BMW E90 - 330D M Sport - Maintenance Hints?

[bape0000]

Afternoon gents, I'm in the process of buying a 330D M Sport (2008) with around 90k miles on the clock. Getting it off my old man so I know the car's back door hasn't been ripped

It does have FSH and it's now getting to that age where I'm presuming a little more TLC is needed , especially considering that I'm planning to keep it for a good few years.

I appreciate this has probably been asked numerous times before but do you guys have a recommended maintenance schedule that I should follow? I have googled this and came across the Mike Miller maintenance schedule. Having not read it thoroughly yet, I'm not sure whether it suits the UK or not?

Any tips/hints are appreciated.

[Mr Tidy]

I haven't heard of the maintenance schedule you referred to, but at 90K miles I'd be tempted to look for an independent BMW specialist in your area.

After 8 years of owning newish 2.0 litre turbo-diesels with Service Packs that I just took to my local Sytner workshop I'm now into my 5th year of owning older petrol-powered ones.

I found a BMW Indy a couple of miles away who is ex-Sytner, but about half the price - I go with his recommendations!

Good luck anyway.

[Mike335i]

As per Mike Miller's guide, preventative maintenance is the key. For instance, don't stick with the official schedules for oil changes, the car is not new any more and so increased maintenance is only sensible.

Gearboxes should not be 'sealed for life'.

Budget for wheel speed sensors as I have 2 go, from a dealer or independent they are £200+ but could be DIY much cheaper.

[Hyy]

Recommendation from a mechanic I know who has been working at BMW for more than 35 years:

Engine oil + filter every 10-15k km
Engine mounts at 120k km
Glow plugs, module, transmission mounts, water pump, belts and tensioners before 180k km.
Automatic oil change at 80k km.
Manual transmission and differential oil at 150k km.

[MajorBeef]

First thing I would do is change the main thermostat as well as the EGR one. They have a tendency to run cool after a while and prevent the DPF from regenerating until it’s ruined.

[Huskyman]

I ran my 330d M-Sport from 94k miles to 165k. If you start getting coolant dropping then chances are it's the EGR cooler that has failed, not a bad job to do, and I would change both the EGR and the main engnine thermostats while I was in there. Give the EGR valve a clean if it needs it and have a look at the inlet manifold and see what state that is in, and if the swirl flap rods are intact and free to move.
If there is evidence that some oil is getting past the seals on the swirl flaps just get some 'O'-rings and replace them, also change the gaskets where the manifold sits onto the head.
You can see what temperature the coolant gets to by putting the instrument cluster into a test mode, just put 'E90 instrument cluster secret mode' into google and loads of vids will come up on how to do it, mine was only reaching 74 degrees C so it was a problem.

Try to be pro-active with maintenance, the main thing I had was the suspension was worn, so I replaced the tired and worn dampers and springs for a decent kit, you can either buy Bilstein B12 dampers and Eibach springs, or go for a matched kit from the likes of Birds. This had a major impact to the way the car drove. I also binned the run-flats when they wore out and fitted some decent tyres!

If you decide to get the transmission oil changed then be very careful what oil they use to fill the transmission, as it is an involved process and if the correct oil isn't used the transmission won't last very long at all.

These were my own personal experiences of owning an older 56 plate E90 330d, but I liked it so much I kept it for waaay longer than I meant to!!