Oil Pan Gasket replacement question

[pfschim1]

I originally posted this in another members Oil Pan Gasket thread but thought I'd do a new posting to see if I could get any replies.

My 2015 MSport X1 35i XDrive just about to hit 40k miles.

I'm past BMW warranty about a year. Car has been great since I bought it new and has only required standard maintenance and new rubber when the original run flats wore out. At 40k over 5 years I clearly don't drive the car too much. I do push it at times, but not beyond its capabilities.

I did regular maintenance on the X1 with BMW while it was covered. Since then I have used qualified indy shops to do the basics (Oil change, tires etc.).

Recently the car developed a coolant leak and I took it to BWM. They charged me $250 to diagnose the coolant leak issue. Turns out it was a cracked coolant reservoir. They charged me $605 to replace that, so with the diagnosis and the reservoir replacement, I paid $855 for this work ... which seems high ... even for a BMW dealership.

In the process of checking the car the tech reported the car needed the oil pan gasket replaced and quoted $2,300 (!). Now I understand that this repair is complicated by the the location of the oil pan and that much of the front end of the car has to be removed to just get at the oil pan to replace the gasket. But this seems like a very high price and I have not seen any sign of an oil leak ... no oil on the driveway, no loss of oil as measured by the cars monitoring system or by checking the dip stick. I did find a local qualified indy shop that quoted me $1,500 for the same repair ($800 less than BMW!) but I am still a bit leery of kicking down this kind of $$ for a repair that may not be needed.

Any thoughts on this ? anything I should be looking for to validate that there is actually a leak ?

I am not qualified or equipped to do the work my self (sadly) like the OP.

[e36addict]

The oil pan job itself is around 12hrs book time. I'd say around $1500 sounds about right. At the dealer it would be quite a bit more than that I'd think. The pan can leak for quite some time into the lower splash shields before it shows any signs on the ground. At that point, the whole undercarriage is a complete mess. Best to catch it early on.

[pfschim1]

ok, thanks for the reply. Good to understand that the leak could be very non-obvious to a non-tech like me.
I understand the repair is more time consuming than anything else ... it's not so hard, just takes a lot of time to take out all the front end parts to get at the oil pan to replace the gasket. I have the indy shop queued up to to the job. A friend of mine uses this shop for work on his Z4 and recommends them pretty highly.

I guess the bigger question I'm asking myself here is, after 5 years/40k miles of pretty problem free driving, will I now start to have a bunch of $1-2k major maintenance problems with my X1.

[solidsleeper]

At 50k miles, I think technically nothing needs to be done, but depending on car age/usage/environment valve cover gasket and/or oil filter housing gasket could be leaking oil and you're water pump/thermostat might be susceptible to failure/leaking. If it were my car, I would get all fluids replaced coolant, differentials front&rear, transmission, transfer case, brake fluid, power steering fluid

You could be lucky and not need any of these maintenance/repair items or you could be really lucky and have a failing/leaking water pump, leaking/cracked valve cover, leaking oil filter housing gasket, leaking coolant from radiator. Worst case scenario, you could be looking at $4,500 in maintenance from a nice indie shop or up to +$10k from the dealership based on what they charged you for the coolant reservoir lol. I hope I'm not discouraging you too much here.

Things to consider at 50-60K

coils/plugs (I believe BMW suggests 60k for spark plugs and coils might be good for 120k?)
front&rear differentials/transmission/transfer case fluids (I'd assume BMW interval is 60K for diff/transfer case and lifetime for transmission)
Valve Cover gasket - check for leak/seeping oil, most of the times it leaks onto the downpipe or turbo exahust manifold and causes white smoke/smell under hood
Oil filter housing gasket - check for leak/seeping oil, if it leaks onto serpentine belt then you'll have bigger issues like a toasted motor
Serpentine belt/pulleys - if OFH has been leaking on it, may want to preventive change
Water pump/thermostat - common for water pump to fail
Coolant fluid change if water pump hasn't failed

60K below copied from https://www.bimmerfest.com/threads/b...enance.931666/

Change cabin air filter every 2nd oil change. (same interval as Brake fluid change according to CBS)
Change the engine air filter every 3rd engine oil change. (inspect more often if higher dusty conditions)
Change spark plugs every 4th engine oil change or 60,000 miles.
Change Oxygen sensor @ 120,000 miles

[solidsleeper]

I would ask your shop doing your oil pan gasket, if they recommend doing an alignment after or if it's included in the cost already. I'm assuming they have to remove the subframe, so probably an alignment would be recommended.

[pfschim1]

I need to replace the tires anyway, so an alignment is already planned after the oil pan gasket work gets done and I get new rubber on it.

As far as your other comments, geez, that's pretty ridiculous amount/list of maintenance work. Are you saying this is likely or just possible ? The car is just turning 40k miles now (after 5+ years) so I'm not driving it very hard and I did all the recommended BWM std maintenance while it was under warrantee.

About the oil leak (BMW tech report says its an "active leak"). If the car was leaking oil, wouldn't I expect to see that reflected in the system oil level check ... or at least by checking the dip stick ?

[solidsleeper]

Haha yes it's just a possibility. I'm painting more of a worst case scenario.

I bought a used X1 2013 35i (7/2012 production) with 43k miles, so perhaps yours is in much better shape since you know the history of your car and you have a 2015. After about 6 months, I had a leaking radiator (replaced), leaking valve cover gasket (I opted to replace whole valve cover), & a buzzing boost solenoid (replaced).

At 55k miles, now my water pump is going out (pump speed not reaching DME requested speed). But I had MHD Sport Cooling for about 7k miles which makes the water pump work a little harder (although keeps coolant temps down). I've been tuned for about 5k miles on MHD stg1/2 and who knows what the previous owners had done regarding modification/tune.

Regarding the "active leak" it could be actively leaking or seeping so you wouldn't notice a huge drop in oil level. Most of the times you can get away with minor oil leaks, but if you plan to keep the car for at least 3-5 more years, I'd go ahead and get the leaks taken care sooner rather than later. If your not looking to spend the money and plan to dump the car in 1-2 years, I'm sure you could get away with holding off on the leaks if you're not adding frequently adding oil.

[pfschim1]

I had another local indy shop check my car for the oil leak and got some good news. They said what I am dealing with is an "oil seep" where the gasket seal is precipitating a bit of oil every month or so. Its apparently not even hitting the pan, it just evaporates. This would explain why I have not experienced any measurable oil loss from the system check or checking the dipstick.

So, good news there. As I currently expect to keep the car for some time, I will probably get the gasket seal replaced early next year. The 2nd shop also quoted around $1,500 for the job.