u/ImNoRickyBalboa

2010 BMW 218i xDrive (N51)

These engines are such absolute champs as long as you take care of them. Recently did all fluids including trans, VTG and diffs, new spark plug and filters.

The coils have 50k in them, the injectors are still factory. The car is purring like a kitten, shifting buttery smooth both when driving easy or when flooring it. Rough running metrics barely make it above 1 even when stomping on it.

I love this car, been owning it for 15 years now, and buying it was one of the best decisions I ever made. 2009-2011 N52/N51 is hands down peak BMW.

2010 BMW 328i xDrive 115k

As I posted recently here, I was slightly terrified about the amount of rust on my transmission oil pan. This being the first time the pan is coming off (previous was only drain and fill), I gave it a little revival. Wire brushed and scraped the lose rust, rust reformer followed by Seymour Alumi Blast.

I'm pretty happy about the result. The oil change was mostly uneventful. I spent $5 on PVC pipe and a T piece for extracting the seal which worked great.

In the 3 days I spend painting and letting the paint cure, about an extra quart dripped out. Refilling took 6.5 Liqui Moly liter bottles which is likely a direct result (I did final fill at 38C, letting it drip until it hit 40C)

The only snafu was of my own making: I didn't refit the driver side of the exhaust damper bracket before mounting the pan, and that bolt does not clear the edge of the pan... After considering and rejecting lowering the transfer case or violence, I simply ground 2mm of the bolt which made it pass the pan's edge. 🥲

The filter looks clean to me, the pieces of glitter in the corner are from me ripping the metal corners of the filter housing. Otherwise there's very little black debris and only small hints of metal. But I have no idea what they typically look like.

All in all, very satisfying and my fears (shearing bolts, fighting filter seal, etc) were as usual unfounded.

Here's a tip for how to reset your transfer case without a high end scanner or the ISTA tools.

The only thing you need is the Deep OBD tool (iPhone or android) which is free, and a compatible ELM327 blue tooth reader. I use the Vgate vLinker MC Bluetooth 3.0 which supports specific protocols like D-CAN allowing you much more access.

I explicitly used the ediabas tool for the reset as the standard jobs screen didn't stick for reasons. In the ediabas tool you open the prg file d_vgvs.prg, and then as per my screen shots you can see the 2 STEUERN jobs you need to run.

I also included before and after reset shots, I'm no expert, but from what I can see, the 1477kwh and 38° calibration indicate this transfer case has plenty more miles left in it.

Shoot me a PM if you need help with the Deep OBD tool or procedures.

So today I did the dreaded drain and fill of the transfer case. I may post separately about that as the struggle was real.

I am kind of slightly worried about the amount of rust on the transmission oil pan over the last few years. I am up for a transmission drain and fill with a new pan and filter.

But I am worried that the rust is also reflective of the state of the bolts. How likely is it that bolts will snap here? Should I start looking for high quality extractors matching these bolts? Will I risk stripping out transmission case threads?