smashingly

OK, the oil change is done! By god that was an ordeal though. The whole slabs-of-wood thing was a total ball-ache as I knew it would be, and resulted in a sub-optimal draining because I couldn't get the back raised as much as the front (I stuffed up on the jack specs). On the upside, I did manage to get the front high enough to fit my axle stands underneath as failsafes (i.e. not positioned in a good spot to take actual load, but sitting underneath a strong enough point to save my life, albeit it would do a bit of damage to the underbelly pan but that'd still beat having my skull crushed). Things I learned: The oil was pretty dirty. Not the worst I've seen (i.e. when I was a teenager with no income and my old beater cars would have pretty nasty black looking waste oil). Don't know what the last owner's mechanics put in it, or if they just lied and didn't change the oil... but if I believe their windscreen sticker then the oil was changed only 6200km ago. Seems a bit suss to me. Maybe the previous owner flogged it particularly hard or tracked it. I also noticed when I drained my oil drain pan that it seemed like the bottom layer of oil on the bottom of the pan was particularly viscous compared to the rest of the waste oil I'd poured out. Hard to know as it had had 2 hours worth of cooling. I stuffed up when I bought the smaller jack (I went for a 1350kg one for using on the rear of the car, mainly out of stupid cheapskatedness) - I thought its max lifting height was the same as my bigger jack, but I mis-read the label - its max height is 50mm lower. So that meant I couldn't get more than 1 wood-slab under the rear wheels, and that meant the rear of the car was 90mm lower than the front. As I waited for the oil to finish draining, I thought about ways to get the back end level with the front, thought of a couple of ways, and nearly tried one before realising that as I had no wheel-chocks, it would be suicidal as the rear would be off the blocks momentarily and the car could (worst-case) roll forward or backward. The garage floor is level, but who wants to take the risk? (and stupid of me for not buying chocks in any case). I was surprised how far down that filter-housing cavity goes (the small 8-10mm hole that holds a seemingly infinitely deep pool of old oil. Next time I'll get a turkey-baster. Even though today's lifting method didn't optimally drain the sumps completely, now that I know how bad the old oil was, I'm still glad I did it. I'm going on a road trip WLG to AKL early next week and I couldn't find any (competent) mechanics who could change the oil before then - so this is still a better situation than I was in before hopefully. Other stuff I did - I pre-filled the oil filter housing with a similar amount of fresh oil to the amount of old oil that I'd had to soak up. I also primed the oil filter with fresh oil. I filled it with 8.6L of oil, didn't go for the full 8.8L as I estimate that there might be 100mL still lurking in the sump due to the back end being lower than the front, and I figured I'd probably put about 100mL into the filter housing and the filter itself when priming it. I've never hated the no-dipstick thing more, than when I had to start the engine!! It's a real moment of truth eh! But unlike some of the Youtube videos of this oil change, where their engine makes a pretty horrid rattle for a few seconds after initial startup, mine sounded fine.. So I took it for a (ridiculously gentle) drive then when the oil was hot enough and the iDrive started saying "measuring oil level", found a flat level street and idled whilst it did that. And boom, I got it pretty spot on - it's exactly halfway between min and max, with no warnings to add more. I turned the engine off on that same flat street, oil at approx 100ºC and restarted it to get another measurement - same result. Drove it back home and tidied everything up. Started it again to put it in the garage and let it take another reading - same result. Will give it a few days then add another 200mL or so to see if I can get it closer to the max line (if only to dilute that old crappy ~100mL of oil I couldn't get out!) So the main lesson learned is that my way was a sucky way to do it, but that I'm still glad I got it done so my car has at least 98% fresh oil in it, and a fresh filter - better than nothing, and really great to break the seal on this job, which I was finding daunting - it's so different changing the oil on a high tech expensive (for me) vehicle like this, compared to the old dungers I worked on in my teens and twenties. Service-time is coming up in a months or so, so I'll get the oil changed again then, and that should hopefully get the last of the previous owner's crappy oil out. I know it probably seems retarded to change the oil so soon before a service, but I knew the old oil would be sh** and I didn't want to torture my new baby any longer, given that I'm going on a 2000km road trip. Thanks heaps for all the pointers about jacking - the fact that I went ahead and did it my way anyway does *not* mean that I dismissed or didn't value your advice - I specifically posted about my jacking plans to get your valuable feedback (and avoid death). I took it all onboard and thought carefully about your suggestions but was constrained mainly due to timeframes vs availability of better jacks/etc. I think next time I want to be able to get it onto 4x axle stands, to get more of the oil out. Will check out those links @B.M.W Ltd - cheers. Thankyou all for your help and for making it all the way through this long post ?

Which ones, and how wide are they? Are they a flat enough slope to use on the front wheels? I'd researched the Repco ones and they didn't look wide enough (not for the rear 265/35s anyway). Didn't get around to checking approach angle (i.e. to see if they'd foul on the underside).

Yup, I checked clearance the other day, it's about 110-115mm and my jack's minimum lifting height is 135mm, but also the body of the jack slopes upwards from front to back, so that stops me from sliding it under any part of the car. I thought about driving the front wheels onto 45mm thick timber slabs that I have (300mm wide) but even that wouldn't increase the clearance enough - I'd need to go dump $455 @ Repco for a lower profile jack. I realise the way I'm doing it isn't optimum, but I'm constrained by time and don't have time to get low profile ramps, then I'd happily jack it up on the centre point then use stands on the sides. Edit: I dunno if it's 110-115mm or not, it might be 120-125mm, I just remember that it was enough to fit my Bahco tape measure (100mm body length) plus 1-1.5cm of the tape, maybe a bit more. The main snag is the frame of the jack, can't get it in from behind the wheels, or in front of the car, not without pre-raising it with ramps (or using the 2nd jack).

OK, in that case I'll get a 2nd trolley jack so that I can jack up both the front/rear side jackpoints evenly, i.e. front/left + rear/left. Then put 150mm thick wood blocks under the left side wheels, then lowering the jacks onto the blocks, then jack up the right side, blocks under wheels. Then jacks under front/left + front/right jackpoints as safeties (or stands, if I can fit them). That way there'll be no twisting, except for minor differences in how evenly I operate the two jacks. Edit: gonna order low-profile ramps so that next time around I can do this job with jacks + stands - just can't get decent ramps in Wellington, and need to change the oil this weekend before a road-trip early next week.

Another related question about jacking: Re: jacking the car up via the four jacking points that are just under the car along the left and right hand sides. Is it a bad idea to jack the car up by one of those jack points at a time? (e.g. right front jackpoint, the one below the driver's door). Maybe puts undue twisting stress on the chassis or something? I realise the chassis gets twisting forces on it anyway, but, y'know, new-owner paranoia... (worse than being a new parent, lol)

Legend! Thanks man, really appreciate the quick reply, I’m about to head out to Wingers to pick up the OEM filter kit, so now I know I don’t need to pay over the odds for BMW-branded oil! Didn’t spot the M-approved bit on Repco, doh. Thanks for pointing that out!

Hi guys, Just wanted to check the two Castrol EDGE 10W-60 Titanium offerings that Repco has and to clarify what people have been saying in this discussion... Based on what this forum discussion says, my interpretation is that the official BMW-supplied TWS 10W-60 is equivalent to the Castrol EDGE 10W-60 Titanium “Supercar” oil (https://www.repco.co.nz/en/brands/castrol/castrol-edge-10w-60-5l/p/A1304624). Is that correct? Then there’s the Castrol EDGE Titanium 10W-60 which on Repco’s website says “Synthetic” (the supercar stuff doens’t say “Synthetic”). https://www.repco.co.nz/en/brands/castrol/castrol-edge-synthetic-10w-60-5l/p/A1262119. From the forum discussion I understand that this is a different formulation to the BMW TWS / EDGE Supercar oil, according to a previous poster who contacted a Castrol NZ rep. Correct? So my gut says to either: A: Out of paranoia buy the official BMW stuff from Winger BMW for $150 per 5L... OR B: Get the EDGE 10W-60 Supercar from Repco (the first link I pasted above), $91-ish per 5L (temporarily on special). No plans to track the car, it’s a weekend driver, but it’ll get a flogging occasionally. My goal here is to put the ‘right’ oil into it according to factory specs etc. Can anyone just confirm my statements above - sorry to be a pain, this car is my new baby and I wanna be good to it