BMW automatic transmission service
Discussion
Hello
I have owned a 2016 BMW 430D with a ZF8/automatic gearbox for 4 years now. It has now done 76,000 miles and I bought it with 35,000 on the clock. I have been told and read that the gearbox doesn’t need a service because it is sealed? However, I have also heard that it needs a service every 60,000 miles or every 6 years (whichever is sooner).
Any advice would be welcome as I am unsure about whether to get it done as I’m sure it’s likely to be expensive.
Many thanks
I have owned a 2016 BMW 430D with a ZF8/automatic gearbox for 4 years now. It has now done 76,000 miles and I bought it with 35,000 on the clock. I have been told and read that the gearbox doesn’t need a service because it is sealed? However, I have also heard that it needs a service every 60,000 miles or every 6 years (whichever is sooner).
Any advice would be welcome as I am unsure about whether to get it done as I’m sure it’s likely to be expensive.
Many thanks
Dragnet 5 said:
Hello
I have owned a 2016 BMW 430D with a ZF8/automatic gearbox for 4 years now. It has now done 76,000 miles and I bought it with 35,000 on the clock. I have been told and read that the gearbox doesn’t need a service because it is sealed? However, I have also heard that it needs a service every 60,000 miles or every 6 years (whichever is sooner).
Any advice would be welcome as I am unsure about whether to get it done as I’m sure it’s likely to be expensive.
Many thanks
BMW state it's sealed for life, that life being 100k. ZF who make them advise 60k for an oil change. In Germany, there's dedicated ZF service centres. Any BM specialist or gearbox specialist will be able to complete it, can DIY, but there's a procedure to filling/warming, and far easier on a car lift. I have owned a 2016 BMW 430D with a ZF8/automatic gearbox for 4 years now. It has now done 76,000 miles and I bought it with 35,000 on the clock. I have been told and read that the gearbox doesn’t need a service because it is sealed? However, I have also heard that it needs a service every 60,000 miles or every 6 years (whichever is sooner).
Any advice would be welcome as I am unsure about whether to get it done as I’m sure it’s likely to be expensive.
Many thanks
Last time I had mine down, it was in a for a normal service, but I believe circa £400, but everything has gone up since then.
If you're thinking of keeping the car long term, well worth doing. I once had to rebuild a ZF gearbox, it didn't appear to enjoy spending so much time in Andorra; that's much more expensive than an oil change!
Many thanks all
I just phoned an independent BMW specialist who is very good and does the servicing for me. He said later BMWs with ZF8 usually get gearbox service at 100K miles. I’m going to get it done now though at 76k miles I think. To do it properly with the correct ZF kit, etc current cost is £600. I live in Somerset so might ring around a bit…..
I just phoned an independent BMW specialist who is very good and does the servicing for me. He said later BMWs with ZF8 usually get gearbox service at 100K miles. I’m going to get it done now though at 76k miles I think. To do it properly with the correct ZF kit, etc current cost is £600. I live in Somerset so might ring around a bit…..
Dragnet 5 said:
Many thanks all
I just phoned an independent BMW specialist who is very good and does the servicing for me. He said later BMWs with ZF8 usually get gearbox service at 100K miles. I’m going to get it done now though at 76k miles I think. To do it properly with the correct ZF kit, etc current cost is £600. I live in Somerset so might ring around a bit…..
That's because BMW state the life of the box is 100k; whereas ZF state 60-80k miles... As said, go with what ZF state, not BMWI just phoned an independent BMW specialist who is very good and does the servicing for me. He said later BMWs with ZF8 usually get gearbox service at 100K miles. I’m going to get it done now though at 76k miles I think. To do it properly with the correct ZF kit, etc current cost is £600. I live in Somerset so might ring around a bit…..
I'll be getting my ZF8 in my F31 serviced come the New Year (can't do it currently as the cars under extended warranty)
And £600 feels steep TBH; about £450 is right
Just for info. You have two choices - either drain and refill, which changes about 65% of the oil ( the rest is stuck in the torque converter) or do a full flush and refill. Option 1 is quicker and cheaper and can be done by any mechanic. Option 2 is more expensive and requires specialist ...
cheers
Dave
PS had this done (option 2) on my E46 and well worth it
cheers
Dave
PS had this done (option 2) on my E46 and well worth it
d_a_n1979 said:
That's because BMW state the life of the box is 100k; whereas ZF state 60-80k miles... As said, go with what ZF state, not BMW
I'll be getting my ZF8 in my F31 serviced come the New Year (can't do it currently as the cars under extended warranty)
And £600 feels steep TBH; about £450 is right
This is my problem: BMW extended warranty - I wouldn't run the car without this. I suspect that a ZF transmission service would immediately result in BMW refusing any warranty claim against the gearbox if anything breaks.I'll be getting my ZF8 in my F31 serviced come the New Year (can't do it currently as the cars under extended warranty)
And £600 feels steep TBH; about £450 is right
Magnum 475 said:
d_a_n1979 said:
That's because BMW state the life of the box is 100k; whereas ZF state 60-80k miles... As said, go with what ZF state, not BMW
I'll be getting my ZF8 in my F31 serviced come the New Year (can't do it currently as the cars under extended warranty)
And £600 feels steep TBH; about £450 is right
This is my problem: BMW extended warranty - I wouldn't run the car without this. I suspect that a ZF transmission service would immediately result in BMW refusing any warranty claim against the gearbox if anything breaks.I'll be getting my ZF8 in my F31 serviced come the New Year (can't do it currently as the cars under extended warranty)
And £600 feels steep TBH; about £450 is right
t?d_a_n1979 said:
Yup; that's why I'm not touching anything on my car until Jan 2024; which is when the warranty runs out & I won't be extending it
Why won't you be extending it out of interest? I am already £1700 better off this year,when stuff goes wrong these days it costs a lot of money doesn't it.
smashy said:
d_a_n1979 said:
Yup; that's why I'm not touching anything on my car until Jan 2024; which is when the warranty runs out & I won't be extending it
Why won't you be extending it out of interest? I am already £1700 better off this year,when stuff goes wrong these days it costs a lot of money doesn't it.
I think I'll share this as I fell into a rabbit hole whilst researching a fluid change on my F30. This might get boring and long winded, so apologies in advance.
From the horse's mouth..... all hail the ZF 8HP70 repair manual, and what a fascinating read it is too.
Anyway....
Where you can easily slide into the rabbit hole I fell into, is the last sentence in that quote. The repair manual doesn't actually specify a fluid type, and they used two types of oil. Lifeguard 9 and Lifeguard 8. One is blue, one is green, and they cannot be mixed.
Before launching into a fluid and pan/filter refresh, I would maybe take a small sample of what comes out of the drain hole, providing it's not too black from clutch dust, which in itself isn't a good sign if it is black! If anyone has any definitive info on the two flavours of oil, please do share!
From my own research, the only info I could dig up is if the car is a 2012-2014 vintage it may have the blue stuff, LG9. If it's an LCI or 2015+ or whatever, it will be the green stuff, LG8.
To further confuse matters, the ZF service kits from the aftermarket (AutoDoc et al) only come with the green stuff, which apparently covers all variants of 8HP! Whether LG9 has been phased out or not, I don't know, but is the £58 per litre ATF 3+ stuff BMW sell Lifeguard 9, or is it Lifeguard 8? I'm not paying that to find out! You need 7 litres of the stuff btw, for a refill.
This is probably why BMW refuse to get involved with trans fluid changes
:
So anyway, do as ZF say, change the oil if their criteria is met.
What I would say is the oil that came out of my 2016 330d at 57K miles was still very green and I noticed precisely nothing by way of improvement after the trans service, so if your car has led an easy life, I would say it probably doesn't need doing yet. Save your cash if the car doesn't have any abnormal gear shifting behaviour.
Take a sample as I say. If it's dark or black and stinks of clutch, do it asap. If it's still green or blue, leave it be.
If you do want to do it regardless for peace of mind, the service kit will run you about £200 from AutoDoc and my chap charged me 1.5 hours labour, so pretty cost effective. Just avoid really cheap kits. No one wants olive oil from China in their gearbox.
The reason for 1.5 hours is because of a change to the instructions in 2021, whereby they advise putting fresh oil in and then driving the car until the oil temp reaches 75 degrees, which opens the oil cooler thermostat and purges air out of it. It takes at least 20 minutes to get the oil up to that temp under normal driving, 10-15 if you gas it hard.
If you don't do that, there's a chance the gearbox will be under filled, and you will run into transmission whine issues under hard acceleration, and nobody wants that, do they. Most of the DIY guides on Youtube don't mention this.
Tread with caution. Whilst they are very simple gearboxes with only 3 sensors (as I say, the repair manual is a scintillating read) they are also very easy to mess up if the service is not carried out to the letter.
From the horse's mouth..... all hail the ZF 8HP70 repair manual, and what a fascinating read it is too.
ZF said:
Important:
The gearbox is filled with oil which will last for its full service life.
The oil only has to be replaced after the vehicle has covered between 80,000 km and 120,000 km, depending on the drive conditions, or after 8 years. (see ref. TE-ML 11)
The gearbox may only be supplied with the quantity and type of oil set out in the relevant parts list document (see SDM).
So there's a kind of word play going on from BMW, where they appear to have rejigged the wording of service life of the oil into 'sealed for life', which tends to mislead consumers into thinking it never needs changing, in spite of BMW listing their own stupidly expensive rebranded ZF fluid in their parts catalogue. VW do the same thing with their manual gearboxes. Sealed for life, never needs changing gov, but we'll sell you a litre of oil for 30 quid.The gearbox is filled with oil which will last for its full service life.
The oil only has to be replaced after the vehicle has covered between 80,000 km and 120,000 km, depending on the drive conditions, or after 8 years. (see ref. TE-ML 11)
The gearbox may only be supplied with the quantity and type of oil set out in the relevant parts list document (see SDM).
Anyway....
Where you can easily slide into the rabbit hole I fell into, is the last sentence in that quote. The repair manual doesn't actually specify a fluid type, and they used two types of oil. Lifeguard 9 and Lifeguard 8. One is blue, one is green, and they cannot be mixed.
Before launching into a fluid and pan/filter refresh, I would maybe take a small sample of what comes out of the drain hole, providing it's not too black from clutch dust, which in itself isn't a good sign if it is black! If anyone has any definitive info on the two flavours of oil, please do share!
From my own research, the only info I could dig up is if the car is a 2012-2014 vintage it may have the blue stuff, LG9. If it's an LCI or 2015+ or whatever, it will be the green stuff, LG8.
To further confuse matters, the ZF service kits from the aftermarket (AutoDoc et al) only come with the green stuff, which apparently covers all variants of 8HP! Whether LG9 has been phased out or not, I don't know, but is the £58 per litre ATF 3+ stuff BMW sell Lifeguard 9, or is it Lifeguard 8? I'm not paying that to find out! You need 7 litres of the stuff btw, for a refill.
This is probably why BMW refuse to get involved with trans fluid changes
:So anyway, do as ZF say, change the oil if their criteria is met.
What I would say is the oil that came out of my 2016 330d at 57K miles was still very green and I noticed precisely nothing by way of improvement after the trans service, so if your car has led an easy life, I would say it probably doesn't need doing yet. Save your cash if the car doesn't have any abnormal gear shifting behaviour.
Take a sample as I say. If it's dark or black and stinks of clutch, do it asap. If it's still green or blue, leave it be.
If you do want to do it regardless for peace of mind, the service kit will run you about £200 from AutoDoc and my chap charged me 1.5 hours labour, so pretty cost effective. Just avoid really cheap kits. No one wants olive oil from China in their gearbox.
The reason for 1.5 hours is because of a change to the instructions in 2021, whereby they advise putting fresh oil in and then driving the car until the oil temp reaches 75 degrees, which opens the oil cooler thermostat and purges air out of it. It takes at least 20 minutes to get the oil up to that temp under normal driving, 10-15 if you gas it hard.
If you don't do that, there's a chance the gearbox will be under filled, and you will run into transmission whine issues under hard acceleration, and nobody wants that, do they. Most of the DIY guides on Youtube don't mention this.
Tread with caution. Whilst they are very simple gearboxes with only 3 sensors (as I say, the repair manual is a scintillating read) they are also very easy to mess up if the service is not carried out to the letter.
rottenegg said:
I think I'll share this as I fell into a rabbit hole whilst researching a fluid change on my F30. This might get boring and long winded, so apologies in advance.
From the horse's mouth..... all hail the ZF 8HP70 repair manual, and what a fascinating read it is too.
Anyway....
Where you can easily slide into the rabbit hole I fell into, is the last sentence in that quote. The repair manual doesn't actually specify a fluid type, and they used two types of oil. Lifeguard 9 and Lifeguard 8. One is blue, one is green, and they cannot be mixed.
Before launching into a fluid and pan/filter refresh, I would maybe take a small sample of what comes out of the drain hole, providing it's not too black from clutch dust, which in itself isn't a good sign if it is black! If anyone has any definitive info on the two flavours of oil, please do share!
From my own research, the only info I could dig up is if the car is a 2012-2014 vintage it may have the blue stuff, LG9. If it's an LCI or 2015+ or whatever, it will be the green stuff, LG8.
To further confuse matters, the ZF service kits from the aftermarket (AutoDoc et al) only come with the green stuff, which apparently covers all variants of 8HP! Whether LG9 has been phased out or not, I don't know, but is the £58 per litre ATF 3+ stuff BMW sell Lifeguard 9, or is it Lifeguard 8? I'm not paying that to find out! You need 7 litres of the stuff btw, for a refill.
This is probably why BMW refuse to get involved with trans fluid changes:
So anyway, do as ZF say, change the oil if their criteria is met.
What I would say is the oil that came out of my 2016 330d at 57K miles was still very green and I noticed precisely nothing by way of improvement after the trans service, so if your car has led an easy life, I would say it probably doesn't need doing yet. Save your cash if the car doesn't have any abnormal gear shifting behaviour.
Take a sample as I say. If it's dark or black and stinks of clutch, do it asap. If it's still green or blue, leave it be.
If you do want to do it regardless for peace of mind, the service kit will run you about £200 from AutoDoc and my chap charged me 1.5 hours labour, so pretty cost effective. Just avoid really cheap kits. No one wants olive oil from China in their gearbox.
The reason for 1.5 hours is because of a change to the instructions in 2021, whereby they advise putting fresh oil in and then driving the car until the oil temp reaches 75 degrees, which opens the oil cooler thermostat and purges air out of it. It takes at least 20 minutes to get the oil up to that temp under normal driving, 10-15 if you gas it hard.
If you don't do that, there's a chance the gearbox will be under filled, and you will run into transmission whine issues under hard acceleration, and nobody wants that, do they. Most of the DIY guides on Youtube don't mention this.
Tread with caution. Whilst they are very simple gearboxes with only 3 sensors (as I say, the repair manual is a scintillating read) they are also very easy to mess up if the service is not carried out to the letter.
Great addition, cheers...From the horse's mouth..... all hail the ZF 8HP70 repair manual, and what a fascinating read it is too.
ZF said:
Important:
The gearbox is filled with oil which will last for its full service life.
The oil only has to be replaced after the vehicle has covered between 80,000 km and 120,000 km, depending on the drive conditions, or after 8 years. (see ref. TE-ML 11)
The gearbox may only be supplied with the quantity and type of oil set out in the relevant parts list document (see SDM).
So there's a kind of word play going on from BMW, where they appear to have rejigged the wording of service life of the oil into 'sealed for life', which tends to mislead consumers into thinking it never needs changing, in spite of BMW listing their own stupidly expensive rebranded ZF fluid in their parts catalogue. VW do the same thing with their manual gearboxes. Sealed for life, never needs changing gov, but we'll sell you a litre of oil for 30 quid.The gearbox is filled with oil which will last for its full service life.
The oil only has to be replaced after the vehicle has covered between 80,000 km and 120,000 km, depending on the drive conditions, or after 8 years. (see ref. TE-ML 11)
The gearbox may only be supplied with the quantity and type of oil set out in the relevant parts list document (see SDM).
Anyway....
Where you can easily slide into the rabbit hole I fell into, is the last sentence in that quote. The repair manual doesn't actually specify a fluid type, and they used two types of oil. Lifeguard 9 and Lifeguard 8. One is blue, one is green, and they cannot be mixed.
Before launching into a fluid and pan/filter refresh, I would maybe take a small sample of what comes out of the drain hole, providing it's not too black from clutch dust, which in itself isn't a good sign if it is black! If anyone has any definitive info on the two flavours of oil, please do share!
From my own research, the only info I could dig up is if the car is a 2012-2014 vintage it may have the blue stuff, LG9. If it's an LCI or 2015+ or whatever, it will be the green stuff, LG8.
To further confuse matters, the ZF service kits from the aftermarket (AutoDoc et al) only come with the green stuff, which apparently covers all variants of 8HP! Whether LG9 has been phased out or not, I don't know, but is the £58 per litre ATF 3+ stuff BMW sell Lifeguard 9, or is it Lifeguard 8? I'm not paying that to find out! You need 7 litres of the stuff btw, for a refill.
This is probably why BMW refuse to get involved with trans fluid changes
:So anyway, do as ZF say, change the oil if their criteria is met.
What I would say is the oil that came out of my 2016 330d at 57K miles was still very green and I noticed precisely nothing by way of improvement after the trans service, so if your car has led an easy life, I would say it probably doesn't need doing yet. Save your cash if the car doesn't have any abnormal gear shifting behaviour.
Take a sample as I say. If it's dark or black and stinks of clutch, do it asap. If it's still green or blue, leave it be.
If you do want to do it regardless for peace of mind, the service kit will run you about £200 from AutoDoc and my chap charged me 1.5 hours labour, so pretty cost effective. Just avoid really cheap kits. No one wants olive oil from China in their gearbox.
The reason for 1.5 hours is because of a change to the instructions in 2021, whereby they advise putting fresh oil in and then driving the car until the oil temp reaches 75 degrees, which opens the oil cooler thermostat and purges air out of it. It takes at least 20 minutes to get the oil up to that temp under normal driving, 10-15 if you gas it hard.
If you don't do that, there's a chance the gearbox will be under filled, and you will run into transmission whine issues under hard acceleration, and nobody wants that, do they. Most of the DIY guides on Youtube don't mention this.
Tread with caution. Whilst they are very simple gearboxes with only 3 sensors (as I say, the repair manual is a scintillating read) they are also very easy to mess up if the service is not carried out to the letter.
This is why I'll be leaving it to Grant & his lads at Automatic Transmissions, Preston to do the service on my ZF8
They're ZF specialists and know what they're doing... Happy to pay for that and the warranty/peace of mind etcFox- said:
d_a_n1979 said:
That's because BMW state the life of the box is 100k
Where do they state this?It's well known
Whether it's written down I don't know
Bit of blurb here: https://blog.fcpeuro.com/bmw-lifetime-transmission...
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