Quote:
Originally Posted by Wattens
I personally would but pretty much because of age of the oil (most DCT fluids have an acceptable shelf life of around 5 years before fallout happens, sometimes earlier if the car isn't driven much) rather than anything else. It's not so much a mileage thing for me.
When mine gets to around 5 years maximum (if I still have it then), I'll get it flushed and changed.
From a wear aspect, although the filter and magnetism should stop most of these issues from causing more problems, it's not 100%, and to also test at the same time and measure what wear metals and how much are present at the time to see if there is a more costly issue starting to creep up.
No gearbox at the moment is "fill for life" in any technology. What is fill for life? From an OEM aspect, it is merely the warranty period and nothing more. Usually, when cars finish their manufacturer's warranty, it's not their problem anymore. OEM's are under pressure to get fleet business as that is where the market is going in the developed world. If there is less maintenance in the "fleet period" usually less than 5 years, it makes that vehicle more attractive to the fleet companies, the issues will happen to the cars but from their perspective, hopefully after the fleet companies have turned the vehicle over to a second-hand private owner or the private buyer who bought it new has upgraded to the next model before any issues have occurred.
Then the spare parts division kicks in to play with very expensive genuine OEM parts aimed at the second and third owner of the vehicle.
Full disclosure, I'm an automotive lubricant product manager for ExxonMobil. OEM's are using my product range in their factory fills and I've had lengthy discussions at different levels about this but they don't care about the wrong use of "fill for life".
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Thank you for your detailed writeup
I am not a fan of "out of warranty is none of my business" strategy by the manufacturers, but I understand why they did it.
By replacing DCT fluid every 5 years, do you mean 5 years after the manufacture date or my purchase date, since my car sat in the dealership for a while before I bought it.
Btw, how often do you usually change your engine oil on your M2? I drive around 10,000km (6,200mi) per year and it is mostly city driving. I don't drive really hard but not like a grandpa. So I am wondering if I should get an oil change between the BMW maintenance plan of once per year. And should I also replace the rear diff fluid with the DCT fluid (every 5 years)?