Bad batches of car parts rant.

[GoNz0]

So after a bit of an argument on the phone after I was offered 50% back and the warranty intact for 2 years I laughed at him and said what use is a warranty if you refuse to fix it?
Told him it was no worse than ever and I would be taking it to a specialist who has agreed to look at it and do a report about the faulty part, once that was done I would let him replace it with another make and take BMW to small claims for the original part, time lost, the cost of getting the report done and all the cost incurred having it replaced. Mentioned I had already sought legal advice and will be pursuing via small claims court if needed.

20 minutes later I get a call saying they will refund me but the part will have no warranty (duhh)

So at least I get my money back, can't drive it anyway as I just removed both turbos to get them repaired (one whistles due to the bearing and the other is leaking exhaust fumes via the divertor pivot)

[Zak33]

will you stick with the car?..or will you fix it up and get rid?

[GoNz0]

will you stick with the car?..or will you fix it up and get rid?

Sticking with it, I do love the car and did know I was buying a car with issues, just a shame I have had to go with a cheaper part in the ope it works.

Anyway, yesterday I did a bit of pottering about on the car, intercooler out, charge pipe off etc to clean the oil out, nothing jumped out as a problem.
I then decided to replace said heat exchanger so I set about it. When I pulled it off the gearbox oil lines I noticed both o-rings were not there, not a problem as I know before they have remained in the heat exchanger so I carried on, put the new o-rings on and fitted the new part.

I then went to find out why the BMW part failed again, 1st thing I did was look for the o-rings, no sign of them, swilled the bit of oil and coolant in the drain tray around looking for them, nope bugger all. So this explains why the connection was oily, no bloody o-rings fitted!!!

And here's me thinking they just failed to clean the mess up after!

[Zak33]

flippin' monkies...unreal.

Any chance you can mod this cooler to actually work right? Any work around's?

[GoNz0]

flippin' monkies...unreal.

Any chance you can mod this cooler to actually work right? Any work around's?

Yes I expect it will be a case of running a drill bit down a tenth bigger to stop the pins sticking, I will put pics up when I find the time to pull it to bits again, it was unreal how both pins had stuck as it is a twin thermostat design, I expected one to be stuck not both!

[GoNz0]

flippin' monkies...unreal.

Any chance you can mod this cooler to actually work right? Any work around's?

After a lot of homework I ended up taking an inline thermostat from VAG cars spanning 2006 golfs up to 2016 R8's that lives just after the transmission cooler and fitting one just after mine, maybe these German engineers had it figured out as they keep using it on new cars as they come out. The part for my cars limited to the E60 5 series oil burners only and a couple of 6 series using the same engines.

This came about after I bought a nissens unit in the hope they would use something different inside, alas I am wrong as it failed within an hour again. At the same time a mechanic I have been talking with bought the Trucktec version so we could hedge our bets, he found the same. We then realised they were identical parts and to top it off a cheap chinese one on eBay for £50 matched it.

It was then decided that Behr had also started using the same dodgy chinese cores so the hunt for an alternative started.

My car now runs up to temp within the expected time and doesn't drop below, the gearbox runs twice as hot as well so all is looking good.

Thanks VAG, this fix cost £30 using genuine VW parts from TPS

[TeePee]

Now that's a smart solution!