buying a used car rant

Originally Posted by mototech

people have alot to do with turbo failures as they dont understand how to drive or look after them, i,e driving them to hard form cold and then just turning them off when you should let them idle for a little while before turning them off to let the turbo slow down before the oil pressure drops when you switch off, also i wouldnt let any car of mine do more than 10,000mls between oil changes manufacturers use extended invervals as a selling point but they dont do engine life any good especialy turbo ones...

Originally Posted by Gazza77

Fair point, but unless the manufacturer states they have to be left to idle (not a BMW owner so can't say either way), then it's not really reasonable to expect all owners to do this. Same with servicing, you or I might not go over 10k without an oil change, but if BMW says it is ok, then there cars ought to be able to cope with it!

No the manufacturers don't tell you this, maybe they do now, but not at the time. Obviously I know that know, but when speaking to a mechanic after a turbo failure is when 99.9% of turbo diesel drivers learn this....

In the case of the BMW rapid cooling may accelerate the problem, but it is caused by a harmonic resonance in the turbo causing metal fatigue, whilst I was still fighting with BMW over my warranty expired by one week I was pricing the repair myself, a BMW specialist put me in touch with a engine dealer at Heathrow who sells one of these engines per week! He said they all go eventually, whether at 60k miles or 160k, he said the failure is pretty much inevitable and the specialist agreed.

i looked into this turbo faliure, its a known common problem.

Originally Posted by kwak zzr

i looked into this turbo faliure, its a known common problem.

Much more known and common now than it was then, certainly in the 320d and 520d it effected 150bhp models from 2001 onwards when they increased the power from 136 to 150, so come 2006 most cars were just coming up to the kind of mileage where it occurs and UK dealers were starting to see a lot of them. The same engine later went into the X3.

BMW in Germany knew all about it by that time though, even though my dealer denied it was a common fault.

As far as I can make out, the problem was accelerated in S Africa (I could only read articles in English) where the air is thinner at altitude and the fuel octane lower hence a different fuel/air mixture and turbo's were failing at 20-30K miles, and it was widely reported in the motoring press there. I can't remember the dates when they issued the recall in S Africa, but BMW certainly knew their mistake wasn't a one off problem by the time they built my car in 2003. Why did they keep producing cars that they knew the turbo's were going to fail on?

What happens next time they have a common problem? Will they just keep producing them, deny there's an issue, and only issue recalls when they are forced to by governments? It's the whole arrogant philosophy of (best German accent now!) - we are BMW, world leaders, untouchable, and we actually don't care if you peasant 3 series driver goes and buys a A4 or a C-class instead 'cos we've got lots of peasants queueing up to buy them.

Other problems on mine included a design fault on the window seals which meant they squeaked against the glass, they were replaced several times until I gave up and just sprayed silicone on them after each time I washed the car, like having a mouse with verbal diarrhoea sitting on your shoulder. A design fault which meant the rear glass door leaked, causing condensation, a damp boot, and corroding the heated rear windscreen and the hatch release mechanism so they stopped working, meaning the rear view mirror was useless in winter 'cos you couldn't see through the glass, that was fixed twice, but of course if it's a design fault you're replacing parts with more parts that suffer the same problem. Both common faults too which BMW just ignored and carried on producing. Front passenger seat mechanism broke and had to be replaced. There was other stuff too but I can't remember it all now.

[Sir Trev]

Remind me not to buy one... Oh hang on, I can't afford to anyway!