Originally Posted by juthale

Front gearbox would obviously only be an issue for cars with x-drive. But a ridiculous job, even without pulling the front differential.

It took me 5 hours to get the gasket out. Granted, I was meticulously cleaning the oil mess as I went, which is a personal thing. And also, I pulled the LH inner fender for vision to the gasket, which I think was unnecessary. Regardless, I'm a fairly experienced mechanic and people who claim they can do this job start-to-finish in just a few hours (I've seen claims of 2.5 hours) are simply not credible.

Now that I am familiar with the job, I think I could do it end-to-end in 4-5 hours. BMW book value for this job is 9 hours. It would be very difficult for someone who has never done this job before to get it done in under 8 hours, IMHO.