[FrankL]

I will vent first at replacing plastic 320i oil pan after 75,000 miles with an aluminum one. My mechanic is very good and as fair as possible but he said it is all day labor to move sub frame. He said look it up if you don't believe me. I sure wish BMW would make metal or aluminum valve covers and oil pans. Competition is only getting tougher. Toyota-Lexus V-6 twin turbos are a disaster. There stuff is now as expensive as BMW.

Pretty bizarre seeing Chinese car fan boys on this forum.

My mechanic was working on a newish Kia smaller SUV. The lady owner went to the dealer with a clunking sound when she turned the wheel. They wanted to charge her about $3,000 to replace rack and pinion parts. My mechanic found that a steering bolt and another axle bolt were loose. He tightened them up and problem solved.

If you have a wife, daughter, sister or mother - never let them go to car service or a mechanic alone.

[25 V8 IS]

Hence why I love my normally aspirated 2UR-GSE in my IS 500. Great (enough) power and rock solid reliability (and don't mention the valley plate leak because that is for high mileage 2UR-GSEs that didn't flush the coolant before it happened).

[chassis]

This question has an answer:

How are dealer service advisors trained, so that customer abuse and attempted deception is entirely common across brands and geographies?

[eelnoraa]

BWM RWD base car are all like that. In order to replace oil pan, or oil pan gasket, you will need to loosen subframe. May not need to drop entirely, but sure need to lower it. Then shimmy the old pan out, then shimmer the new pan in. I have done this myself on my e46, which is a much simpler car than current 3 series. The subframe part of this job was there. There are lot of other things needs to be removed in order to loose subframe too, such as control arm, steering rack .... And do not complain about RWD, AWD will be worse.

All day of labor (8 hours) is fair. I spend 10 hours just take take off the old pan at home. Then put it back in with new gasket, then put everything else back, took me another 5-6 hours.

Now, not to defend plastic pan, even with aluminum pan, the gasket will leak in time. Job is the same.

Originally Posted by 25 V8 IS

Hence why I love my normally aspirated 2UR-GSE in my IS 500. Great (enough) power and rock solid reliability (and don't mention the valley plate leak because that is for high mileage 2UR-GSEs that didn't flush the coolant before it happened).

IS, when it is time to replace oil pan gasket, the job will be similar, involve loosen subframe.