What's your oil change procedure?

[Fasttimes7]

So I thought I had everything to do my first oil change in my recently acquired e89 but ran into several blockers I didn't see coming and couldn't proceed.

My ramps I have ended up being too high for the low front of the car, so that was a bust. I had used them in the past for my Cayman but in that case I backed up on the ramps. I guess I just assumed it'd work, duh on my part that it was driven up in the rear.

So then I thought I'd jack up the car and put jack stands. But after reading up I saw that BMWs have a different type of jack point on the car and you should use "jack pads" that have a slot? That threw me off. I didn't want to damage the car so screw that for now. I ordered some "jack pads" but they won't be here for a few more days.

Then I saw you can drive up the car on something like a 2x4 and then get your jack under the front and use the center pad to lift the car. So I did this, drove the car up on some leveling pads I have for my RV and then was able to get my 3-ton jack under the car and lift up the car. I intended to lift the car and then put jack stands on both sides. Well, this did not work out as the 3-ton jack could not lift the car high enough for me to be able to get my jack stands under it.

So, at this point I threw in the towel. I have since ordered some lower profile jack stands and got them now but have not tried yet.

I'm thinking what I do is when the jack pads come I'll just jack up the passenger side where the oil plug is high enough to fit one of the new jack stands on the other pad. Release the plug, drain oil, then remove stand so level and let all oil out. Then jack back up, put new washer and then plug in. Then lower again and proceed with remainder of oil change tasks.

Or is there some obvious other procedure that I'm missing here to make this easier?

[GerryC]

One trick I use is to use some 2x10 lumber to 'extend' your ramps so you can drive up on them.

Start with a single 2x10 just long enough to get on the 2x10 before your bumper hits the ramp. Add another or two shorter ones on top to make the transition to the actual ramp.

Gerry

[Drummer$Dude]

I just changed the oil in my Z4 e89 35i for the first time myself. Previously I had always had a local independent German car specialty shop do it.

I bought the plastic ramps from Harbor Freight which worked out great. I have a a 3 ton low profile jack but with the car level in the garage I couldn’t get the jack under the car far enough to reach the central jack point which is right in front of the oil pan drain plug.

Once the car was on the ramps I used the jack to lift the car so I could get the jack stands in place.

You can buy the aluminum jack point pucks from Amazon and they are not expensive.