[ltdarnell]

Dealership recommended that I perform these services but I'm not about to spend ~4500 if I am able to do them myself and save money.

I was wondering how hard/easy these are DIY and the prices.

2011 E90 328i 74k miles.

[Efthreeoh]

All those are "search the internet jobs". Inspect the engine and verify you have oil leaks. Use a bright LED flashlight. For the serp belt/ tensioner, check if the belt is over the lip of the tensioner pulley.

To answer the level of difficulty, what is your level of experience and what kind of tool set do you have? There are DIYs on all of those in the DIY subforum. You can read the procedures and make up your own mind.

[e91Owner]

Placing these in the order of easiest to hardest:

Wiper blades: $25
Oil filter housing gasket: $11
Can of refrigerant & hose: $20
Tensioner, idler pulley & belt: $76
(I'm assuming they mean valve cover)
Valve cover & gaskets: $600
Oil Pain gasket and bolts: $60

That's assuming you have all of the tools for the job and the know-how to do them. As mentioned before, there are plenty of DIY guides for all of these on the forums and YouTube to gauge your interest in doing them yourself.

That's the cheapest oil change I've ever seen, BTW. I can't even get the oil for that price from walmart.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by e91Owner

Placing these in the order of easiest to hardest:

Wiper blades: $25
Oil filter housing gasket: $11
Can of refrigerant & hose: $20
Tensioner, idler pulley & belt: $76
(I'm assuming they mean valve cover)
Valve cover & gaskets: $600
Oil Pain gasket and bolts: $60

That's assuming you have all of the tools for the job and the know-how to do them. As mentioned before, there are plenty of DIY guides for all of these on the forums and YouTube to gauge your interest in doing them yourself.

That's the cheapest oil change I've ever seen, BTW. I can't even get the oil for that price from walmart.

$4,500 is cheap?

You have that correct. LOL

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by e91Owner

Placing these in the order of easiest to hardest:

Wiper blades: $25
Oil filter housing gasket: $11
Can of refrigerant & hose: $20
Tensioner, idler pulley & belt: $76
(I'm assuming they mean valve cover)
Valve cover & gaskets: $600
Oil Pain gasket and bolts: $60

That's assuming you have all of the tools for the job and the know-how to do them. As mentioned before, there are plenty of DIY guides for all of these on the forums and YouTube to gauge your interest in doing them yourself.

That's the cheapest oil change I've ever seen, BTW. I can't even get the oil for that price from walmart.

I think OE wiper blades are around $37 from Tischer. But even replacing the blades can be difficult if you don't know what you are doing, because it is easy to break the plastic mounting tab on the wiper arm covers.

OP, all of these repairs are very difficult if you have no wrenching experience and a deficient tool set. I'll assume that you don't have the tools or wrenching experience because your 1st post on the Forum is asking how hard the DIYs are. That tells us that you got such an inspection report from the dealer because he recognizes you have little experience with BMWs or maybe even automobiles and will run to the internet in search of answers. He's expecting you to find the valve cover gasket, oil pan gasket, and oil filter housing gasket all to be common issues with the N52 E90 and hopes you'll be nervous about it and have him perform all the work; that's what I meant about search the internet jobs. The oil pan gasket and valve cover gasket are complex jobs that an experienced home auto mechanic would not ask about how difficult they are, he'd just go research the DIY videos and/or instructions found on the internet and see if he needs any special tools.

I'd say simply that if you don't have a floor jack and four jack stands to safely lift and support the car to work on it, you are not prepared to accomplish these several repairs. If you have the wrenching experience to do such repairs, you'd already have a floor jack and jack stands because you've done other repairs on a car that required such equipment.

[e91Owner]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

$4,500 is cheap?

[COLOR="red"]You have that correct[/COLOR]. LOL

Lol. $4500 is probably more than half the value of the car at this point. I was talking about the $37.50 on the screenshot.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by e91Owner

Lol. $4500 is probably more than half the value of the car at this point. I was talking about the $37.50 on the screenshot.

I understood (and agree - a filter is $10 alone). My point was the $37.50 was loss-leader to get the OP to fork over $4,500 for what might be unnecessary work (at 74,000 miles). i.e. a $4,500 "oil change"

[4foothill]

$463 to replace the belt tensioner?! That's a 10 minute job that anyone could do. Plus half of the jobs probably don't actually need doing yet. Definitely DIY them, you might need to find an indy for the oil pan (if it is actually leaking oil) but the rest are doable by an amateur (speaking from experience).

[tcphoto]

At least his first post wasn’t about 19” wheels, driving lights or bolt on mods. I would buy a basic tool kit, floor jack and jack stands while reading the DIY tutorials. You will learn a lot, save a lot and take pride in your car instead of just paying a mechanics bill.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by 4foothill

$463 to replace the belt tensioner?! That's a 10 minute job that anyone could do. Plus half of the jobs probably don't actually need doing yet. Definitely DIY them, you might need to find an indy for the oil pan (if it is actually leaking oil) but the rest are doable by an amateur (speaking from experience).

I'd love to see you replace the belt and tensioner in 10 minutes.

[4foothill]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I'd love to see you replace the belt and tensioner in 10 minutes.

Sorry that video is only available to my OnlyFans subscribers..

Ok I may have done it whilst doing my OFHG but I'm sure they're also smart enough not to put the airbox back on after each job. Let's call it 20 minutes as a standalone job, 30 minutes maybe if you forgot which way round the belt goes.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by 4foothill

Sorry that video is only available to my OnlyFans subscribers..

Ok I may have done it whilst doing my OFHG but I'm sure they're also smart enough not to put the airbox back on after each job. Let's call it 20 minutes as a standalone job, 30 minutes maybe if you forgot which way round the belt goes.

I've done the procedure twice, once each on my N52s (E90 and Z4). Once you get to tensioner by removing the cooling fan on the E90 and underneath on the Z4, yeah, it might be 15 minutes to remove and replace the belt and tensioner. But a 1st timer it's going to get it done in 10 minutes. I agree too, it's not a difficult job. But how many noobs have a T-60? or hell even know what a T-60 Torx socket is? T-60 usually don't come in a cheapo Torx socket set. Or have a beam-type torque wrench to get the bolt set correctly. Most will use a clicker wrench and snap the bolt off.

Just being realistic.

[ro881e]

Been there before! Usually find out which tool I'm missing mid job and order on Amazon next day. Crack on

Most those jobs are not too hard just time consuming if you haven't done them before. Take your time, most can be accomplished with this forum and YouTube as guides.

Only ones I havent done there are oil pan and valve cover. Oil pan I see is a bastard due to having to remove the sub frame, but valve cover looks feasible albeit quite involved for a home mechanic.

Agree with tcphoto, if you are keen on getting more wrenching experience, buy some basic kit and enjoy the challenge. If you are just trying to save cash, you are likely to get frustrated doing these and pay for someone else anyway. I. That case just get some comparative quotes.

[4foothill]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I've done the procedure twice, once each on my N52s (E90 and Z4). Once you get to tensioner by removing the cooling fan on the E90 and underneath on the Z4, yeah, it might be 15 minutes to remove and replace the belt and tensioner. But a 1st timer it's going to get it done in 10 minutes. I agree too, it's not a difficult job. But how many noobs have a T-60? or hell even know what a T-60 Torx socket is? T-60 usually don't come in a cheapo Torx socket set. Or have a beam-type torque wrench to get the bolt set correctly. Most will use a clicker wrench and snap the bolt off.

Just being realistic.

Fair enough, my N53 didn't need the cooling fan removing, nothing but the airbox really. I meant more it's a 10 minute job for a BMW mechanic and shouldn't be $400, that's just madness.

I would say start with the belt and if you manage to mess that up then maybe take it to a professional. Otherwise enjoy learning and try not to snap too many bolts or crack too many hoses.

[Indianb0y017]

That oil pan gasket is gonna be your hardest job. That involves dropping the subframe. My mothers E93 has that problem right now, so Im just monitoring the oil level until finances return to normal.
To add some info, I have replaced the valve cover and gasket on the E93 before. It is doable, but it will be frustrating for inexperienced mechanics. Dont be discouraged. Theres a good video by FCP Euro about doing the work. It will take a bit of finesse but it IS doable. Just be patient and be carefully stubborn.

[Efthreeoh]

I just want to make it clear, oil leaks on the N52 do not have a material effect on oil loss. As they age, N52s just start to consume oil, which is lost to the combustion process. One of my N52s has very high miles on it and when I replaced the pan gasket at 290,000 miles after about 90,000 miles of leaking, there was no discernable reduction in oil loss once the new gasket was in place. Likewise for the OFHG and VCG.

Small oil leaks on any engine make for a big mess, so it looks like a lot of oil is leaking from the engine, but actually there is very little. My high-mileage N52 has no oil leaks at the moment and consumes about a liter of oil every 2,500 miles (6 - 8 weeks time for me). My lower-milage N52 (107K), consumes about 1/4 Liter every 7,500 miles.

[BrianPlum]

Originally Posted by 4foothill

Fair enough, my N53 didn't need the cooling fan removing, nothing but the airbox really. I meant more it's a 10 minute job for a BMW mechanic and shouldn't be $400, that's just madness.

I would say start with the belt and if you manage to mess that up then maybe take it to a professional. Otherwise enjoy learning and try not to snap too many bolts or crack too many hoses.

I looked at the procedure for replacing belt and tensioner when I had to remove my alternator a couple of months ago. It didn't require removing the cooling fan. I was replacing the voltage regulator on the alternator. It probably would've only added 10-15 minutes to my alternator job.

[BrianPlum]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

$4,500 is cheap?

You have that correct. LOL

At least the $900 for OFHG + Belt and Tensioner is cheap compared to the $1800 my dealer charged me a few years ago. That was the repair that convinced me to go DIY if I intended to keep my car indefinitely. I've been doing so for the last 100K miles. It still runs great at 262K miles currently. It has a VCG leak which I've been meaning to get to. With the oil leak, it needs 1L added oil after 7000 miles.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by BrianPlum

At least the $900 for OFHG + Belt and Tensioner is cheap compared to the $1800 my dealer charged me a few years ago. That was the repair that convinced me to go DIY if I intended to keep my car indefinitely. I've been doing so for the last 100K miles. It still runs great at 262K miles currently. It has a VCG leak which I've been meaning to get to. With the oil leak, it needs 1L added oil after 7000 miles.

How long does it take you to drive 7,000 miles?

[krhodes1]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I've done the procedure twice, once each on my N52s (E90 and Z4). Once you get to tensioner by removing the cooling fan on the E90 and underneath on the Z4, yeah, it might be 15 minutes to remove and replace the belt and tensioner. But a 1st timer it's going to get it done in 10 minutes. I agree too, it's not a difficult job. But how many noobs have a T-60? or hell even know what a T-60 Torx socket is? T-60 usually don't come in a cheapo Torx socket set. Or have a beam-type torque wrench to get the bolt set correctly. Most will use a clicker wrench and snap the bolt off.

Just being realistic.

;

Out of curiosity, why remove the cooling fan? I've done the tensioner on both my 128i and 328i, (128i a week ago) and there is all the room in the world to do it. Just need the intake piping out of the way. I do agree with the need to be darned careful with that aluminum bolt though! But I am not sure that a beam torque wrench makes much difference with a low torque figure then an angle specification. 18ft/lbs then 90 degrees.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by krhodes1

;

Out of curiosity, why remove the cooling fan? I've done the tensioner on both my 128i and 328i, (128i a week ago) and there is all the room in the world to do it. Just need the intake piping out of the way. I do agree with the need to be darned careful with that aluminum bolt though! But I am not sure that a beam torque wrench makes much difference with a low torque figure then an angle specification. 18ft/lbs then 90 degrees.

Removing the cooling fan just gives a few more inches of room, especially to use a torque wrench on the bolt. Most 3/8th click-type torque wrenches are not accurate at 18 pd.-ft; most of them have a scale that starts at 20 pd.-ft. Beam torque wrenches are accurate at 18 pound-feet.

[hassmaschine]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I've done the procedure twice, once each on my N52s (E90 and Z4). Once you get to tensioner by removing the cooling fan on the E90 and underneath on the Z4, yeah, it might be 15 minutes to remove and replace the belt and tensioner. But a 1st timer it's going to get it done in 10 minutes. I agree too, it's not a difficult job. But how many noobs have a T-60? or hell even know what a T-60 Torx socket is? T-60 usually don't come in a cheapo Torx socket set. Or have a beam-type torque wrench to get the bolt set correctly. Most will use a clicker wrench and snap the bolt off.

Just being realistic.

I didn't remove anything on either of my E9x's to do the tensioners, except the belt and tensioner themselves. and a T60 socket is like $20.. hell of a lot cheaper than $150hr/labor.

I also used a click type torque wrench, lol. but, I do have a pretty good understanding of how TTY bolts work

and no, spending $1500 to replace an OPG on a $4500 car is not worth it, unless it's at Exxon Valdez levels of leaking.