It’s been a year since we checked in on my current COAL, so let’s see what has gone wrong since the warranty ended.
Nothing, I’m happy to report! We are at 72,000 miles, covering about 33,000 miles in the past 12 months.
The auto headlights do seem to be overly sensitive these days, or maybe I just never noticed this previously. They seem to go on and off a couple of times at dusk before deciding to stay on.
Early in 2022, a piece of debris flew up on the interstate from the car in front of me. It happened too quickly to be sure what it was.
The debris busted out the driver side “kidney” grille and ripped off the front license plate holder (which I think looks better, we don’t use front license plates in my state). There is also a small wavy dent in hood. I see it every day, but most people would probably not notice it. I thought about paintless dent removal, but haven’t gotten around to it.
The dealer quoted $700 to replace the kidney grille. I ordered online from another dealer for $100, and swapped it out myself in about 30 seconds. You just depress some clips along the top, the top swings outward towards you, and you lift it out.
Blue slats unique to the 740e; the small dent is a few inches to the right and just higher than the emblem.
I could have bought a used kidney grille cheaper on eBay, but, my kidneys have blue chrome trim in between the ribs, since my car is a hybrid. The first blue chrome “spear” at each end is part of the kidney grille, but each blue chrome “spear” in between is on the grille shutters that open and close (which are not part of the kidney grille, and thankfully were not damaged).
I figured the car was new and nice enough, I should spring for the right grille. I also could have replaced both kidneys with aftermarket black kidney grilles for about the same money, but I’m kind of partial to the chrome kidneys (and would still have the blue spear missing at each end).
After the bumper to bumper warranty ended, I quit going to the dealer for service. Their oil change price (up from $89 last year to $119 now) is fair enough, but, they won’t give a loaner out of warranty. And, there is no “quick lane” for oil changes. You just sit and sit if you are “waiting”. I could Uber back and forth, or get my wife to follow me….
I decided a quick change place was fine, with the right oil and filter. A local chain carries better products than most, so I roll through there for Castrol Edge Euro 0w30. I bought some BMW filters online and keep a couple in the trunk. They give a $10 credit if you bring your own filter. I pass them a couple of times a day, so I swing in if there’s no line when it’s time.
Another reason I prefer this route: the dealer uses the latest 0w20 “backwards compatible” BMW oil for gas engines released in 2017, called BMW Longlife 17 FE+, but my 2018 car has a sticker under the hood that says “SAE 0w30”. I don’t know why that is, but for longevity’s sake I’d rather go with the 0w30.
Another interesting quirk: my car’s EPA sticker under the hood states it is “2016” model year compliant. Was my (slow selling 7 Series eDrive) powertrain built that long before the car? The door jamb sticker says “11/2017”, and the build sheet says the car was completed on November 21, 2017. Perhaps the earlier completion of the powertrain explains the 0w30 sticker.
The car calls for a change in 10,000 miles when the service interval is reset, but then it stretches out to about 12,000 miles. Maybe this is due to it taking hybrid/electric miles into account (overall I think about 20% of my miles are electric), or my highway miles (and therefore relatively few cold starts some days), or maybe both. My last dealer change was at 43,xxx miles and the next change was called for at 55,xxx miles. After that was 65,xxx miles, but it looks like we’ll make it to 77,xxx this time.
I check the oil regularly (which can only be done from the dash in “P” or “N”, no dipstick at all unfortunately), and it is always close to “Full” when it is time for a change. I’m still not keen on the idea of no physical dipstick. Anyone have any ideas why some cars leave off the dipstick? Is it to save money? Prevent possible contamination of the oil?
The Pirelli P Zero All Season’s I spoke of last December were down to the wear bars at 60,000 miles, about 32,000 miles of wear. I replaced them with Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season Plus II, a little softer riding and squishier feeling, but that suits me fine. I wasn’t searching them out particularly, just got a great deal on them online, about $160 each.
Free shipping and installation was part of the sale too, with drop shipping to a local Firestone. Despite making a morning installation appointment online, Firestone said they would need the car “all day” (when I had planned to just wait). My wife was out of town, so I had to Uber home and Uber back to get the car, effectively adding $8.00 to the price of each tire ($16 home, and $16 back to get the car).
Gas mileage average in the 62,000 miles I have owned it is now 42.6 mpg, pretty darn good (I have never reset one of the trip meters). Of course that includes plugging it in, so there’s the electrical cost. Using the electrical rates at my house, each pure electric mile works out to about 5 cents of electricity, and then you have many more miles in each tank of regenerative braking. On an interstate trip with no plugging in, I’ll still get about 10% of the miles with regenerative braking (40 miles of pure electric on a 425 mile tank of gas, for example).
When gas prices were so high, it was a nice reprieve from the pump. The tank holds just under 12 gallons, so the car urgently demands a fill up starting at 49 miles of range (and locks you out of the infotainment screen when it reaches 29 miles of range remaining).
I started a new job with a local government, and I earn an extra paid vacation day a month, or twelve a year, for “clean commuting” with my PHEV. Pretty nice perk! Biking, riding the bus, and of course pure BEV’s count as well. Hybrids do not count under the policy. They do not have car charging stations at the office, though, for the employees.
They do have a handful of Chevy Bolts, which I rarely see move.
I would love to poll everyone to see why they would rather take an F150, Equinox, Focus, or Escape over the Bolts, which appear to be the other choices.
After a very cold wash and wipe down on Dec. 26
Living in a townhome now, with a shared “woonerf” (as seen in the lead picture), I don’t have a place to wash the car. There is a good soft cloth car wash a few blocks away, but they don’t “detail” it the way I like. I pay for the $7 “ride through” wash, and then pull into a city park next to the wash to dry it, detail the wheels, wipe down the door jambs, use my preferred tire gloss, etc. So that’s been a pretty cheap and easy compromise.
Happy New Year to all, and I’ll check in with the other COALs in the near future.
Your car still looks great, I think that’s about as big a grille as I like on a BMW…
I shan’t inform my wife of your work vacation policy as she may adopt that as a great idea in her office as well (for her) and then I’d have to pick up the slack. I’ll bet your colleagues would all drive the Bolts if it resulted in an extra hour of lunch or something…
Does your car require premium fuel or does it take the commoner’s juice? Thanks for the update, with the amount of miles you rack up I’m never sure if I’m a car or two behind your COAL series…
I’m pretty sure “premium” is specified on a sticker in the filler flap, but I have never used anything but regular 87.
I have to say I am oddly attracted to the new 2023 7 Series, which has a Cherokee-ish split headlamp arrangement and a large grille. I don’t want to like it, but I do. There is no longer a 7 Series PHEV though. They have the gas burners, and then a BEV 7 Series. I have read online the PHEV version may come out in a year or so.
How do you reckon the one follows from the other? I am pretty firmly sure it does not.
That certainly is strange, and possibly a screwup with (at least theoretical) consequences for BMW. Emissions compliance requirements and certifications in the US and Canada are on the basis of a car’s build date, not that of its powertrain.
I’m surmising that the 0w30 sticker was placed under the hood for a reason. I like 0w20 just fine, and have used it for many tens of thousands of miles in other cars that call for it. But apparently, this car was intended for 0w30.
I was reacting specifically to your saying 0w30 = greater engine longevity, was all.
I think a slightly thicker oil is preferable, especially with a lot of interstate miles/use. Just a layman’s way of thinking. That may be completely unsupported by science.
I generally stay out of motor oil discussions, as it’s a subject rife with subjectivity and beliefs of all sorts. And I’m not an expert.
But…to my understanding, 0W-30 isn’t “thicker”; it’s essentially the same as 0W-20 but has the ability to withstand a bit of a hotter environment without losing its ability to “cling”.
If I lived in a very hot climate and drove your car at very punishing speeds or hauling a big trailer or such, I might possibly give the nod to using 0W-30 instead of 0W-20, but the reality is that modern engines are very rarely operated in these kinds of extreme conditions, thus I wouldn’t have the slightest hesitation about using 0W-20.
Here’s my (brutal) take on engine oil: how many cars end up as scrap because the engine failed due to lubrication issues, other than being run completely dry? And how many hundreds of thousands of miles do you intend to keep a car?
Yet there’s still lots of folks out there changing oil utterly needlessly at 3k or 5k miles, and sweating the difference between 0W-20 and 0W-30 oil, especially when BMW has decided that 0W-20 is what they put in these cars at their own facilities. I tend to think they know what they’re doing in that regard. And know that Americans are not likely to be driving their BMW for hours on end at 155 mph.
But as always, it’s a subject I never try to change anyone’s mind on. 🙂
Paul brings up a very good point here .
Is low mileage trips why Toyota V6 engines sludged up and failed ? .
Short hop service was considered extreme service when I was trained many years ago and yes, I saw and had to fix more than a few engines that had built up crud in therm…..
I’m -not- trying to start an oil thread here, I’m curious about short hops and failure to fully warm up the engine .
Nice looking car BTW, are you still happy with the ergonomics ? .
-Nate
Just a stab at it, without looking it up: It’s possible that the vehicle emission standards didn’t change from 2016 to 2018? Thus a MY2106 compliance is fine?
The standards might have changed or not, but the certification system doesn’t work the way you have in mind. Each vehicle is legally required to be manufacturer-certified as complying with the standards in effect for that vehicle’s model year, even if those are the same standards that were in effect for a previous year’s vehicles. This Bimmer’s certification isn’t kosher; BMW could easily find themselves in trouble over something like this.
No loan car for a 4-year-old BMW 7-series? That sounds like a pretty poor effort on BMW’s part considering the higher price of their products.
When our 2013 and 2016 Peugeots are serviced by the Peugeot dealer we always get brand new Peugeot or Citroen loaners. We didn’t buy the cars from the dealer we use, but we didn’t buy them new either, with the ’13 308 being purchased in 2021 and the ’16 508 purchased in 2018.
I personally would be pretty miffed if a dealer wouldn’t provide a loaner while a 4-year-old car is getting serviced…!
Yeah, this seems strange to me as well. I drive a 2016 Subaru Forester and my wife has a 2017 Infinity QX50 and we get loaners from both dealers. Both off warranty; the Forester was off after just over 2 years due to the kms I drive.
My Wife’s Range Rover Supercharged is still under warranty and that dealer does not do loaners at all…..even under warranty. They provide an Enterprise rental car free of charge, or a free Uber ride home, and they will send a free Uber to pick you up. I would love someone who knows to explain why this varies from dealer to dealer. I would think the loaner policy would be set and enforced by the manufacturers, but apparently not?
The lead photo apparently shows a thing later referred to as a “woonerf” and I have no knowledge of the word. I read the Wikipedia article and it was less than helpful.Can you clarify?
The common private drive among all the townhomes has no curb or sidewalks, is the best way I can describe it. The whole area from one building to the next, is brick pavers. Two cars can pass, carefully. People walk down the middle of the “street”, and there are planters in the “street”.
Woonerf is a Dutch term, below the traffic sign that comes with it. A place where you must drive at a really low speed, because pedestrians, bicyclists, kids playing, the whole shebang. The sign wraps it up, woonerf translated literally is a yard where folks live. A truly big and public yard, that is.
What a beautiful car. I have long liked the 7 series BMW’s and this looks so nice in that blue. I sure wish more brands still offered nice sedans like this one, even if not as luxury.
When it comes to the choice of cars to choose from? I’d take the Bolt easily.
I love the color, it is “Singapore Grey”. It is an “M” only color (my hybrid has the “M” package which is kind of weird). It looks blue as you see here in the right light. But more often, it looks like a charcoal grey.
On the oil, I’ve heard BMW and others spec a lighter oil in the US to try to eek out every little bit of MPG they can, but slightly heavier in other markets for more flexibility in extreme conditions.
Flexibility in extreme conditions…? What does that even mean?
Yes, automakers do what they can to eke out every last bit of fuel economy in the American market, to keep up their CAFE figures. And they do what they can to eke out every last bit of fuel economy in the European market, too, to keep down their CO2 figures and keep up their market acceptance—have you looked at the price of a litre of petrol lately?
(I know I should just drop the stick and go take a nap under the back deck. But the amount of campfire mythology around engine oil just never stops amazing me.)
I think the Autobahn would be one example of “extreme conditions” where a 0w20 is probably suboptimal.
Thanks Importamation, my reply was poorly phrased, but you seemed to know what I meant.
Thanks for the update – It is good to see a real-life example that is a counterweight to the many stories of the ownership nightmare for high-end German cars once the warranty expires.
That 2016 vs. 2017 sticker issue is a puzzler. The only thing I know is that there is an answer – but I don’t know what that answer is.
I know the excitement that happens when a big hunk of debris gets thrown at the front of your car. I once got a big hunk of concrete thrown into the front of my 66 Plymouth Fury III while on an interstate highway. From the sound and the shock I felt, I was sure it had mangled my beautiful 20+ year old car. But I was the luckiest guy on earth when I found that the impact was squarely to an upper sealed beam headlight, with nary a scratch around it. Had I been driving our Honda Accord with the much lower front end the incident would have been much uglier. One more point scored by a classic tall, square front end. 🙂
You got pretty lucky that most of the damage was to the replaceable grille. The wavy surface doesn’t really show in your photo, but I am sure it is an irritant in person. And good shopping on the grille! I guess this is proof of the markup most dealers put on parts.
I’m a little confused. “…I earn an extra paid vacation day a month, or twelve a year, for “clean commuting” with my PHEV. Pretty nice perk! Biking, riding the bus, and of course pure BEV’s count as well. Hybrids do not count under the policy.” This is a PHEV which doesn’t count as a hybrid, but you get the day/month for “clean commuting with my PHEV.”? Perhaps you can clarify or I’m reading it wrong.
Great mileage for a great car like this. I get an average of 51 with my Ford CMax and it’s nowhere as nice as this.
Plug-in hybrids (like my car or a Prius Prime), count under the policy. Hybrids which do not plug in, (like a “regular” Prius or a Camry Hybrid) do not count for the extra vacation days.
Your car shows how a big sedan can still be very appealing, it’s a very attractive vehicle that has a lot of presence.
I’m not against E vehicles, but I’m waiting for the manufacturers to build one that I actually like. Then there is the cost, a new car is much more expensive than the older cars that I’ve been buying. The extra fuel cost isn’t much of an expense compared to a monthly payment of 4-600 dollars. I’m not discounting the potential environmental benefits. I know that for many, the environmental benefits are more important than the reduced fuel costs.
The Mach E is a nice five door sedan, but it isn’t going to replace a real Mustang for me. The 2024 Mustang doesn’t offer any electric options from what I’ve read so far. I have never had a long commute, that was a choice that I made when deciding where to buy my house. Thirty years of a ten mile (one way ) commute. Now I’m retired, and there are days when I don’t even start one of my cars, though I do a lot of running around on the weekends.
I try to minimize my use of car washes, especially with my older convertibles. I stopped washing cars in my driveway years ago to help conserve water, since California has had a long running drought. During the Summer I’ll run a car through the wash every few months. I use a car duster, keep the car covered, and use a water less car wash when needed. I’ve found that this works well for my hobby cars. I try to alternate the weekly use of those cars. My poor late model daily sits in the driveway and goes through the wash as needed.
Just a post script…… I did not mean to start an oil post LOL. I don’t think 0w30 is superior to 0w20 etc. I just feel more comfortable using 0w30 since that was the oil weight preferred by the manufacturer at the time the car was built, apparently, as evidenced by the sticker placed under the hood. If BMW later decided 0w20 was sufficient and backwards compatible, good for them, but I just prefer to stick with their initial recommendation on the 0w30.
I follow manufacturer service intervals, typically, for oil changes. I don’t buy into more frequent changes being necessary with most situations.
I WILL say, however, that I have seen elevated oil usage with 0w20 in some cars. My sons’ 2015 BMW 328i GT COAL used a quart or more of oil in between 8,000 mile oil changes, when we were going to the dealer and they were using the BMW 0w20. When the warranty ended and I started changing it elsewhere, I went with Mobil 1 0w40 and we have not had to add oil in between changes. 0w30 and 0w40 is what is recommended in the owner’s manual for that vehicle.
“…since we checked in on my current COAL.”
I don’t know what that is. And if, after several minutes searching the internet for intitialisms with those letters and still finding nothing, it’s safe to say you should define it at least once when using it in a written piece.
Everyone knows what that means? Uh..no. And if everyone *else does know, it’s only because they’ve seen it defined in the past. New people will become interested in topics they haven’t been into before, and if thoughtless writers stick random inititalisms into their articles, it’s a turn off at the very least.
On this site, COAL means Cars Of A Lifetime. It’s a weekly series with rotating authors.
All you had to do was ask. Politely might’ve been nicer.