[Frobius]

I haven't read through the whole thread but the process is almost identical on all E89 series (E87 1er and E90 3er) diesels - although I believe they moved it on the LCI 1ers to make it easier. Not sure about later 3s.

[Jules59]

I think all E90s LCI (after 2009) moved to an easy access panel filter, similar to the ones all other manufacturers have been using for years. BMW engineering is quite bizarre at times.

[-TARBY-]

Thank you for recording this.. Better than any 'Haynes'!

Just out of interest I am replacing mine on Sunday using this guide with a K&N direct replacement..

These are the instructions:

1. Remove the screws that fasten the air box lid to the airbox base.
2. Remove the airbox lid
3. Remove the dirty air filter
4. Wipe out any dirt from the housing
5. Install the new filter
6. Reverse procedure to complete.

YEAH RIGHT!!!!! Hahah

[Triggster]

Originally Posted by -TARBY-

Thank you for recording this.. Better than any 'Haynes'!

Just out of interest I am replacing mine on Sunday using this guide with a K&N direct replacement..

These are the instructions:

1. Remove the screws that fasten the air box lid to the airbox base.
2. Remove the airbox lid
3. Remove the dirty air filter
4. Wipe out any dirt from the housing
5. Install the new filter
6. Reverse procedure to complete.

YEAH RIGHT!!!!! Hahah

Fitted the K&N on Saturday night to my 330d. Pure bollox of a job.

That list just leaves out about everything covered in the OP, haha.

[Jules59]

"To whoever designed the 330d airbox/filter setup, I'd like to kick your ass."

Join the queue.

He must have been at work on 1st April.

[matt_s]

hi all,
just joined the forum, main reason was to say thank you to the OP for such a concise and accurate description of how to change the filter, and echo everyone's comments about what a right pain it is to change.

I did mine yesterday following the instructions to the letter... got to the bit where I needed to remove the struts and though "surely not, not to change a filter, I'll see if I can work round..."

60 seconds later, I took the struts off.

If anyone else is considering it, points I'd share are:

1. The air filter housing on mine has "semi captive" bolts in it, semi captive because they're housed in a little plastic sleeve that will pop out- be careful with the last two at the back.

2. Watch out for the the tabs on the underside of the windscreen plenum, when refitting, can get stuck and bend. Oops.

3. I purchased new bolts for the centre and the turrets, part numbers for my 56 plate 330d
B07.14.6.954.965 - centre bolt, £3.13 each (July 12). In the parts catalogue at the dealer this looks like a normal headed bolt, but the one supplied is an EPL/female torx one.
B07.14.6.963.730 - turret bolt £1.63 each (July 12)

In the grand scheme of things not too bad. I purchased new ones because the spec for these bolts is two stage tightening.

Centre bolt 100nm then 100 degrees (per Haynes book of lies)
Turrets 40nm then 60 degrees

And wasn't prepared to put in pre-stretched bolts. Make your own mind up on this though, I erred on the side of caution.

Al in cost me £30 to do (filter and bolts). Bargain. 7mpg difference already, that's with the bike rack on top. :-)

Cheers,
Matt

[-TARBY-]

If the weather holds off I'll be doing this tomorrow. Good points on the bolts!

Pictures and an update to follow.

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by matt_s

hi all,
just joined the forum, main reason was to say thank you to the OP for such a concise and accurate description of how to change the filter, and echo everyone's comments about what a right pain it is to change.

Cheers Matt, thanks for the endorsement Happy to help, such a fiddly-assed job.

[Hartge]

just to say thank you for a great write up, help was much appreciated

[oldbilly]

Nice walk through and exactly as I changed mine on my 06 330d e91.
I changed my filter about 8 months ago and it was black like the one in the pic, at the same time I also changed both thermostats, oil and filter and whilst there checked the swirlflaps.

[>sVo<]

Many many many MANY THANKS Dr Dave. That was really useful.

[magic77]

remember doing this in my e46 320D what a pita especially as if you drop the back screw into the undertray doh, was so glad when the e90 arrived the lci engine had a normal box

[F31-340i]

Just did mine today.



Quite a state, a lot of insects





Like a farmyard!



if it helps, if found it easier than an E46, it seemed like they'd made access to the rear most captive bolts much easier than I remember. Note that all the bolts on the final cover are captive.

I removed the microfilter & tray & strut braces before the engine covers. Only real faff was moving the rear cover to the side.

The only hard bit was finding E14/18 torx sockets - had to use ebay in the end, couldn't find a shop that had the E18.....

[jean019]

Completely disgusting ... personally I change it every 20000 miles, when it starts to become black.

[F31-340i]

Originally Posted by jean019

Completely disgusting ... personally I change it every 20000 miles, when it starts to become black.

This was after around 50,000 miles after the last change, which technically was slightly too early (it was not due until the next oil change).

I think there is a case to do it every 2nd oil change, rather than 3rd, but every oil change is probably not strictly necessary, though I can see it's nice to do more often.

[davidlo19a]

Just want to join this thread to say that it is just as hard as everyone says!!

Just did my filter at 100,000 km (I know, too lazy, but knowing how hard it will be, I put it off until recently).

Couple of points when I did it:

Oh, and I have a 320D, LHD instead of RHD, so it's even more of a pain!!

1. On the filter housing, I have 4 E10 bolts intead of hex bolts. The one closest to the front left (when standing in front of the car and looking at the engine bay) need a thin wall E10 socket (or 1/4" drive with extension) as someone has mentioned already. Even a 3/8" drive is too big.

2. Because I have a LHD, the side closer to the filter has the ECU (relay box?) instead of brake stuff... The main ECU cable/wires (or the injector wires) wouldn't clear the filter housing!!! Lots of fiddling, pulling/pushing and swearing was needed to clear the top part of the housing.


I'll take some pictures next time I'm under there. Not sure I would want to do it again in the near future though...

[Smoothound]

It is a bitch of a job. I did myself a favour: fitted a K&N and left the filter housing off.

The K&N comes with a jubilee clip, so no chance of it coming off. With the engine cover on, everything looks normal. But you can hear turbo induction and I'm sure it breathes more easily, fortunately there's not much around that areas of the engine bay but clean open air, so no risk of taking in hot air like in hot-hatch-chavmobiles

I did that a year ago, my service this year was a quick visual and a quick flick-over with a clean paintbrush. No tools or effort required. Job done for another year!

[jonobradley]

Great walkthrough Dave, thanks for this along with everyone's updates!

I got my new "old" 330d SE a few weeks ago and I was curious to see what the cabin and main air filters were like. Both were quite dirty so wanted to change them.

The cabin filter was really easy to change, and although the main air filter was a bit of a pain, I kinda enjoyed doing it. I didnt have any "E" sockets, but my local screwfix had the E10, E14 & E18 sockets within a multi pack for £12.

I only needed to remove the left strut brace to be able to remove the filter housing and filter etc, but all in all it took me a few hours inbetween a few cupppa's and lunch

[rasa bmw]

Originally Posted by jonobradley

Great walkthrough Dave, thanks for this along with everyone's updates!

I got my new "old" 330d SE a few weeks ago and I was curious to see what the cabin and main air filters were like. Both were quite dirty so wanted to change them.

The cabin filter was really easy to change, and although the main air filter was a bit of a pain, I kinda enjoyed doing it. I didnt have any "E" sockets, but my local screwfix had the E10, E14 & E18 sockets within a multi pack for £12.

I only needed to remove the left strut brace to be able to remove the filter housing and filter etc, but all in all it took me a few hours inbetween a few cupppa's and lunch

the foam filters are not that good at filtering,,better air flow but these cars do not need it

[blueh88]

Originally Posted by rasa bmw

the foam filters are not that good at filtering,,better air flow but these cars do not need it

Really? I have a pipercross in mine from since I purchased it a couple of years ago. Had it cleaned once since. Can't compare to standard but now I'm thinking should I change back to OEM to see if it's any better?

[magic77]

I have to disagree about the cars not needed it. Back when I had a e46 it run the same filter system and obviously no DPF. Only way I could keep the car from running clean and not producing a black smoke cloud under each acceleration was to fit a pipercorss. With it fitted had no smoke (clean burn) so might not be always the case but in some situations they do help

[rasa bmw]

Originally Posted by magic77

I have to disagree about the cars not needed it. Back when I had a e46 it run the same filter system and obviously no DPF. Only way I could keep the car from running clean and not producing a black smoke cloud under each acceleration was to fit a pipercorss. With it fitted had no smoke (clean burn) so might not be always the case but in some situations they do help

your missing the point"filtering" foam are just not good at it,,i can put up a wrute up of what both filters can do and achieve,,if your car had black smoke then there was something wrong with it,,maybe a dodgy maf sensor or slight boost leak..