The OEM manual says the Transmission...

[joeboch348]

My tranny went at 75000 easy miles. The old one is sitting on my garage floor. Should I change it now? Lol

[TiAgX5]

Originally Posted by joeboch348

My tranny went at 75000 easy miles. The old one is sitting on my garage floor. Should I change it now? Lol

That sucks. What trans was it that went out so soon? I have over twice that on mine and have over 2k miles towing a 6k lb trailer behind a loaded truck, over 12k lb truck/trailer combined!

[joeboch348]

You'll find a ton of them that went at 75k miles. 02 4.4 auto. No towing, no racing, no hard miles. Funny thing is at 50k I asked dealer to service it and was told the lifetime fluid story too.

[Ghost-Flame]

Originally Posted by joeboch348

My tranny went at 75000 easy miles. The old one is sitting on my garage floor. Should I change it now? Lol

Yes you should and stop beatin' the BeJesus out of your tranny!

on a serious note, did you get a quote to rebuild that old trans?

[Ghost-Flame]

Originally Posted by joeboch348

You'll find a ton of them that went at 75k miles. 02 4.4 auto. No towing, no racing, no hard miles. Funny thing is at 50k I asked dealer to service it and was told the lifetime fluid story too.

I have heard that but, every manufacturer has a few lemons in the bunch.

My question is this, they build an engine that just sings along for many hundreds of thousands of miles with proper maintenance, why can't they beef up the transmission a little and have regular change intervals for the trans? It's not like a trans job is $1500 we're talking about $7,000 with labor.
Is that asking too much.

I know this is anecdotal but, I have a neighbor that has a 1989ish ford bronco with 480,000 miles on the original engine and trans... just regular maintenance. he drives it every day to work.

[joeboch348]

Is there any metal left on the bronco? Or is he driving just the chassis ? Those were rust buckets.
All they had to do was put a dip stick on the BMW trans. Then we'd know to check the fluid and have it serviced. Without the dipstick, it's a huge project/ mess to do a service.

[SlickGT1]

Originally Posted by joeboch348

Is there any metal left on the bronco? Or is he driving just the chassis ? Those were rust buckets.
All they had to do was put a dip stick on the BMW trans. Then we'd know to check the fluid and have it serviced. Without the dipstick, it's a huge project/ mess to do a service.

Agreed it is a bitch to drain and fill the fluid. I am going to be taking my pan off again this week. I am lucky to have someone's GT1/DIS though, and it really helps you out in this case. Monitors temp, tells you when to fill, how long to wait for it to drip and when you are done. Not sure if it is really necessary, but it takes the guess work out when doing the drain and fill.

[Ghost-Flame]

Originally Posted by joeboch348

Is there any metal left on the bronco? Or is he driving just the chassis ? Those were rust buckets.
All they had to do was put a dip stick on the BMW trans. Then we'd know to check the fluid and have it serviced. Without the dipstick, it's a huge project/ mess to do a service.

Yeah I know. Actually he does his own maintanance and the car is garage kept. If he did any body work I don't know about it. It looks great he waxes it regularly in the nice weather. other than the fact that the car is very dated in styling he keeps it looking new.

About the dipstick, maybe that would help. I have 142,000 miles on my 3.0 trans. I just ignored the 100,000 mile/lifetime garbage and changed it every 50,000 or so. So far - So good. you have to drop the pan to get the filter out but, there is a drain plug. Which is more than I can say for the explorer , I installed my own after market plug works great. that car has a 30,000 mile change interval.

[Turbo_Bimmer]

Originally Posted by Ghost-Flame

... Fluid MUST BE CHANGED EVERY 100K...


I was reading my OEM BMW X5 manual last night. There is an owners manual that talks about owner operation, it said the trans fluid is lifetime fluid (Marketing Statement to make you feel good).

It also has a maintenance BMW OEM manual,...

...that describes the maintenance items, It says that the ATF MUST BE changed every 100,000 miles. Yes it does. Pg 3 of the Service and Warranty Information book for 2002 X5 3.0i, 4.4i, 4.6is So for the folks that say you are doing possible damage when you change fluid, what do you say to the BMW engineers that say IT MUST BE changed every 100K.

Direct quote from the maintenance manual.

"The following maintenance elements must be performed at the mileage/time stated(time intervals start from the production date).

-Brake Fluid... 2 years
-Engine Coolant... 4 years
-Oxygen sensor... 100K
-Spark Plugs... 100K
-Automatic TransmissionService: Change ATF every 100,000 miles"

BOOM

Who knows what 'change fluid' means in BMW language.?
Drop the pan and refill (about 5.5 Liters), or drop the pan, then two more oil change to go up to 91% of new fluid. (about 15 liters total)

[imalabil]

My dealer just told me this morning what his definition of transmission service is: Drain and fill with Dextron VI. $330 to do just that, no filter change.
OMG.
Bill