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Originally Posted by diesaroo
As both of you (ard) have alluded to, I think ownership scope and perspective come heavily into play here as to whether servicing the transmission is worth it or not to them.
If you plan on keeping your vehicle past 100k miles, regular fluid changes should be part of your regimen. If you're the type of guy who trades in after 50k or even after 100k (after the extended warranty expires) then yeah...to you it may not make economic sense to shell out $500 in fluid and filter every 50k miles.
I personally just like to keep what I have running as well as I can for as long as I can, unless all 4 wheels decide to fall off at once  . Call it a LTR, but for me I enjoy knowing about my vehicle. It's hard to become very familiar with it if you trade it in every few years. |
You wouldn't know it by my transmission fluid comments, but my preventative maintenance regime is pretty solid. Experience as mechanic, mechanical engineer, and 25 years in industry working on maintenance for much of it (heavy equipment, not automotive), as well as my pride of ownership (treat it right, etc) means that my vehicles are over-maintained. They just won't get new automatic transmission fluid. And that is despite the fact that the fluid would be wholesale, the labour is free, and I can use a shop hoist. My intermediate oil changes on earlier BMWs I owned were out of respect for the machinery, and in spite of the fact that I knew I would be selling each of them at the four year mark (we don't have extended factory warranties here).
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Originally Posted by diesaroo
As far as the size of the OEM cooler, unfortunately, we are not the designers so we will never know what frequency of towing it was designed for. From my perspective, 80k miles on original fluid doesn't prove anything. I'd like to know how he's doing with that in another 80k miles. 10 to 1 says he's either got a new vehicle or on his 2nd tranny.
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I think it does mean something if it never overheated the fluid. I evaluated the duty cycle, not just the total miles. Crossing the Rockies multiple times pulling 8300 lbs of Airstream, with the standard transmission cooler, would cause overheating if the cooler was not sufficient for that particular service. Now overlay standard usage on that experience (albeit with an earlier model E53)
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2007 X3 3.0si, 6 MT, Premium, White
Retired:
2008 535i, 6 MT, M Sport, Premium, Space Grey
2003 X5 3.0 Steptronic, Premium, Titanium Silver
2002 325xi 5 MT, Steel Grey
2004 Z4 3.0 Premium, Sport, SMG, Maldives Blue
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