Quote:
Originally Posted by Efthreeoh
Isn't that what the CBS was devised for, to accommodate different maintenance schedules base on conditions of use?
An example of why Miller's schedule has aged out of date, the E90 fuel filter, which is integrated into the fuel pump. There is no change interval (mileage) for the fuel pump. Miller says to change fuel filters every 30,000 miles. BMW obviously has re-engineered the fuel filter so it doesn't require replacement.
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Yes, not all cars have all of the items in the schedule. My M42-engine'd e30s had neither timing belts nor valve adjustments too. The perils of a generalized maintenance schedule - it doesn't apply to everything. But cars are cars.
I agree with him in thinking that CBS mainly exists to save BMW money while they were paying for maintenance, and does not take truly long term ownership into consideration - long term in TIME that is. Note that they still use time-only for some services. And they changed things over the years. My '11s have limits in the OCI calculation that your '06 does not. Presumably because they learned over time that the original algorithms were not perfect. But CBS will never tell you to change the gearbox or diff oil. And they have gone from saying "lifetime" on those to saying "just kidding, lifetime really means 100K. Well, Mike and I think a break-in change plus ~50K is plenty of "lifetime" for those oils. I figure once every five years is a good time to put it up in the air, take all the underpanels off, look at everything, and change all the fluids regardless of miles. For you, that would be a year and a half, which maybe is too frequently. But for me, that's 5 years +++. Literally, YMMV. The only REAL way to know is to have an oil analysis done, but to do that you have to drain it anyway, so I figure might as well just err on the side of caution. Compared to what these cars cost, the maintenance is dirt cheap. And at this point, they don't even sell replacements for my cars anymore! If I could just keep buying new ones, I wouldn't particularly care.
And on that fuel filter - they engineered it to not be a source of evaporative emissions leaks. Whether they engineered it to never need replacement is largely luck of the draw, same as it ever was. Get a tank of dirty gas and you will be replacing it - it will just cost a hell of a lot more. Many, if not most cars even with replaceable fuel filters never got them changed since most people don't maintain their cars correctly.