[tmarshall57]

My car was approximately 1,000 miles away from requiring an oil and filter change. I decided I had had enough of dealership pricing for oil, filter and the required labour - approx £160.00.

Last Saturday, after seeing the offer advertised by National Autocar at http://www.national.co.uk/oil-vehicle-search.aspx I called in at the local (Bury) branch and asked if they would be able to change the oil on my car. The friendly counter guy checked his oil filter catalogue, said that there was no filter for my car however he would check with Unipart or Andrew Page on Monday and contact me if successful. I asked if I could supply the filter however he stated that they couldn't do the work if they didn't supply the filter as they would not be able to warrant it. Sure enough the guy rang me on Monday, said that he had got the filter in and asked when would I like to bring the car in. I booked the car in for today, 10th July.

Please note that I have no connection with National Autocare whatsoever.

I turned up at 8.30 and they were happy to let me watch and take some photos. I told them that I would write an article on the e90 forum.

Sean Parkinson carried out the work.

The photos below are pretty self explanatory however to try to answer the most likely questions I'll do this up front.....

1) Total Cost including VAT = £33 = including 10% discount voucher printed off the special offer web page (I did not book on line), an extra litre of oil (above the 7 litres included in the offer) and 1.50 oil disposal.

2) The old oil was drained from sump - not sucked out. Plenty of time allocated for all oil to drain out.

3) The filter box included a new sump plug crush washer and large Oil Filter cap seal/gasket but not the small O rings which don't really need replacing anyway. Filter was Unipart GFE 626

4) Professional filter removal tools were available and used to remove filter cap.

5) Castrol Edge 5-30 LL04 Oil was used and drawn from a 208 litre drum.

6) Plenty of time allocated to fill oil, check levels, start engine and recheck levels.

7) I reset the Service Indicator when I got home using the method published elsewhere on this site.

8) Service was courteous and my service book was signed.

9) I didn't get free coffee, pastries etc - I had those before I left the house.

10) I walked into the branch at 8.25 AM and left at 9.00AM

11) The car is just over three years old, out of warranty, has covered approx 58000 miles and I intend to keep it for a while.

Seems to be a problem uploading photos so I may have to do this later.

[tmarshall57]

Here are the photos......

[M3-FAST]

Awesome value!!!!!!

[shane55]

Great write up...but I feel sick having changed the oil and fuel filter in my car yesterday and it cost...

€81.80 for a fuel and oil filter (around €40 each) ...and I can vouch that the filter in your pic although not a mann filter is identical to the one I got from the stealer during the week.

€109.98 for 8l of Castrol 5w30 oil, however I did get two 1l cans of 5w30 for free...

Total €191.78 or £160.92 =

[YvesD]

They are doing that at a huge loss, either that or you only have 2 litres of oil in your sump and its branded Mazola!

[tmarshall57]

Originally Posted by YvesD

They are doing that at a huge loss, either that or you only have 2 litres of oil in your sump and its branded Mazola!

They have been running this deal for a while now (18 months or so I think) and prior to that they had a similar Duckhams offer.

The retail price of Castrol Edge is ridiculously high. Buying in bulk probably enables them to break even and gets traffic through the branches.

Many cars going through will have faults from which they can sell on further business.

I did check the oil level a few times though when I got back home. Interestingly it was difficult to see the level because the oil was so clean. When I have had the work done at the stealers, the oil has looked black immediately so maybe they suck (most of) the oil out rather than draining it.

[YvesD]

Fair play to you, great deal.

[Tunna_uk]

awesome deal. Nice one.

[scottishpete]

Personally i would not be using any other filter other than OEM

[Dr Dave]

I would have no problem with using branded second tier filters - most are made by the OEM's anyway.

[milesr3]

I've always done my own servicing on the many BMWs I've owned that haven't been under the approved-used warranty. If this offer had been available, then I wouldn't have bothered getting my hands dirty! Awesome value.

[craig2859]

£33

Very good, indeed.

I never use dealers for anything, and like you will look for decent alternatives, ie specialist Indie garages, but I would not even have thought of National Autocare ..... I will now though.

[milesr3]

One thing that just occurred to me is that for around half the cost of a tank of fuel, this could be a very effective way of getting an oil change done half way through the ludicrously long service intervals. My car has done 14K since its last oil change and is currently showing 8K to the next, which seems unnecessarily long by any measure.

I just booked mine in online. £31.50 for up to 7 litres of Castrol Edge 5W30.

[Shah24]

Nice.. That is dirt cheap. My local stealer does it for £99.

[craig2859]

Originally Posted by milesr3

I just booked mine in online. £31.50 for up to 7 litres of Castrol Edge 5W30.

Keep us updated mate, would be good to get a few reviews on this

[rsmallwo]

Think I'm gunna treat my car to an early oil change at that price!

Are BMW's service intervals really too long? isn't this oil supposed to be the Mutts, also it in BMW longlife spec, must be designed to last a long time

I'll be doing mine in december just before the offer runs out, not due until a year from now but my car is remapped.

[milesr3]

LL04 oil is perfectly up to the job asked of it, but extended service intervals were created to reduce the cost of ownership over the first 60K of a car's life.

Oil doesn't improve with age or mileage and you can't change it often enough IMO. Particularly at ~£30 a pop without getting your hands dirty.

[nottsE90]

Originally Posted by milesr3

One thing that just occurred to me is that for around half the cost of a tank of fuel, this could be a very effective way of getting an oil change done half way through the ludicrously long service intervals. My car has done 14K since its last oil change and is currently showing 8K to the next, which seems unnecessarily long by any measure.

I just booked mine in online. £31.50 for up to 7 litres of Castrol Edge 5W30.

just had a look online and it gives me an option of 5W-30 for £31.50 or 5W-40 TD for £41.50, will i be ok with either of these?

for an extra £10 i'd be tempted to go with the TD for my 320d even though the OP used 5W-30 in his 330d.

[SteveF1]

Would it be worth mentioning this offer to a dealer to see if they would drop their price accordingly or would they just laugh at you?

My car is still under warranty and knowing BMW's reluctance to cover stuff and get out of warranty claims for things like this it puts me off going anywhere but the dealer.

However my cheapest quote for an oil change at my nearest dealer was £160 all in, thats with 10% off parts and 15% off labour and they removed the envorinmental cost which was £8 which is essentially them getting rid of the old oil.

This is also my cars third major oil service and I've been told that not only does the oil and oil filter need changing, apparently the air and fuel filter do as does the crankcase breather valve....is this right cause BMW want near £400!!!

[milesr3]

Originally Posted by nottsE90

just had a look online and it gives me an option of 5W-30 for £31.50 or 5W-40 TD for £41.50, will i be ok with either of these?

for an extra £10 i'd be tempted to go with the TD for my 320d even though the OP used 5W-30 in his 330d.

Castrol's website recommends the 5w30 edge for my 535d and if you scroll up to the piccies at the top of the thread you can see the BMW LL04 spec on the drum.

[milesr3]

Originally Posted by scottishpete

Personally i would not be using any other filter other than OEM

You could actually buy an OEM filter and chuck the one that National use in the bin. It takes no more than 5 minutes to swap the remote filters in a BMW - the really messy / time consuming bit is draining and disposing of the old oil if you can't easily get underneath.

Could possibly be a way of getting round invalidating the warranty by not using BMW parts as well. Just keep the receipt for the filter and the oil change together.

[SteveChester]

Think I will be taking advantage of this offer, too cheap to be true. Is it worth paying the tenner more for the better oil?

Thanks,

Steve.