[masonh]

I just serviced mine and I highly recommend every one having it done religiously. My car has 32k on it and I just bought it a month ago. I’m assuming it had never been done before. The fluid was extremely black.

You need a bi-directional scanner to actually open the reservoir to be able to suck all the fluid out. It does not have a drain plug and you need a very small hose as well to get down into t-case to extract. I got about 20oz out of mine, and it looked like burnt toast. You also need to adapt after servicing.

These t-cases seem to be the weakest link on these cars even on not tuned cars, yes weaker link than the rods. If you aren’t equipped to do it yourself, pay the dealer to do it every 25k max. Just my two cents on this subject.

[AHall]

Originally Posted by masonh

I just serviced mine and I highly recommend every one having it done religiously. My car has 32k on it and I just bought it a month ago. I’m assuming it had never been done before. The fluid was extremely black.

You need a bi-directional scanner to actually open the reservoir to be able to suck all the fluid out. It does not have a drain plug and you need a very small hose as well to get down into t-case to extract. I got about 20oz out of mine, and it looked like burnt toast. You also need to adapt after servicing.

These t-cases seem to be the weakest link on these cars even on not tuned cars, yes weaker link than the rods. If you aren’t equipped to do it yourself, pay the dealer to do it every 25k max. Just my two cents on this subject.

Why do you consider this a weak point? Has there been failures?

[masonh]

Im a euro mechanic and I’ve seen only one failure in my shop, but I talked to another shop owner who works on only BMW and sees a lot more M cars than I do and he said he’s seen several.

Also when I was looking to buy my car, I would read through the carfax service reports on every car I looked at. To make sure services were consistent and that the 1200 miles service was done on the one I was buying. Anyway, I looked at about 25-30 cars and at least 4 had replaced the t-case and they were all around 30-40k when it was done.

And also judging off the condition or my fluid. It was literally solid black, and the fluid going in is a very light tan/yellow. Actually I worry that I didn’t get to mine in time, but so far so good.

So this is still really just my opinion, but from what I’ve seen it’s a weak point. It’s an incredibly easy job if you have the right scanner. I’d be glad to explain how to do it for anyone who has the scanner if they want. I tried without the scanner and only got 9-10oz out which is about 1/2. Even doing that a few times in a month would help greatly I think.

[isenc2]

Damn this is very surprising, 30k and the fluid is black. My 340i xDrive had the TC fluid changed around 65K and it still looked really clean. I’m looking for a LCI F90, definitely will look more into this.