New to BMW ~ some questions...

[Karen]

Hi all,

Santa brought a 525i Touring Sedan, '94, 81,000 miles, very clean, and yes, I've fallen in love with this car! But, being new to BMW, I've got some questions and figured this was the place to go.

I need brakes. Would you recomend I take the car to a BMW dealership to have this done, or would a good quality shop be able to do this, and do it right? I guess my question is, is a brake job on a BMW as straightforward as say on an American made car?

Where can I get a list of "what should be done, and when" for this car?

Oil changes....same basic idea as the brake question ~ can some Joe at the Jiffy Lube with half a brain do the job, or are there perhaps quirks about the procedure he may not be privy to?

The nearest BMW dealership is almost three hours away, and while I do seem to be going out of my way to find an excuse to drive these days, it would be more convenient to have what work I can have done a little closer to home

Thanks in advance!

[Bob540iA]

Look in your area for a good BMW independent mechanic. Use your local BMW Car Club as a good source to find one.

You should only go to the dealer as a last resort. They are much too expensive and it sounds like in your case too far away.

Brake jobs on a BMW Are very simple, most of us do them ourselves.
I recommend replacing the rotors as well as the brake pads, especialy if you are experiencing a shimmy when braking.

Oil changes are also simple but if you are not doing it yourself i recommend using an independent verses Jiffy,Speedy Lube.

If you follow the BMW oil change interval definately use a synthetic as this interval is too long for normal oil in my opinion.

For a lot of good info on this car go to www.bimmernut.com. They have a lot of links to repair and service tips.

Good luck with your "new" BMW.

[Karen]

Bob,
Thanks for the info, and the link.

I do appreciate your help!

[blw]

I have owned several older BMWs, and taking them to a quality independent shop is VASTLY less expensive than going to the dealers. The first time I took my '86 E21 to an independent shop (for the first service after the warantee expired), I was presented with an Inspection II bill that was somewhere around a third of what I expected. I asked him why, and he said "well, you get what you pay for. When you take it to the dealer, they generally replace a part if there is any appreciable wear on it. We just replace it if you NEED to have it replaced. Our way you spend less money. Their way the car will tend to last longer."

I'm glad I stuck with him, since that E21 is still going at 225k miles, and I never had any trouble with an E30 325i that I kept for probably five years, or with our current E32 740i.

[Javier at Pelican Parts]

Karen, great car, I agree with all that as been said except for the synthetic oil part, stick to regular oil on this car castrol 20/50 is probably your best bet, and it will save you some money, keep an eye on your oil consumption stay away from the jiffy lubes. oh and get yourself a cd player if you dont have one fill it with great tunes and drive like crazy, these are fun cars to drive, and enjoy your self...

[Karen]

I've found a guy here in town whom I trust to do any needed work. Lots of positive comments, and he always seems busy (a good sign)

Previous owner has only used Castrol 10/40, and suggested I just stick with that. Would there be an advantage to switching over to 20/50?

About the CD player....yeah, thats on my list too! Question....I know they're installed in the trunk, but how do you access them? I mean, are they wired into the exsisting radio, or is there a remote, or what??

Thanks again everyone for the help.

[blw]

> CD player
They can sometimes be placed in the glove box, which is a lot more convenient but of course this takes up your in-car storage space. (I'm probably a little more sensitive to this than others since many of my cars have been convertibles.)

I can't remember how it goes with this particular radio as it's about the time BMW switched over, but I think newer ones are set up for and even pre-wired for trunk-mounted or box-mounted CD changers. However, my best guess is that yours is old enough not to be configured this way.

That means that probably you will need to replace the head unit, although you can certainly keep your speakers. If you do that, you have the option of finding a tuner/CD player that goes in-dash, or you can go with a tuner/tape deck that uses a remote CD changer. An in-dash unit almost always (99% of the time) has only one CD.

I have had a couple of the trunk-mounted changers, and I found them so inconvenient that I basically never changed CDs. (Color me lazy.) I vastly prefer the single disc players that go in-dash, and I use those a lot more.

If you drive a lot, you might also consider something like a PhatBox, which is an MP3 jukebox that acts like a CD changer. This is really cool stuff - one of my friends has the equivalent of 260 CDs in his! Not cheap, though - around $800.