2006 BMW M3

[Jake]

Five thousand miles of ownership since October 15th.

I'm still warming up to the car, to be honest. It's a very different animal compared to the other BMWs I've owned, and by far the most picky/finicky daily driver I've owned. It looks fantastic, it drives well once it's warmed up, and it's so great to drop the top and hear the S54 scream down a narrow road. It's just somewhat clunky in traffic where the old 328iC was smoother and easier to manage (or just not care about).

We celebrated the mileage milestone with an oil change. The S54 has an idiotic drain bolt design compared to any other motor I've seen. It requires a 6mm hex socket (or allen key) and naturally, mine was semi-rounded out. The previous owner claims he used two different BMW dealerships for oil changes so maybe one of those shops did a poor job.

In any case, the plug doesn't leak and I didn't want to risk it, so I bucked up and bought a Mityvac after hearing good things for several years. And this thing is so cool. The claim of "oil changes can be done in a tux!" is mostly true. I bought the 7201 model, which can both evacuate and purge. That means you suck the oil out of the dipstick tube, flip a switch, and pump it out into your used oil jugs - no funnel needed. Much cleaner and worth the money... plus the fact that with the BMWs, I don't have to jack them up anymore as the filter is in a canister on top.