especially from 2nd to 3rd.

Now that the gear box has gone through medium overhaul, hopefully it will last me longer but i still feel some albeit minor jerk if I don't keep the revs up. If I go for it like I am doing a small standing start from 0-100, the cogs shift seamlessly.

Honestly, I will live with the minor jerks and hope that nothing major will happen.

Perhaps when u feel that the car is not shifting smoothly, u might want to get the mech to have a look at the condition of the transmission oil. Best to do a change instead of a flush.

Symptom of bad mechatronics solenoids. As time goes by, the minor jerk will be more frequent and you may even experience "gear slamp" upon acceleration.

 

[Hikaru]

Thanks. I kind of guess that workshop isn't telling me the whole picture depsite the fact that he went for a drive in the car. He couldn't tell me what was wrong except for me to change everything. I guess I need to look for a better mechanic.

 

[Grace Wong]

Survey more opinion is more safer☺

 

[beemerback]

My mechanic said he will only replace the oil when box is no longer hot. And he will top up the oil the next morning. He said this will ensure that the oil is full and less chances of air bubbles foaming in the gearbox after the oil replacement.

 

[canuck78]

Delete due to repeat

 

[canuck78]

My mechanic said he will only replace the oil when box is no longer hot. And he will top up the oil the next morning. He said this will ensure that the oil is full and less chances of air bubbles foaming in the gearbox after the oil replacement.

There's a BMW recommend process for replacing the ATF. This includes waiting for the transmission to cool down, drain, refill and then calibrate when the transmission is at the particular temperature.

This can be done within a few hours (workshop usually hoist the car up, and point a powerful fan at the tranny area to cool it down faster).

Leaving it to cool until it's at ambience temp is not necessary at all, but if you are not in a hurry to get your car back, then it's between you and your WS.

 

[Grace Wong]

Finally I got my 7 years car ATF change at mileage 57K at $550 at Klang, no filter change.

 

[Herbert]

It defeat the purpose of replacing AFT oil without replacing ATF filter. May as well don't replace the ATF oil.