Re: Timing Belt and Water Pump

[alex.fadeev@xxxxxxxxxxx]

"Joseph T. Baptista Jr." <jbaptista@domain.elided> wrote:

> Is it recommended for the timing belt and water pump in a 1996 328i
> (E36) to be replaced?  If so, when is it recommended?  

Joe,  
In the past, the water pump replacement period was between 60-100K miles.
I used to do swap them during routine E30 t-belt replacements every 50K
miles.
More recently, BMW has been increasing replacement intervals for
everything. Sometimes announcing very silly things like lifetime tranny
oils in the same automatic transmissions that were subject to 30K oil
changes in the previous model years.  
Long story short, I continue to change my water pumps every 60-80K miles
or earlier in the case of defective parts (like plastic impeller E36
water pumps). I also continue to change my lifetime tranny, engine and
diff oils in all my bimmers.
You guys can do whatever you like.

> I have 96K miles on a recently purchased E36, is there anything else
> that I should consider replacing?

Do a complete inspection II if it hasn't been done recently. Before too
much longer you will be due for all new suspension bushings and mounts.
You can swap those proactively or live with substandard handling and wait
for them to fail catastrophically.

alex f

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