Do It Yourself?

[The Ben]

So growing up I've always heard how much BMW maintenance costs, and on top of that that it's a serious pain in the butt to work on these cars on your own. Does anyone here do their own maintenance, and if so, is it really all that much of a hassle? I'm not talking anything major here, just oil changes, brake jobs, work on the suspension...

[TMac325is]

doing it yourself on these cars is fun, atleast from my experience

[nukeduster]

Originally posted by TMac325is@May 13 2005, 03:46 PM
doing it yourself on these cars is fun, atleast from my experience

[snapback]344306[/snapback]

i enjoy working on bmws more then anything else... ive worked on alot of other makes and currently work on caddys and h2's for a living and bmws i dont dread working on. unless its a 7 series. then you can just kill yourself already. (i hate troubleshooting electrical problems)

the older the car the easier it is to work on, in general. anything pre 1996 is the easiest for a home mechanic.. although obd-ii has made the life of real mechanics alot easier.

[Mad_Milo]

While I never seriously wrenched on my cars, I always dabbled with the little things to get them back to where they should be. I just got my first bimmer, and with my trusty Bentley, a set of metric tools, and a few great forums, I am now in the middle of replacing the timing belt, v-belts, oil seals, and coolant hoses.

And thats just my first round!

If you are mechanically inclined, other than screwing everything up, start small and go for it. Get a Bentley manual, even if its from the library for a few weeks. Get some decent tools like Craftsman, or similar. Get under the hood and start looking around for the little things that don't work, or need replaced.

You'll get a helluva lot more satisfaction driving the car that you now intimately know of under the hood. You may even know what to do when it still strands you on the side of the road! ghead

[draculia]

e30s are extremely easy cars to work on.

[Nostaticatall]

"Does anyone here do their own maintenance, "



Probably most of the guys here do all there own maintainance
Do some reading from the manuals, go talk story with a BMW
mechanic ,get a feel for it . Monkying around wrenching on the
bimmer is real similar to working on my VW's...
.......back in the day...... har har..

the E-30 is a fun car to work on.

Go for it....

[9x16]

you just have to think you can do it.
Not being afraid that you cant.

[e30driver]

its easy to work on (at first itll be a challenge though) but youll get used to it, then it gets fun. for e30's you have a lot of room to move in so no problem!!!! just take your time and dont forget to do all the little details!!

[Bmw1990]

Very nice cars to work on. I have replaced control arms, tierods, sway bar links, distributor cap, and spark plugs. New rotors, new pads, new fuel filter...list continues. My point is that they are easy and a pleasure to work on!

[The Ben]

Well these are all certainly positive sounding responses! Thanks.

I guess my next oil change (at the least) will be on me...

[Kowalski]

Originally posted by The Ben@May 14 2005, 05:02 PM
Well these are all certainly positive sounding responses! Thanks.

I guess my next oil change (at the least) will be on me...

[snapback]344566[/snapback]

i agree these cars are easy to work on and it makes driving it so much more enjoyable because you know everything thats going on and like somone before said if it strands you you can usualy find a temporary way to get it running to get you home. iv done controll arms tie rods, engine swap rebuild the head reground cams, clutch, and a whole bunch of other things i forget, just jump in think you can do it and if you get stuck give a buddy a call. on top of the nice craft. pro. tools get yourself some cheap ass shitty tools that you can bend and modify to make the "special" tools that you need for your car, iv got a whole shelf full of those... anyways good luck and happy wrenching.