I flushed the engine oil on my 2004 3.0d at 117k. At 120k the big end bearings died and that was game over and a full engine rebuild. I put the correct grade and good quality oil in at the time of the change and have no way of proving the flush caused the failure but I can safely say I will never ...

Yeh just clean it out. They are vacuum operated on e53s so you can't really damage them or do any harm at all by cleaning it out.

My dad has had a set of these on his X5. Rears didn't last long at all, 10,000 miles max. Wear was completely even across the whole tyre, no nasty edge wear and no alignment problems. The fronts are still going after 23,000 miles and still a fair bit left yet. They seem quite enough and do have a ...

Did my dads lower balljoints on Saturday. We bought the tool from eBay for £40 which did the job. As mentioned I really wouldn't attempt without the tool. I also didn't let the air out of the suspension as I had no need to do so. I only drive the car every now and then and even I noticed a massive ...

[quote="snipez999"] A quick visual check of brake fluid reservoir level should indicate if there is a leak somewhere though, surely? So on cars with OEM trays the advisory is actually strengthened by such a check? Also you'd probably get a cockpit warning for low brake fluid anyway(?) Also was that ...

As your 2006 vehicle has maybe never had these shields removed to inspect what's behind them, perhaps instead of crying about the person that did his job correctly it might be a good idea to have a look behind them! You might be quite surprised that it has just "passed" an mot I totally agree that ...

I'm an mot tester myself and regularly advise if a lot of plastic under trays are fitted. At the end of the day it's my job and lively hood on the line. If a car that I have tested was in a fatal accident as a result of say a burst brake pipe that is hidden behind a plastic shield and I didn't ...

No they are not pressed in. They just need a good smack from the top. I removed hubs when I did mine but you maybe able to do it if you just take driveshaft out the hub

[quote="Bargain Bucket"] But what is the proper "oil"? Seems to be so much opinion on this. [/quote] I'm not sure on the grade but it is made by ZF. It is really expensive but luckily we deal with and auto box specialist who let me have it for what he paid. Still £25 per litre though I think. I used ...

My x5 used to do this, I changed the oil and filter in the box and it stopped it completely. I made sure I used the proper oil and genuine filter. My dad now owns the car and it must have done 15k now trouble free. I had the software update done by Jason at bwchiptune and it made it worse before I ...

All finished now :-). Took best part of 2 days to put it all back together. All worth it in the end. The engine sounds really quite. So much different to the previous one even when that was running ok. Overall I'm a happy man now it's back on the road. I'm lucky I can do it myself and not pay labour ...

Well the engine has been to pieces before. For what reason I don't know. The timing was out and the surface on the conrods look as if they have been hit by a blunt object on previous removal, that is what has caused the bearings to fail this time. The amount of swarf in the sump after the oil was ...

I would also like to meet the incompetent idiot that has previously worked on the engine that has caused all of this! Rant over

Right then. After a complete nightmare of the engine from the scrap yard was the wrong one and me completely losing my temper with them, I have had my engine fully reconditioned. New rods, new crank, new oil pump, new head, new cams, timing tensioner and guides etc etc. Some parts brand new genuine ...

Well decided to go down the breakers yard route. Funds are a bit tight at the min with a new baby. £750 plus vat from midland bmw. Supposed to have done 75k but you never know. In the process of fitting it, my word what a job. Lol. Can't wait to get it running again though.