Anybody here change their tranny fluid

Yea yea, I know its LIFETIME fluid. Right, is there a drain plug or do you have to do it from the top somehow?? What was the cost at the dealer if you had it done there?

How about your transaxle fluid for the awd system. It would seem like a good use of a few $ to do it as well. Anybody tackled this one?

Yep. I'm one that believes nothing is lifetime. I replaced the auto tranny fluid, transaxle and transfer case at 100,000 miles. I took it to an indy that charged me $680.00 for the whole job. I also made sure he used genuine BMW fluids. The part #'s for the fluids are stamped right on the tranny. He was a little miffed because he had to get the fluids from the dealer and they only came in bulk. Oh well. I had the indy give me a sample of the fluids to see the condition as well. I was surprised at how good the fluids looked. One thing to remember, do not do a "power flush", just do a simple drain and fill. Too many horror stories of tranny's failing soon after doing a power flush. Just my 2 cents. I've had her since mile 9 and now have 118,xxx on her, still drives like the first day I got her.

I am not sure if you have an automatic or manual transmission.

Mine is a manual transmission, and I changed the transmission fluid at 30k miles. It is a fairly straight forward project to do yourself. I used Redline MTL fluid.

I also did both axles and had the dealer change the transfer case fluid. The transfer case fluid is proprietary at BMW, and is only sold in bulk (expensive).

Hello to all! I think im in a huge jam! What are signs that the transmission is going bad, or that i might need new transmission fluid. OR better yet, yesterday i had the car in park and had to move the car forward slightly and when i changed the gear from P to D the car shook maybe 3 or 4 times. The next day i was driving and smelled a faint burning smell in the car, sometime later i heard a faint whistling sound coming from the radio/vents area. Anyone have similar problems? or maybe can guide me in the right direction! My warranty ended 2K miles ago.

Originally Posted by X3emist

Yea yea, I know its LIFETIME fluid. Right, is there a drain plug or do you have to do it from the top somehow?? What was the cost at the dealer if you had it done there?

How about your transaxle fluid for the awd system. It would seem like a good use of a few $ to do it as well. Anybody tackled this one?

I called the dealer to find out how much they wanted asking to replace the fluid, they quoted me $749 yikes . I decided against it because I keep hearing that people that have changed it claim the old oil looks new.

Originally Posted by lu.mendez

What are signs that the transmission is going bad,.... My warranty ended 2K miles ago.

If you have had a good relationship with your dealer over the years, they would more than likely look at covering any major component failure under the goodwill provision.
Especially as you are only just out of warranty.
The difficult part is the diagnosis of your symptoms - they don't get reimbursed for doing a series of tests to eliminate suspects.

I just asked the dealer this question a few weeks ago - the cost to change the tranny and diiferential fluids. The SA looked at me like I was nuts. He said, "it's lifetime fluid..." My response was, "do you really believe that?" Again, looking at me like I was a crazy person, he said, "I've had no problems so far".

Anyway, about 800 bucks to change it all.

Ge - I was quoted in the $300 range from the dealer a few months back.

Dave