[GT-F30]

Originally Posted by Sad N26

Okay, so I dropped my car off this morning and picked it up this evening. As I mentioned, I had purchased the FCP Euro transmission pan/filter kit with 7 liters of ZF fluid for $303. The shop charged me $337 in labor for the transmission fluid & pan change.

I also had them change the transfer case fluid and use fresh Motul DTCF in its place. They changed the rear differential fluid with Motul 75w90 gear fluid. They charged me $250 for this (they had the Motul fluids in stock).

The car shifts sooooo much more smoothly and cleanly now after the service. I had 82,000 miles on the clock. So glad I had this done. I highly recommend everybody get this done every 60,000 to 80,000 miles.

I m not sure on which country you guys live. i have read the whole post , probably most of the people who posted live in the US i guess.

But the prices you have to pay for parts are outrageous.

The pan with the filter costs 70 euros in Germany. Type in amazon.de : ZF 1087.298.364 Transmission oil pan filter automatic transmission for BMW 8HP 45-75
(when i try to c/p the link it takes around 7 lines...)

And you can either get for around 100euros the original ZF oil. Or grab for half the price this sweet castrol equivelant :

CASTROL SYNTRAX LONGLIFE 75W90 DIFFERENTIAL OIL AXLE GEAR OIL BMW

It is verified to have all the requirements, just it is not OEM , since ZF makes the tranny (and Castrol is not anymore official partner to BMW anyway , it was earlier since my oil cap says Castrol on it) .

But to anyone wanting to pay a shop to do it. If you have confidence in your skills (not as a mechanic , but in general) just go on and do it. The only trick in this procedure is the temperature thing , you can do damage it seems if you skip that detail.

I will wait until i get to my homeland in summer to use my garage which has a "tunnel" under it for car service. And do it there. I will use the BIMMERLINK app , to read the temperature , and thats all. The rest are common stuff. One more tip. Make sure when you draw the oil that it is 30 celcius or bellow. I think it is already stated many times here. And the filling temp should be around 40-50 celcius with the engine runing. (Bimmerlink is the cheapest option i think to get the temps) . It also needs an adapter , which you can get for around 25euros on amazon or ebay , V-Gate wifi,bluetooth adapter seems to work with both Beemerlink and Bimmercode for me.

The procedure was posted many times before in this post.

also. i saw many people sourcing fcp euro for buying the kit. I do not know if it was available then or it is a new thing. But the same website has also a pretty good written guide for the job.

https://blog.fcpeuro.com/how-to-serv...p-transmission

Or you can use this youtube video :

I found it usefull.

And for a last bonus. If you have not done it already. Together with the tranny . replace your differential oil. My car is RWD so i only have read diff to do (X driver owners have transfer case and front diff i believe)

Here is a video on that also.

And the suitable oil is :
Castrol Syntrans V FE 75W-80

Again i do not give links for oil , since you can use the tittle and find it whenever suits you the best.

Hope i have helped others who have doubts about doing it themselves or not. If you follow the steps on the links i have provided , it shouldnt be much of a challenge. Just make sure not to skip anything!

[rogerdiaz]

Originally Posted by rjd_F30

Good video. So why tf is BMW saying lifetime? I kind of want to show this to my SA when she will invariably tell me it's a lifetime fluid and it doesn't need to be changed.

62,000 miles it is. Likely use 60,000 miles as the easy button. Thanks for the reference.