Well, in light of my recent purchase, which is my first high mileage automatic BMW, I thought I'd start a little poll to see what kind of life people are getting out of their automatics.

So, automatic owners, how's yours holding up?

I'll start:

1995 525i
105,000 miles
Original transmission
No record of fluid changes or other service (but coming soon....)

Car I am getting has got 140k or so, 93 525, tranny just went out. As a side note, I found a place here local, reman tranny, converter, intalled with warranty for a bit under $1800. I figure if I can get at least 100k out of this, put the car at 250k miles, seems reasonable enough.

93 525i. 115,500 miles, slight and rare hesitation to downshift when rolling slowly, other than that it's totally fine. Car has records of all services up through and past Inspection I, but none after that. It may just need to be flushed.

93 525I auto with 202,000 miles on original tranny and no problems(knock on wood ).

darron

97 528i, 137k (11k by myself). no problems so far. I wish the trans program was faster though

do 5er automatic tranmission have a repuatation to last long?

1993 525i 143k. Slight shudder taking off under moderate acceleration. Sharp stop will cause the trans to slip out of gear for a few seconds. :rolleyes

Other than that it works just fine. Does not seem to be getting any worse so hopefully it will last a few more months. :D


**Update** Finally got around to getting the trans serviced the other day. Slipping out of gear was caused by low fluid as someone indicated either in this thread or elsewhere. Shuddering was caused by a worn drive shaft support.

167k miles now and trans works great.

E39 528

100k tranny feels like its slipping.

260 000 KM's on it, no problems..

can't wait for it to go though, I want a 5spd. or something.

94 540iA 125 k, no real problems.

do 5er automatic tranmission have a repuatation to last long?

that's what I'm trying to find out. I've seen a few posts saying 100,000 is the beginning of the end, but some people have gotten past that, apparently.

Hopefully we'll get some more responses to this and we can start to get an idea.

1995 540i 100K with no problems since I changed the filter and "lifetime" fluid at 83K. Went to Redline D4 and am loving it.

Bob

92 525i 180K and counting...

92 525iT 111K Just a little slipping when startup in the am. Probably low on fluid

97 540i 32K No probs

owners would simply change the fluid every 25,000 miles or so and filters once in awhile. The e34 525i's do not have the lifetime fluid and so it is just ordinary Dexron III and needs changing on a regular basis. Many owners hear this "lifetime" crap and never bother to change it and they are the ones that are guaranteed to have problems eventually.

I have a 1991 525i (same GM tranny as all M50 engined 525i's) with 160,000 miles and the tranny has always worked great. I just traded off another 1991 525i on an e38 and it had almost 140,000 miles on the tranny and no problems at all.

Don't buy into the "lifetime" fluid garbage, no matter what BMW you have, and you will be fine. The best thing to do, when you first get one of these high mileage cars, is to drain and refill with new fluid two or three times with some driving in between. Since the fluid is very cheap, this will not cost much. Then take the pan off and change the filter and refill with fluid one more time. Each time you do this you only get about 60% pf the fluid since some of it stays in the torque converter. Doing it several times will dilute the old fluid and you will end up with mostly new fluid. This will minimize any possiblity of a total fluid flush causing "shock" to the system. I am not certain this could actually happen, but I have read about it. Since the tranny is expensive, this is what is recommended on a high mileage one that has not had regular fluid changes. Once you do this, then simply drain and refill every 25,000 miles and drop the pan and change the filter every other drain and refill and you should be fine. Many owners actually do the drain and refill on every engine oil change, but I am not quite that anal.

Dick Schneiders

Well, in light of my recent purchase, which is my first high mileage automatic BMW, I thought I'd start a little poll to see what kind of life people are getting out of their automatics.

So, automatic owners, how's yours holding up?

I'll start:

1995 525i
105,000 miles
Original transmission
No record of fluid changes or other service (but coming soon....)

97 540 with 145k driven like a race car. Shifts like a champ.

95 540i with 110k, no probs to note.

Getting inspection II next week, so we shall see if anything new comes up.........

1999 540iA, 70,000 miles, never changed, no problems. Will change somewhere in 90-100k range.

1997 e39 540i 163k. Runs like it has 60k on the clock (looks like it too!)

1994 540i 110k. 100k w/Dinan supercharger. Zero problems. Putting in a 6-speed next week, anyway, though :)

'90 525iA - 166,000 NO PROBLEMS AT ALL

'91 525iA - 112,000 it's starting to slip at times, and wont go into reverse sometiems. my dad just opened it up yesterday and found a random part inside the tranny... and we can't figure if it actually goes somewhere. damn fucking previous owners

There is no reason on Gods green Earth that $1800 is what it should cost. THe auto tranny in the 525's Ive delt with (only 3) are simple GM trannies, that would cost you 1000 maximum to rebuild were they in their respective GM platform. I dl'd the data on them, and they are pretty strightforward pieces

195K and not a problem, knock on wood. bmw sure does know how to make a strong car, i have yet to have any serious problems with her

I have a 98 540iA and the previous owners replaced the entire tranny under an extended warranty @54k miles because it had some leaking or something. The car has 97k miles on it now and it's been working fine...it better! ;P

The thing that sucks about that extended warranty is that it's supposed to be 5 years or 100k miles, but then I found out it has a $10k total limit to repairs, and you can imagine that's already been eaten up. Gaah, that's the one bad thing about these cars.

I used to have a '99 528iA that I bought new and it visited the shop a lot for glitches and stuff. It had the NAV package, sport package, etc, so I guess once u start piling up the electronics, there's more that can go wrong. ATM I'm having strange issues with my radio and the button controls on my steering wheel. Sometimes when I start her up, the radio doesn't come on and the controls on the wheel don't work. Then it'll suddenly start working while I'm driving and scare the crap outta me!

The thing that sucks about that extended warranty is that it's supposed to be 5 years or 100k miles, but then I found out it has a $10k total limit to repairs, and you can imagine that's already been eaten up. Gaah, that's the one bad thing about these cars.


BMW CPO is ltd. to 10K? or a 3rd party warranty? :confused

165,000 miles, runs like a champ although some time I get the trans program thing and it puts itself in 3rd as a safety mode but all I need to do is get off my lazy ass and change the speed sensor to fix that problem. Doesn't happen but maybe once a month, just restart the car and its all better!

Is anyone using an auxilary cooler on their 540 auto?

'95 325is 67,000 mi.

The transmission is on a workbench somewhere with bad clutch packs, a seized piston, and a bad torque converter. I am currently battling with SCM (a.k.a. Penn Warranty) to get the repairs authorized. The worst part is that I've had the car 1 month, two weeks on the road and two weeks in the shop, and I've only put 200 miles on it!

Yeah, actually, they charged me 800 for a reman tranny and 200 for the new converter, 50 for fluid the rest was install and taxes.

'89 525 w/ 110k. Everythings fine, but there's a little slip once you get into higher RPM's. Definitely doesn't want to be pushed too far past 5000rpms.

'95 525i. 137k miles. works great and no trans program messages (knock on wood). fluid changed at every inspection II.

when it does go out, and i decide to keep the car, i'll do a 5 speed swap.

1989 525, 302000km. Tranny is fine, engine is starting to become rough and possible fuel leakage up front.