Bad batches of car parts rant.

[DanceswithUnix]

Seems the issue is the stat is unable to retract against the failsafe spring once it opens.

I can see remaining stock having the failsafe spring removed...

[filbert]

If I had bought it off some dodgy ebay seller or little one man car parts shop I could believe it but this is Carparts4Less, aka Euro car parts & Mr Hella UK was the one who told me what they do to the genuine parts before selling to the trade, I did side by side the new and old (forgot to take a pic of the BMW branded one) and they were identical minus the Hella Service sticker and a full sticker on the right.

Long been regarded in the trade as <admin edit>rubbish now, 20 years ago they were great but now they sell any old cheap crap they can get, not used them for years because everything they sold was bad.

[Ttaskmaster]

Long been regarded in the trade as <admin edit>rubbish now, 20 years ago they were great but now they sell any old cheap crap they can get, not used them for years because everything they sold was bad.

Might be worth noting that sub-variants of a vehicle model may have slightly different parts (in the case of my bike, 3 sub-variants with both ABS and non-ABS versions).

Euros often stock several items that fit the basic spec on parts, but unless you specify a particular one they will just pick the first one on the list that matches the car reg you give them.

[GoNz0]

This part is unique to the E60, E61 5 series BMW, the 7 series with the same engines and 2 X3 models also sharing the same engine so quite limited. When I got the genuine article from BMW it had the identical part number on the sticker as well. Same sticker in face, just all of it being there this time.

Filbert, I expect they changed the supplier of the built in thermostat a while ago and may now be realising they are not up to the job.

I got a reply, straight after the other guy phone Hella.

Good Morning Gareth,


I hope you are well?

I have had a reply from my colleagues in Germany that have confirmed my first thoughts.

We have no issues with this part in Europe,

My only suggestion is that you take the vehicle to a BMW OE Garage to ascertain if there is a fundamental fault elsewhere in the system that may cause this

Once we have the parts back from your supplier, we will send these over to our parent company in Germany for a complete test.

My personal thought is that there is no issues with the parts but somewhere else on the vehicle

Regards

Steve

[peterb]

Nice of him

a. To ask after your health

b. Offer his personal opinion without seeing the vehicle

But otherwise a pretty useless reply.

[Zak33]

Nice of him

a. To ask after your health

should have been rhetorical and had no question mark as he clearly doesn't care if your leg fell off last night or not.

[Butcher]

Might be worth noting that sub-variants of a vehicle model may have slightly different parts (in the case of my bike, 3 sub-variants with both ABS and non-ABS versions).

Euros often stock several items that fit the basic spec on parts, but unless you specify a particular one they will just pick the first one on the list that matches the car reg you give them.

Euros are pretty bad these days. Can't sell you anything without a reg, even when you're just after a generic part. I wanted an exhaust clamp (pictured below), they tried to find one by searching through various models of car but in the end couldn't find one.

[Ttaskmaster]

Euros are pretty bad these days. Can't sell you anything without a reg, even when you're just after a generic part.

I think it's set up that way for audit trails and accountability, as well as avoiding numerous numpties who don't understand when generic parts can't be used and try to sue when it goes wrong...

[GoNz0]

Well....

New BMW one fitted a week ago today, It lasted a matter of hours

Due to this being a genuine one (yeah same as all the others but it hadn't been defaced to remove all traces of BMW) I called BMW and after the initial threats of we will charge you £150 if you are wrong DESPITE me saying I have the issue on video to proove I am not wrong I agreed and left my car with a bunch of people called "technicians"
It seems they do not employ mechanics any more as they would rather have the mindless drones that can only do what is on the screen in front of them.

I will copy and paste this from the 5 series forum as I can't be arsed to keep typing it.

Anyway onto BMW day, I drop it off to leave it for the day, ask to talk to the mechanic who will be dealing with it but obviously get the guy who tells the mechanics what to do, I tell him about the part I bought last week, why it was replaced and what I had done to diagnose it with my mechanic, I also tell him I have a video I had taken to show it was cold and letting fluid flow through what was a closed stat when it was new, I also tell him Hella confirmed it should be shut when cold as a thermostat does. The guys not the most polite person and basically dismisses me, doesn't want to see the video and tells me I diagnosed it wrong, I keep my calm and leave it with them.

I get a call that evening, yeah we tested it and it's fine, come fetch it we won't charge you the fee.

I show up and tell the girl dealing with me to fetch the mechanic who comes out, he started saying they had tested it, I stopped him and asked how, his reply, the way BMW tell us to test it, I ask again a little louder and firmer, how, explain how?

He says they run it for a while, I ask where he says the workshop and continues on his speech about they run it and once the temp levels out they clamp off one of the coolant lines to the heat exchanger as it is a common problem (YES A COMMON PROBLEM)

I stop him and ask why he told me I was wrong to test it like that but ok for them to clamp off a pipe, he has no answer. He continues to tell me with it clamped the temp went up one degree, I stop him again and ask what they did to replicate what a car does in its natural environment, he looked confused so I simply said "driving it against the oncoming wind that will in turn hit the radiator thus cooling what is inside if it is hotter than the incoming air"

I think by this time he could see he was out of his depth [IMG]

He replied that they did nothing to cool the radiator, I then ask how the hell can they call this a test if they are doing that in a warm workshop with no air to cool the radiator to replicate the fault conditions as explained by me the customer. Needless to say he again had no answer to address my question instead saying that's how BMW say to do it. So I drop the bomb and say to him he was very quick to dismiss me this morning as having no idea what I am doing along with my mechanic and refusing to look at the video I had taken of the fault, I told him he can watch the video now, he did and again fell silent then piped up. "well you can leave the car and we will order in a heat exchanger and compare them by taking yours off the car"

I said that is fine, get me a loan car to get home, they didn't have one so I had to drive it back.

I explained as simply as possible, my new one has failed open, a brand new one arrives with the coolant lines shut by the thermostat then asked that he did know how one works and what its purpose is, he said he did and was aware the heat exchanger had one and all they could do now was compare a new one against mine and if indeed mine was failed open they could warranty exchange it.

I decided now was the time to say, if you had taken the time to listen to me this morning and watch the video you could have pulled the pipe and seen 1st hand the coolant went straight through, ordered in another and had a working car for me now, instead this has happened.

Anyway onto today, I show up to be told they are going to swap it anyway, this they do and I fetch it back, go out tonight when the roads are quiet and all seems reasonable apart from low gearbox temps, between 40 and 44, car does get up there to 88 unless you rev it high then it drops off and recovers, never does this with it clamped though!

I have been out for an hour and head home, last leg involves a hill on a dual carriageway so I floor it as I turn on to 60 then back off, only a couple of hundred yards with 500 left to get home so I back off, then it happens AGAIN, 88 drops to 80, I decide to carry on to the next 50 zone, it keeps dropping until it hits 71.

I give up and come home.

5 bloody heat exchangers, all made by Behr, last 2 being BMW, last one fitted under warranty by BMW.

WTFH? Behr are obviously fitting defective thermostats and have been for at least a year looking at the production dates printed on the stickers.

I have since been sent by a nice chap a PDF of a service bulletin for the next 5 series models, the F series. These have a cut off for the time it takes to warm up and if it exceeds this the code is thrown and the diagnostics state to take one of the pipes off the heat exchanger and see if coolant flows through what should be a closed thermostat, the guy I saw Thursday said my method of diagnosis was wrong, turns out i was bang on the money but in reality he is just a cock who thinks he knows better than the customers!

Oh the car is booked in again Tuesday...

Can I claim losses off BMW for all this wasted time?

[Zak33]

Can I claim losses off BMW for all this wasted time?

Sadly not much of a hope in hell.

try to get it solved and then leave with that simply as a triumph.

If it' cant be solved then raise the case with BMW HQ (not the dealers) in the most concise way viable
customer.service@bmw.co.uk

dont make it lengthy.. write it.. edit it.. edit it again

Utterly concise and ask for a call back. Then explain it all again and get a case number. Try hard not to quote forums or youtube at them. Try to keep it super upbeat, super BMW positive and super " I am trying SO hard to keep my sh1t together because I so want this to work ..but i truly need help"

[GoNz0]

Zak, I got off the phone with BMW UK complaints an hour ago, explained the test procedure is flawed and why, explained the branch staff are not interested in what the customer has to say even when the facts are thrown at them in a video. I told them the staff attitude along with me knowing they are using parts with a manufacturing flaw is making me feel physically ill, and truth be told it is making me ill.

I also got off the phone to Mr (Hella) Hudson earlier who seems to be taking me a little more seriously now, he knows I am onto something and now knows the bit about it must be my car at fault and to take it to be diagnosed at BMW has resulted in it getting a full clean bill of health even with a defective heat exchanger as they don't test right and have to be argued with and forced to watch me diagnose the fault to get the muppets to swap it, and then the swapped fails just as fast.
He agreed the way it was tested was wrong and he has been sent the SI doc detailing how to test this part on the newer version of the 5 series, you know the correct way!
Problem is getting this sorted via Hella will take months.

Not looking forward to tomorrow at all, especially if they make me deal with that bit of totty that knows bugger all about cars again, well I will ask her for someone who knows about cars to come and deal with me as she has now pee'd me right off saying they swapped the part to keep me happy. She would have got such a gobful if I was stood in the reception area when she said it!

[Zak33]

it's just a job for them all

do you use this BMW dealer regularly? Do you have a god spend history with them?

[GoNz0]

Nope, only for parts so they won't give a toss about me. Had a phone call back and I am in tomorrow for a meeting, 3 of them are going to try and gang up on me, saying they only swapped it as a substitution to see if it fixed it but they have to follow the diagnostics even if it is so fundamentally stupid as to diagnose overcooling without blowing air over the freaking rad!

this is even if I can prove to them the thermostat is stuck open like on the F series diagnostics for the newer model.

Maybe if I can get one of them to come out with me for a real test they will see past the end of their noses.

[badass]

I told them the staff attitude along with me knowing they are using parts with a manufacturing flaw is making me feel physically ill, and truth be told it is making me ill.

Bad move. Very quick way to get dismissed by people on the other side as full of the proverbial. Even if what you say is true. Forget how you feel. How does it look to those on the other side? (who are wrong but are unaware they are wrong)

Second point. What's the actual impact to you with these defective thermostats? Ever so slightly worse fuel consumption. Nothing more. Pick your fights. Keep your records and evidence. Once the issue is sorted after the months it will take to sort, approach them then.

If you really want to get something for your wasted time, you must keep really detailed records of your time spent etc. You'll probably have a reasonable strong case for charging the numpties for your time wasted. I have successfully done something similar in the past and got a whisker shy of £1700 for my direct costs plus wasted time.

[GoNz0]

When the car is warming up it over fuels to help it warm up faster, it also refuses to do a DPF regeneration below 75 degrees causing it to block up, fuel economy is about 25% down. The gearbox never gets above 40 in this weather, below 30 it doesn't lock the torque converter to assist with warming up the gearbox causing additional wear on the clutches in the auto box in the process.
Bad thermostats in these cars has huge knock on effects that can cost thousands to fix m8.

TBH, I just want it working as it should and not being told it is ok when I can pull a pipe off and show the thermostats failed open exactly like the test procedure on the newer models dictates.

[Zak33]

Nope, only for parts so they won't give a toss about me. Had a phone call back and I am in tomorrow for a meeting, 3 of them are going to try and gang up on me, saying they only swapped it as a substitution to see if it fixed it but they have to follow the diagnostics even if it is so fundamentally stupid as to diagnose overcooling without blowing air over the freaking rad!

this is even if I can prove to them the thermostat is stuck open like on the F series diagnostics for the newer model.

Maybe if I can get one of them to come out with me for a real test they will see past the end of their noses.

GoNz0 bud.. they wont gang up on you.

it's not the Spanish Inqusition! You're a customer (ok for a regular high spending one) but you really have to just ask them for help. Keep asking..nicely. Keep saying "it's a great car but it's not working right and I can show you it's not right and I expect more please of a top brand" and keep being nice.

in short - kill 'em with kindness. And everytime they fail to do something right, tell them but persist.

and as Badass says... keep good dated notes.