[SupremBimmer]

Hello y’all I recently got an E90 passed down to me from family. It’s about to hit 160k miles and she wasn’t really taken care of. So I want to know what kind of maintenance would be recommended since I will be trying to do most of the work. I know it has a gas leak at the moment probably from the fuel regulator. It had a transmission fluid change about a year ago but she shifts hard from 1-2 and 2-3. I don’t know any other maintenance history but any help would be appreciated TIA!

[StradaRedlands]

Get the fuel leak sorted out first. For the trans I'd say find a good shop that can diagnose and recommend a fix. Either a rebuild or swap out for a new (used) one. Gonna' be some $$$ into your free car, but still cheaper than a car payment!!! Don't worry about the high mileage, the car should last a while. It will need some maintenance though. The more you can do, the more you'll like the car!

After the fuel & trans, start to change the remaining fluids like engine oil, brake fluid, coolant, final drive oil. These are all good DIY jobs if you're so inclined. Look for oil leaks around the oil filter housing and if you see any, replace right away as well as possibly the accessory belt/tensioner and Mickey Mouse flange. It can lead to catastrophic engine failure, so no joke on that. The rest is just wait and see. Water pump and valve gasket have probably been done, maybe suspension refresh, tires, brakes. Those are all regular maintenance items to do at some point.

You don't need to buy BMW branded parts, but definitely buy OE parts like Pierburg, Bosch, Lemforder. Don't cheap out.

Read the ton of info available here and find some good YT channels to watch. FCP Euro and Vehicular DIY are my go-tos. They take the time and do it right. Auto Repair Guys are kinda' hacky, but good to see that fast and dirty perspective as well.

Size pictures correctly when you post something, people will be more apt to reply if they can see and read due to proper formatting (The olds don't read this on phones but on computers).

[E93Dude]

I thought I was the only one watching Auto Repair Guys! Yes - goofy, but they seem to have a repair video on everything. Quick and dirty. Earlier Vehicular DIY E9X tutorials taught me a great deal, worth the investment in time to watch. Several other YT folks out there, too. Online parts supplier FCPEuro also has some really professional how-to videos.

One could write quite a tome here for new E9x owners, but I will leave it for others. My one bit of advice earlt is to get a good OBDII code reader. People on this forum can be really helpful, but you have to provide something for us to go on when you have a problem. Fault codes are the easiest, first thing most will ask for. If you can get a hold of the dealer level diagnostic software INPA or ISTA, and install it on a laptop, that is going to be even more helpful. Of course, it also depends on how much you actually want to work on your car versues take it to mechanic.

Like Strada said, there are a bunch of maintenance things you want to take care of first, especially before tuning it, if that is your thing. Well maintained, your car at 160k has A LOT of life left if you want it.

What year is your vehicle? What can you say about its history?

[StradaRedlands]

Originally Posted by E93Dude

I thought I was the only one watching Auto Repair Guys! Yes - goofy, but they seem to have a repair video on everything. Quick and dirty.

Their videos are usually the first to pop up when I do a search! They're pretty good, just best to cross reference with a slower FCP one to get the nuances. I get frustrated by "XYZ will be posted in the description below" to never be posted! Feature, not a bug I guess. :-)

[Bims328i]

I bought a 2008 328i at 73k miles and I have a large list of maintenance items thus far. Currently 115k miles.

Just be prepared to do everything at some point. No spared expense, Vanos solenoids, valve cover and gasket, oil changes, oil pan gasket, oil filter housing gasket differential and bushings, trans fluid and filter plus gasket and additional flushes, DMTL pump, serpentine belt, tensioner, coolant lines and flange upgrades, water pump, expansion tank, spark plugs, coils, tires, power steering fluid flush, pads and rotors, crank position sensor and battery to name a few.

[GoRomeo]

Dang you guys are good!!! 🙌 😂

[Fredo]

Originally Posted by StradaRedlands

... The olds don't read this on phones but on computers.

Very true.

[StradaRedlands]

Originally Posted by Fredo

Very true.

Ask me how I know...

[3PedalJake]

Originally Posted by StradaRedlands

Ask me how I know...

Appreciated from my 24" desktop monitor Praying ppl take the hint about picture resizing, even with a huge monitor I can only see like 1/4 of a lot of the posted pics. If it's something I'm really interested in I download it so I can see in photo viewer but usually scroll through and move on.

[chris55552]

Originally Posted by SupremBimmer

Hello y’all I recently got an E90 passed down to me from family. It’s about to hit 160k miles and she wasn’t really taken care of. So I want to know what kind of maintenance would be recommended since I will be trying to do most of the work. I know it has a gas leak at the moment probably from the fuel regulator. It had a transmission fluid change about a year ago but she shifts hard from 1-2 and 2-3. I don’t know any other maintenance history but any help would be appreciated TIA!

Turn back now while you still can, these things are addictive!! Na just joking Welcome to the e90 forum, trust me these guys on here are amazingly helpful. Like others have said get your fluids up to date and your engine will reward you. The inline 6's are real gems. One thing I cant reccomend enough is 2 apps, BMW protool for android as well as Bimmercode. Protool is the real hero here and for so many reasons. I have tried inpa and ista but kept hitting snags and im convinced that protool is the next best thing. Its easy to use, intuitive and very capable of going fairly deep into the diagnostic and coding features. It has saved me tons of money and kept me in control of my cars health. It will keep you and your wallet out of the BMW dealerships and independent mechanics. This forum is an incredible resource with tons of do it yourself maintanance how to's beautiful well designed illustrations from people on here who have invested alot of time and effort in order to just help people, youtube also has everything I have ever needed and ive been able to follow others and do my own work, and im not mechanicaly inclined at all. I had to learn to use a hammer when I began with bmw's. A true rookie with the wrench!! To sum it all up, just remember these bmw's are truly amazing but they can be needy with maintanance and how well they run depends on it, they are not forgiving like toyotas or hondas and you wont really get away with neglect. Nothing wrong with healthy addictions so stay with us, learn and enjoy your vehicle, they truly are marvels of engineering.

[StradaRedlands]

Well put chris55552!!! Protools at the minimum!

You know, you have me thinking, and if BMW just sourced proper seal materials and updated the quality of their cooling systems, I think they would be approaching Japanese levels of reliability. Of course excluding N54 injectors and HPFP from that generalization!

Oh well, it lets us get German engineered & built cars at great used prices!

[chris55552]

Originally Posted by StradaRedlands

Well put chris55552!!! Protools at the minimum!

You know, you have me thinking, and if BMW just sourced proper seal materials and updated the quality of their cooling systems, I think they would be approaching Japanese levels of reliability. Of course excluding N54 injectors and HPFP from that generalization!

Oh well, it lets us get German engineered & built cars at great used prices!

I feel the exact same way with BMW but the more I learn about them, the more I understand some of their reasoning for doing some of the thigs they do. One thing they made mistakes with is in the research and product testing category, I think they should have done a better job in the testing phases of the N54 and N55. If they would have been more diligent, they would have caught the High pressure injector issues and made changes prior to it going into production. I have decided to give them a pass because they were forced into the whole forced induction, turbo charging practices which took them out of their naturally aspirated comfort zone, they had to adapt to new regulations and laws. One thing I think people dont understand is plastics... Were really lucky they are available because thats what saves so much weight and allows the vehicles to keep that sporty thrilling edge because excessive weight is the performance killer in vehicles. When you introduce turbos which create more heat on parts, plastics have a tougher time coping with the continuous heating and cooliing down cycles and wear out quicker. No doubt they love that the plastics help them save money and keep cost down, and their profits up. I had an F25 x3 with the n55 and 3 months into ownership and out of warranty the engine cylinder wall some how got a gash and lost compression, the engine was ruined and needed replacement. I reached out to the dealer, raised a little hell and contacted key people who were able to contact bmw of north america and guess what, they good willed a brand new n55 engine, and paid for me a x5 rental for 3 months while the engine was being shipped from germany to houston and the installation time, and for that im very grateful. That engine cost 15k new, all I had to pay was about 1500!! Im an optimistic person and I look at bmw just like I look at friends, and family and firmly believe in accepting them and their nuances, and in turn learning to take the good with the bad. I absoloutely adore BMW's dedication to cars and now days SUV's that are truly fun, sporty high performance and ultimately give us more pleasure in life with vehicles we enjoy and to us are more than just cars. Everytime I get behind the wheel of mine it makes me happy and puts me in a better mood. I find excuses to drive and always take the long way. I see alot of promise with these new generation of inline 6's, the B58 is just an animal....a reliable animal thanks to the help of toyota that has become the defacto standard in good performance. If we could just yank their chain a little more and get the steering racks back to hydraulic assisted, instead of the new electric ones. Why they did that I wll never understand.

[StradaRedlands]

The B58 is supposed to just be the perfect ICE out there. I don't have any experience with it, but everything I read is really positive. The N54 & 55 were just some proof of concept designs on the way to the B58! B48 is supposed to be pretty good as well.

[chris55552]

Originally Posted by StradaRedlands

The B58 is supposed to just be the perfect ICE out there. I don't have any experience with it, but everything I read is really positive. The N54 & 55 were just some proof of concept designs on the way to the B58! B48 is supposed to be pretty good as well.

It just blows my mind how they have made that x3 perform the way it does...Its just doesnt make any sense how that thing does what it does. I get the impression they got this whole suv thing just about licked! Good for us!!

[StradaRedlands]

Originally Posted by chris55552

It just blows my mind how they have made that x3 perform the way it does...Its just doesnt make any sense how that thing does what it does. I get the impression they got this whole suv thing just about licked! Good for us!!

What specifically on the X3? I always have an eye out for '11 & '12 models as you could get them with the N52 motor. Last of the good ones and all that...

[Grease23]

I am 8 months into ownership of a 2013 E93. I am actually very experienced in car repair, but this is my first BMW since my 1984 5 series. These cars teach you that you really don't know as much as you thought you did. As I've said elsewhere, learning automotive repair on one of these is tough sledding. But it can be done. From experience, I'm going to list some things you might want to tend to. Obviously the gas leak comes first. Then:

1. Check the OFHG. This forum crowd will drive you nuts with acronyms, and that one is the oil filter housing gasket. (Only fitting, I suppose, for a marque that is itself an acronym.) The OFHG is thin, complex gasket that goes at the bottom of the housing where the oil filter goes. Oil and coolant run through it. When it leaks, oil can get in coolant and vice versa and if oil drips down on the serpentine belt, it can damage the belt and potentially take out the engine when the belt fails. Easy job, if you get the recommended torx socket with swivel. One bolt is a little hard to reach. Mind the aluminum bolts. Mine had a little moisture at the joint where the gasket goes, and the engine had been steam cleaned, so I am sure it was leaking. The old gasket was incredibly deteriorated when I removed it. (We now know that used motor oil can cause skin cancer. Get yourself a box of 5 mil gloves from Harbor Freight Tools.)

2. BMW gaskets were lousy back when your car was built. You may need a new valve cover gasket and a new oil pan gasket. On mine, the GM dealer that sold it to me fixed both of those before the sale. Neither are fun jobs so I lucked out.

3. After #1, a new serpentine belt, idler pulley for the belt, and tensioner. This isn't that hard to do but mind everybody's comments on properly tightening the bolts so you don't break them. If the current belt slips or breaks, it can get tangled up in the front crank, and get wound around and through the front main seal and into your engine and that can be all she wrote in some cases. These parts are cheap and the work itself is fairly simple. This engine uses lots of aluminum fasteners and you can easily overtighten them and break them off, so you will need a torque wrench or two at some point. Combining this job with the OFHG saves some steps.

4. At a minimum you need a code reader for BMW codes so see what the computer thinks is going on. These are cheap. I haven't ditched my iphone for an android just so I can use the recommended program.

5. The transmission. A lot of non-specialized shops seem to screw up filling these properly. I know the GM dealer that sold me my car messed with the ATF since it was near new on analysis, but they left it almost 3 quarts low. There is a specific procedure for filling it. Car run up to a certain temperature, fluid added while engine is level and running. If you just check the level on a cold (or not running) engine you'll get it wrong. Maybe that's your problem. I hope it is so minor. Even nearly 3 quarts low mine actually shifted OK. Maybe the wrong fluid was installed in yours? I'm obviously recommending cheap possibilities here.

6. Water pump. These cars are really quite complicated, dare I say unnecessarily so in so many ways. You have an electric water pump. Some last forever, some don't last very long, but if you read lots and lots of threads on this, you'll probably conclude that somewhere in the 60,000 to 75,000 range the pump might go out and leave you stranded. At your mileage, you're in the zone if that is the original pump. Make sure you get an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) pump from FCP. You don't need a BMW-branded one. (NEVER a cheap Chinese pump -- a false economy given how much time it takes to replace it.) I really suggest you not attempt this yourself if you're new to automotive repair. Part of what you don't yet know is what combination of tools allows you to access and work on particular fasteners in certain tight spaces. Trying this at this point in your learning curve will drive you nuts. Have the thermostat replaced at the same time, again with an OEM part.

7. There is a plastic flange near the OFHG that is on a coolant hose. People call it the "Mickey Mouse" flange because it sort of looks like a mouse with ears. People claim (and back it up with photos) that with time it turns to goo or dust and causes a massive coolant leak. You can replace just the flange with an aluminum one (cheap) but you have to gently cut the old non-reusable clamp off so you don't shorten the hose so you can reuse it. It my case, the original looked like new so they do sometimes last.

8. Check for leaks in the coolant reservoir tank and make sure you have the proper blue coolant. Either "BMW" branded coolant or Zerex G48 will work, 1:1 with distilled water.

9. Check for leaks around the power steering reservoir. They also sometimes leak.

10. Bleed the brakes with nice fresh fluid and pump out the old if you don't know when this was last done. Non-silicone brake fluid absorbs moisture from the air even in what is theoretically a sealed brake system. When braking heavily -- as when coming down a mountain pass -- the fluid will heat up a lot with disc brakes and the moisture in the old fluid will boil and severely cut down your braking ability. Obviously you ought to look at your brake pads for wear at the same time.

11. I'd put a can of Techron in the gas tank. It can work wonders. If it runs OK (except for the gas leak) I'm assuming your spark plugs don't need immediate changing. Hopefully you can put together records on what has or has not been done over the years.

As others have said, there are lots tutorials, video and otherwise, and they have been very helpful to me. You'll get really tired of hearing the phrase "Hi guys..." but they try to be helpful.

Feel free to ask questions here. People are generous with their knowledge.

Having attended to the above list I have a reliable car.

[lordnikon]

I did the following as preventative maintenance but nevertheless cost a pretty penny:

1. Waterpump, thermostat, MMF, Coolant expansion tank, coolant flush
2. Alternator, serpentine belt, idler pulley, tensioner
3. All fluids changed: oil change; differential; transmission; transfer case; brake fluid
4. Spark plugs and coils
5. VCG and OFHG were previously done. But VCG done again after 4 years
6. New front discs and pads
7. New tires
8. Blower motor
9. Power steering reservoir
10. Hood and trunk struts

Previous owner did timing chain and guides; engine mounts, rear shocks, abs sensors and general maintenance items

Need to do front struts and power steering pump

[canyeetee]

I am curious about the fuel leak because I am a new e92 owner with the same issue, no lights on dash, new injectors and coils. Fuel Efficiency reader is working but the gas meter goes does really fast I do have fuel plausibility code and both fuel level sensor codes. Fuel Regulator you say?

[chris55552]

Originally Posted by StradaRedlands

What specifically on the X3? I always have an eye out for '11 & '12 models as you could get them with the N52 motor. Last of the good ones and all that...

The x3 m40i's blow my mind, their really just sports cars stretched up and out that you sit higher in, their performance is staggering. Ive always liked the E83 LCI X3's between 2007 2010. Alot of people dont agree with my taste and preference for them but I loved the smaller form factor of them, the N52 and the fact that your sitting at the perfect height in between a car and a SUV, I thought they drove more like a 3 series than a suv and handled quite well for what they were

[StradaRedlands]

Originally Posted by chris55552

The x3 m40i's blow my mind, their really just sports cars stretched up and out that you sit higher in, their performance is staggering. Ive always liked the E83 LCI X3's between 2007 2010. Alot of people dont agree with my taste and preference for them but I loved the smaller form factor of them, the N52 and the fact that your sitting at the perfect height in between a car and a SUV, I thought they drove more like a 3 series than a suv and handled quite well for what they were

Good to know about the M40i... sounds like a blast!

Cool thing about the E83 is that you could also get one with a MT!