How to Change Transfer Case Fluid 1997-2006 BMW 325 Xi

What's up, guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. In this video, I'm going to show you how to service the transfer case on this 2001 BMW 325xi. If you need parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1AAuto.com

The first thing I want to do is loosen up the fill plug. I want to make sure I take the fill plug out first before I drain the fluid out. Otherwise, if you can't get the fill plug out afterwards, you won't be able to put oil in the transfer case. So take a 16 millimeter wrench, loosen up this fill plug, and you broke it free. I'm just going to pull it out, pull it out, and there should be a seal on there. Yep, so if it gets stuck there, take that seal off.

Now on the other side is the drain plug right here. Make sure you put a oil bucket underneath, a catch pan. Use that same 16 millimeter wrench and take this drain plug out and drain out the fluid. That looks pretty bad, so it's a good thing we're changing it. All right, you just want to take a rag and clean up the drain plug area. If there's any dirt, get the dirt out. I'm going to take the drain plug, clean that up, and use a new seal. If your seal doesn't look too bad and you don't have a new one, you can reuse the old one, but it's always a good idea to replace it, and put the drain plug back in.

All right, now it's very difficult to get a torque wrench in there. I can't get the torque wrench in there because it's too tight close to the transmission pan. So the torque for this bolt would be 24 foot-pounds, so do the best you can with that. I'm just going to snug it up with a wrench, not too tight. Now we're going to fill it.

So I'm going to take the appropriate fluid. You can check your owner's manual to see what kind of fluid you need, and I'm going to use this extraction and filling pump that we actually sell at 1AAuto.com. All right, I'm just going to suck this out, and then push the fluid right into the transfer case. Make sure you still have the drain bucket underneath because it is going to start to pour out when it's full. It's starting to pour out. I'm just going to put my finger over the hole, let it disperse, wait a minute or so, and then let it drain out. You want the fluid right at to the base of the hole, which is good. It's getting a nice stream, so that's good. It's important to make sure your vehicle is level when you're doing this because if the vehicle wasn't level, you're going to either add too much or not enough.

All right, so I'm just going to clean this up a little bit, make sure there's no dirt on there, clean up the fill plug, put your seal on it and get this started, and the same on this. You're not going to be able to use a torque wrench because this bar is in the way, so I'm just tightening it the best you can. You can just use a wrench. You would tighten this to 24 foot-pounds, but a 16 millimeter wrench and just snug it up, and that's good. Just take a little brake parts cleaner, clean this all up, and wipe it down with a rag.

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