Last weekend, I was itching to do "something" so I decided to change the oil on my old BMW 545i myself. It seemed simple enough. A while back, I had already got a pack of 2 filters from Ebay for 8$ each and I had also bought 8 quarts of synthetic oil last year when they were on sale at Checker for only $3.95 per quart. This project had been on the back burner for quite a while now.
My car has been out of the free service period so I've been taking it to an independent BMW service that charges around $70 per oil change, which is not bad at all.Until I bought this car, I had always done my own oil service so I did feel a little uncomfortable letting others do it for me. Anyway, I thought I would get some hand-on experience and save some money doing it myself.
I did a quick skim of some BMW forums, checked the BMW TIS e-documents (bought from Ebay!) and it looked straight forward:
- Remove the protected plate (the oil filter is on the bottom for the 545i engine)
- Remove the filter drain plug
- Drain oil
- Remove the filter housing
- Replace with new filter
- Reinstall everything
- Add oil
Well, what I neglected to read carefully is that there's a separate oil drain plug further back. Only 1 quart of old oil came out of the filter drain but I didn't notice this or it didn't click until latter after I had reassembled everything added 4 quarts of new oil to the engine!Here is the real drain plug!
I was in a shocked and confused state and didn't think to search for the "real" drain plug. Instead, I ran out to the local part store and bought an oil extractor.
I used this to suck out 11 quarts of oil! It actually worked pretty good even though it was slow.
So eventually, all the old+new oil mixture was taken out and luckily, I have another 8 quarts of synthetic oil bought for my wife's car that could be used to refill the engine.
Phew! finally after $75 for the pump + $4*4 quarts of wasted oil +$5*8 quarts of oil + $8 filter + $12 of socket tools (for the drain plug), I completed the job for $151.
Oh well, it was not a total failure. I did completed the job and I now have the evacuation pump and the extra socket tools to use on another day.
By the way, I reset the oil service reminder using this link.
