[nick01234]

Driving my 2011 335i with 58k miles about 500 miles every weekend. The car rarely gets driven outside of that. I try to stay on top of my preventive maintenance as I have changed the plugs, cabin and air filter, coolant (due to bad water pump), brake fluid, manual trans oil, diff oil, and change the engine oil every 5k miles with liquid moly 5w30 special tech. Last oil change was very black after 5k miles and I am wonder if I should start changing my oil every 4k?

[krhodes1]

Oil color is meaningless. These cars have both an oil life algorithm and a physical oil quality sensor, and 2011s have hard limits of 1yr or 10K miles programmed in. As long as you use oil that meets the BMW spec, change it when the car tells you to. If you are putting on 500 miles in a couple days, presumably that is all highway, and not a lot of cold starts or stop and go. Nothing to worry about there.

If you are super anal, send an oil sample to Blackstone for analysis. Otherwise, drive the thing and enjoy.

[apexit4]

If you want to make sure you are getting the most out of your oil (or just some peace of mind), send out a sample to Blackstone Labs. Their prices for oil analysis are very reasonable and they will send you (for free) everything you need to take the oil sample and send it out. If you want to know exactly how much more "life" your oil has after running it for 5k miles, tack on the TBN analysis.

As for the rest of your preventative maintenance, it seems you've tackled a lot already. Just make sure to do frequent inspections on your own and replace any items you see that are looking questionable or worn out. The common issues found on the 335i are well document here, so read up on a few of those threads to get an idea on what you can expect to fail sometime down the line.

[CTinline-six]

+2 on Blackstone


Also, long highway drives are the easiest on oil and the engine. The car gets up to operating temperature for extended periods of time which is much better than frequent short trips.

[Welcome to NBA Jam]

Water pump and HPFP are going to be your two biggest showstoppers. Make sure those are in good working order.

You don't need to decrease your oil change interval. Follow what your car says, or what the manual says: 12-15k, or at least once per year. You'll be hitting 12-15k miles around twice a year if you drive 500 miles every weekend.

Your suspension and tires will get more wear and tear than your engine for long highway trips. Have your alignment and wheel balance checked every 3 months. Check your control arm bushings every 12 months. Consider switching your tires to a touring model, or something that has a strong wear rating. Check your tire pressure every 2 weeks. The more all of these are in spec, the better wear you'll get.

Check your air filter every 6 months.

I can't think of much else other than following the factory maintenance schedule.

[mecheng77]

Oil color has no bearing on the remaining oil life; that's an old wife's tale.

[marvinstockman]

Feel the tires and as long as they are wearing evenly across the tread, you don't need an alignment. If you feel no vibration, you don't need balance.

What you do need to do is rotate tires, that is, if they are all the same size.

The way your are using your car, it should last you into the 22nd century, that is if you can still find gas!

[Efthreeoh]

Conditioned Based Service

[krhodes1]

Originally Posted by marvinstockman

Feel the tires and as long as they are wearing evenly across the tread, you don't need an alignment. If you feel no vibration, you don't need balance.

What you do need to do is rotate tires, that is, if they are all the same size.

The way your are using your car, it should last you into the 22nd century, that is if you can still find gas!

The manual for my '11 328i specifically says to not rotate the tires. And I never have. And the tires wear perfectly evenly front to rear and side to side. Of course, YMMV if you drive a 335i and are fond of using the loud pedal all the time.

[ctuna]

broken belt
https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1305990
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho....php?t=1231881
http://www.e90post.com/forums/showpo...3&postcount=23
http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1477111
https://www.oxwerkzperformance.com/

[marvinstockman]

krhodes1, as I said, if your tires are the same front and back, rotate them. You probably have wider tires in the back than you have in the front.

[jwalker87]

Follow Mike Miller's lifetime maintenance schedule.

https://www.dslreports.com/r0/downlo...e%20v03.13.pdf

[MightyMouseTech]

Originally Posted by CTinline-six

+2 on Blackstone


Also, long highway drives are the easiest on oil and the engine. The car gets up to operating temperature for extended periods of time which is much better than frequent short trips.

This. Can't get much easier on the oil than that.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by krhodes1

The manual for my '11 328i specifically says to not rotate the tires. And I never have. And the tires wear perfectly evenly front to rear and side to side. Of course, YMMV if you drive a 335i and are fond of using the loud pedal all the time.

Having owned BMWs for over 30 years, of the five owner's manuals I've read for each car in my fleet, BMW always recommends not rotating tires. BMW's reasoning is the handling can change if the tires are relocated to different positions on the vehicle, and (assuming the owner is paying to have the tires rotated) the cost of numerous instances of rotating the tires does not gain a measurable tire life that is financially advantageous.

I don't have a 335i and I guess it has a less-loud loud pedal, but the staggered setup in my car's sport package has the rear tires wearing faster than the fronts. I rotate side to side every 5,000 miles on both the 325i and Z4. I've observed the rears wear twice as fast as the fronts. That said, I ran a 18" square setup on my 325i for 200,000+ miles and cross rotated every 5,000 miles and I can say after running 13 sets of (spent) tires I found no discernable tire life difference between cross-rotation with a square setup vs. side-to-side on a staggered setup.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by jwalker87

Follow Mike Miller's lifetime maintenance schedule.

https://www.dslreports.com/r0/downlo...e%20v03.13.pdf

If it is a BMW engine in a Messerschmitt...

[Welcome to NBA Jam]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

If it is a BMW engine in a Messerschmitt...

And you're driving the president to/from the white house every week.

[jwalker87]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

If it is a BMW engine in a Messerschmitt...

Originally Posted by Welcome to NBA Jam

And you're driving the president to/from the white house every week.

Or you want it to last 200k miles and not break down on the side of the road when a part wears out. The schedule really is not that crazy, though can be taken with a grain of salt. Cliff notes for my 4 BMWs:

-Oil every 7500 miles (5k for the S54 and M54)
-Air intake filter every 20k miles
-Trans/diff/PS fluid every 50k miles
-Belts/water pump every 75k miles
-Cooling system hoses and fuel filter every 100k miles
-Spark plugs ... variable (10k for the tuned N54, 50k for the stock M54)

[John 070]

I agree that if highway miles those are optimum conditions and you can go by what the car says, or, keep a spreadsheet and even halve the car's recommendation if you want. I doubt that will be less than 7-8k.

We are very fortunate to have the means to waste natural resources. to change the oil ever 4-5k is a waste of money and the resources it took to get them, however, the flip side is we can afford it.

My friend is a fleet services manager and they go 60k between changes. I said 60k, that sounds long, why not try 50k? Considering each vehicle takes 45 qts. and they have 8,000 tractors, arbitrarily shortening the interval has a financial impact.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by jwalker87

Or you want it to last 200k miles and not break down on the side of the road when a part wears out. The schedule really is not that crazy, though can be taken with a grain of salt. Cliff notes for my 4 BMWs:

-Oil every 7500 miles (5k for the S54 and M54)
-Air intake filter every 20k miles
-Trans/diff/PS fluid every 50k miles
-Belts/water pump every 75k miles
-Cooling system hoses and fuel filter every 100k miles
-Spark plugs ... variable (10k for the tuned N54, 50k for the stock M54)

Way overkill dude.

[AllBlackBimmer]

When I consider maintenance, I weigh the hassle/cost/time associated with being stranded vs. the cost of parts/labor for my vehicles.

For maintenance items that may go wrong, but the car is driveable, then those aren’t nearly as concerning as things that will leave you stranded like a failed water pump.

It’s your money, maintain your car vs. your risk/reward. Just know that all “maintenance” items are not created equally.
I “waste” money on things I ‘might’ not need, yet also neglect things I ‘should’ fix.