Inspection II kits- worth it?

[squashman702]

Sorry if this has been covered already, did some searching but didn't come up with anything. I'm at just over 130k miles, and I don't have a record of the PO doing an Inspection II. Are the kits put together by ECS, Turner, etc, worth it or am I better off piecing together the components myself? Good to order with oil and other fluids, or is that something I should grab from Wallyworld/Amazon? I have a pretty solid mechanical knowledge, but am thinking about picking up a Bentley manual as well- worth the $90ish?

[ryankokesh]

Bentley is always a good investment in your sanity.

For what it's worth, if there's a kit for what I'm doing from ECS et al I usually just get it.


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[UdubBadger]

Same, the ECS kit for InspII was good, I did mine at 100k

[NoVAphotog]

Sorry if this has been covered already, did some searching but didn't come up with anything. I'm at just over 130k miles, and I don't have a record of the PO doing an Inspection II. Are the kits put together by ECS, Turner, etc, worth it or am I better off piecing together the components myself? Good to order with oil and other fluids, or is that something I should grab from Wallyworld/Amazon? I have a pretty solid mechanical knowledge, but am thinking about picking up a Bentley manual as well- worth the $90ish?

I found that ordering from my local BMW dealer (BMW of Fairfax) and spending the time piecing together my own kit was worthwhile. I saved a good amount of the "convenience cost" not to mention the shipping picking it up to and from work. The kits are worth it if you really do not feel like thinking about it and want to just get to work and know that they should include everything you'll need.

Personally, I bought a Bentley manual, but have really only used it a handful of times to verify torque values against what was already online in DIYs. The DIYs you'll find on here, e46fanatics, youtube and elsewhere are leaps and bounds more in depth that what is in that book. It is one of the "nice to have" type of things, but nothing that is in there can't be found by just some Google searching. I'd put that $90 towards the Inspection II materials.

Here are some threads of mine on the subject when I did it at 60k. Considering your car is about where I'll need to do Inspection II again the material is relevant:

http://www.zhpmafia.com/forums/showthread.php?12778-60k-mile-service-Inspection-II-Inquiry-(window-regulator-bonus-inquiry)

http://www.zhpmafia.com/forums/showthread.php?13565-The-Scarlett-Thread...Daniel-NoVAphotog-s-Project-and-Maintenance-Thread

The second link is to my car's thread, read through the maintenance log and you can see all the the Inspection II items I completed and what products I used. I would change the oil with Mobil 1 OW-40 instead of the BMW oil. And since you live in MA, mix the Redline MTL fluid with Redline ATF fluid as it will help with shifting in the cold as far as what I have read. I went with straight MTL and haven't had any issues sub-40, but we'll see. Remember, the beauty of DIY Inspection II is you do not have to schedule it all at once, space it out, do the jobs right and learn the car. The fuel filter was probably the "hardest" of all of them...even though mine came out/installed easily we took a bath in gasoline which is not the best feeling in the world...

You can do as folks mentioned when I asked about it and take it to a shop for a "no parts inspection" if you want another general overlook when you are done. :thumbsup

[BADCLOWN]

On my old ZHP, I pieced my "kit" together almost exclusively from AutohausAZ and Besian. I also did a TON more stuff than recommended haha.

my service II included:

front pads/rotors/sensors, plugs/coils, VCG, fuel/air/cabin/oil filter, redline fluids for trans/diff, Besian vanos revamp, belts, gaskets out the wazoo, and whatever else that service II covered (I'm sure I'm missing items as well). i think parts/labor it cost me a $1000.