Originally Posted by E53inLA

HAH! My mechanic, who used to work at local BMW stealer, told me almost exactly same thing. "Lifetime" in their eyes is the life of the warranty. Back when the X5 was under the maintenence plan, I asked the SM and was told they won't even do a fluid change if requested by the customer.

Originally my E320 had the same lifetime trans fliud, but then later on MB put out a service bulletin to change it every 60K mile IIRC.