What is the life span of a BMW 3 series transmission?

[Georgen]

The transmission on my 2002 honda civic with 90k miles blew out despite getting the fluid replaced every 30k miles..
If i buy a bmw 3 series how many miles does the transmission last as in general its life span?

[Manolito]

I have lost track of who builds what for who, but there are only a handful of companies in the world building automatic transmissions for 50+ auto manufacturers.

If you track such things, you know that it is extremely rare for a Honda transmission to fail that young unless you were pulling a heavy trailer with it or manually shifting it. You might buy 10 more Hondas and every one would go a quarter-million miles without failure.

The rule of thumb for a BMW transmission is about 200k miles assuming no abuse, just about the same as for any other make that matches the transmission and cooling to the load. Some of the early Chrysler minivans ate automatic transmissions every 50k miles, but those vehicles had lots of design problems other then just the transmission choice.

[rhogg]

BMW 3 series autos in the E46 (to 2006?) are either ZF or GM europe and are both prone to high failure rates. They are lifetime fill transmissions which doesn't help. Alternatively the manuals are considered bombproof (Getrag) The 3 series is a much better car with a manual in any event. I have 2 bimmers and while really good cars the newer they are the less well built they are, and there are many more "systems" to go wrong. There is a reason BMW resale prices are in the tank unless they have a dealer CPO warranty.

100K is the expected auto life. Mine lasted 75K. It is now a 5 speed and so much better for it.