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- How appropriate is Turner Sport's statement, i.e. IS the standard LSD in the E9x a part requiring regular replacement;
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if someone calls the oe lsd "genius" i would not believe anything else this guy says about lsds in general
nevertheless they are not wrong about the oe diff wearing over time causing clunking noises while shifting. depending on the individual car, driver, oil change interval, ... this may occur earlier or later. three weeks ago i had a customer with a street driven 20k mile m3 who had these problems and was sent to me by his workshop. we switched to a clutch type unit (with anything else like bearings, gearset, driveshafts, ... remained untouched) and the clunking was gone afterwards.
it also depends on how sensitive the individual driver is. if someone with +100k miles on his car/lsd will change to a new unit he will massively feel the difference. as wear increases slowly over time a daily driven car never feels different from one day to another. so you get used to the clunking not remembering how it felt a few years ago.
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- How would a LSD numpty like me test if it did need replacement or do I just ask next time I take it in for a service; and
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as long as you are happy with it and have no performance or clunking issues there is no need to do anything with your rear axle (except an oil change maybe).
if you get annoyed by the clunking noises or simply want to improve the reaction of the lsd (and the whole car) with a noticably better unit you should change to a new clutch type unit.
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- If replaced, is there an LSD that provides similar cornering ability but with less (or preferably no) replacement?
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similar cornering ability you will only get with another (new) OE lsd unit. as the viscolok is pretty much the only lsd unit that performs that slow and special.
any other lsd unit will noticably improve cornering performance and reaction of the rear axle.
a freshly serviced or new clutch type lsd will last forever. only the locking performance will get weaker over time. but even if it is completely worn out and does not lock any more you will have no clunking or any other downsides (this problem is exclusive to the of lsd and some torsen units that tend to do some clunking over time too). a worn out clutch type lsd will behave like an open diff. but until this is the case you will need to do way beyond 150k miles.
on the other hand, if you have it rebuilt after lets say 100k miles you will feel the difference in locking performance.
so service interval depends on your demand on the performance. but if you are happy with your oe unit so far it seems your pretention is not too high
