ZF Gearbox Oil Change at BMW dealer

[Fox-]

pingu393 said:

Cost to you sir for thirty minutes of my skilled labour = £150

Kerching.

A gearbox service takes longer, and needs constant attention. No undo drain plug, switch on kettle. If it gets too hot, you have to let it cool and start again.

They could easily just charge more for this though to cover that. Other manufacturers do.

[pingu393]

Fox- said:

pingu393 said:

Cost to you sir for thirty minutes of my skilled labour = £150

Kerching.

A gearbox service takes longer, and needs constant attention. No undo drain plug, switch on kettle. If it gets too hot, you have to let it cool and start again.

They could easily just charge more for this though to cover that. Other manufacturers do.

It would be extortionate. I estimate £750.

[Fox-]

pingu393 said:

It would be extortionate. I estimate £750.

As I said, other manufacturers do offer this service. Mercedes-Benz quote just over £400 for a C Class automatic gearbox oil change.

[pingu393]

Fox- said:

pingu393 said:

It would be extortionate. I estimate £750.

As I said, other manufacturers do offer this service. Mercedes-Benz quote just over £400 for a C Class automatic gearbox oil change.

That's very reasonable. It cost me over £200 in oil and parts, so £400 is a good price for someone else to do the job.

[rottenegg]

Fox- said:

rottenegg said:

BMW don't do it because they know very few people will exceed ZF's fluid change interval within the 3 year/unlimited mileage warranty.

So why do BMW have other service items which do take place after 3 years?

Ask BMW. One can only speculate about a car company's politics and policies. And it's a gearbox we're talking about, not oil, pollen filters, fuel filters and brake pads. If they break, they replace the entire thing and bill the customer if it was reflashed, or bill ZF if it's a defect.

BMW probably asked ZF "Can we get away with never touching your gearbox within the first 3 years/100,000 miles of the car's life?" and ZF probably answered yes.

VAG and BMW are very similar in their attitude towards replacement rather than repair, and towards their customers. Lock everything down to their ecosystem and log everything customers do. If anything differs on a checksum check on their servers - instant warranty void.

Mercedes, JLR et al are a bit easier going.

[InitialDave]

pingu393 said:

It would be extortionate. I estimate £750.

BMW wanted £1300 to do a service on my E89's DCT, a local BMW specialist (Autotechnik in Lutterworth) charged half that.

[bigdom]

rottenegg said:

BMW probably asked ZF "Can we get away with never touching your gearbox within the first 3 years/100,000 miles of the car's life?" and ZF probably answered yes.

VAG and BMW are very similar in their attitude towards replacement rather than repair, and towards their customers.

BMW UK looked at a low failure rate <100k, that's not the same thing. VAG state 40k for DSG oil change. My cousin lives in Texas, and it's part of the service schedule as the Americans are very good at class action cases. I've worked in Germany a few years ago and ZF service centres are well used.

https://aftermarket.zf.com/us/aftermarket-portal/f...

[rottenegg]

bigdom said:

rottenegg said:

BMW probably asked ZF "Can we get away with never touching your gearbox within the first 3 years/100,000 miles of the car's life?" and ZF probably answered yes.

VAG and BMW are very similar in their attitude towards replacement rather than repair, and towards their customers.

BMW UK looked at a low failure rate <100k, that's not the same thing. VAG state 40k for DSG oil change. My cousin lives in Texas, and it's part of the service schedule as the Americans are very good at class action cases. I've worked in Germany a few years ago and ZF service centres are well used.

https://aftermarket.zf.com/us/aftermarket-portal/f...

Yes failure rate of the ZF8 (8HP70 in particular) is extremely low. Abuse and excessively torquey remaps (with the torque limits removed) are pretty much the only things that break them. DSG gearboxes put a lot more stress on the oil than torque converter autos with planetry gears, so it'll be interesting to see what Audi's service interval for the RS6 is.

[DKIE92]

Getting my ZF6 serviced this week at 83k miles. Quoted £450 which is about right for a new sump, fluid and Mechatronic sleeve. It’s being done at a transmission specialist. No point trying to get it done at a dealer as they’ll give you that life time bs and if they do agree to do it, you’ll be shafted on the price.

[twokcc]

Gone a mini cooper s 2018 (Ok not BMW) with the BMW getrag? 7 speed DCT box. Just 6 years old this month and msg on idrive to say gearbox oil needs changing. Run mini up £245 inc vat which doesn't seems very reasonable against the old 6 speed auto I hade done in my 325d e91 at 8 years old

Maybe Getrag have a different take on these matters - do the DCT boxes in newer BMW's include an
oil service

PS not read all thread so apologies if already covered

[rottenegg]

I thought Minis used the Aisin gearbox? In any case, £245 is not unreasonable for that service imo. It costs a lot more than that to service the ZFs.