Garage chaos.

john4efc66

I have a BMW 523i and nearly four months ago the head gasket blew e.g. temp flew up.. took it into a Ford dealership with excellent serviceing dept, they said they could do it no worries and gave me a car until it was fixed. Since then

1. got car back after two weeks - overheating still/lots of white smoke/no power/erratic geabox changing gears/horrid rattle on start up/strange metallic whirring noise all the time - called garage and they took it back. I called garage after further five days the guy on phone said the head had been off 4 times yes four.. why i asked.. they said it was 'a !!!!!!' to do..

2. got car back again EXACTLY same issues as above arose again, this car was in perfect in fact impeccable running cond after having a full servie in january before these people got hold of it... guiy also said they had to send a mechanic to bmw to 'learn' the job.. what change a head gasket???? basic job for an average mechanic!

3. they sent mechanic to check it out.. took him an hour TO BLEED THE SYTEM OF AIR...why wasnt this done after head gasket job? how would they know it is fixed if they didnt bleed the system?.. system bled no more overheating but ALL symptoms beside heating issue where still apparent.

I contacted trading standards and they advised me to write to them which i did but they then seemed to become distant and sent the overall boss to my house to have a ride in the car with me to 'prove' what was happening.. took him one mile and all the above issues arose EVEN getting hot again..

He was embarrased as he expected to talk me around and took the car back there and then, he did try 'well the car is ten years old things do happen' i replied 'that all the issues occured aftert his garage visit and not before' i reminded him that the car was a fully serviced two owner machine previously owned by a bank and so has much money spent on its upkeep, i have a full service history.. and 110 thousand miles on a fully serviced 2.5 litre bmw is nothing.. he agreed in the end and took car back.

TODAY - They have had car for over a week again, gave me a courtesy car but took it back citing a 'ford recall of dangerous cars'.So as of today - they said they are sending the car to a specialised bmw dealers for repair as i asked in my letter to them.. but not before last friday after calling telling me it was the vaccumm system??? and all is well now but on monday they said it wasnt fixed and is off to bmw.. i asked which dealership, they told me the bmw garage,

I called garage they said they knew nothing of my car or the garage sending it to them.. i called garage and asked where the car was going the guiy said he didnt know but the car was ready to go and car transporter standing by????What do i do please advise me.. my gut feeling is to get the car back and start again i simply do not trust then anymore they have lied.. guy on phone today also said the bmw garage car was going to was the 'bosses mate' ..

Im very surprised i avoided a back street garage as my car is specialised and so i though putting it into a huge ford dealership with a massive servicing dept would be a safer bet.. how wrong i was.ADVICE PLEASE

gilbert_and_sullivan

Why would you take a BMW to a Ford workshop in the first place, a BMW specialist would have been the ONLY place i would have sent this car, which apparently is where they have sent it anyway,

You can only wait and see how it comes back this time.

rev_henry

Have you paid them any money yet? Does seem strange that you took it to a ford dealership. Why not an independent BMW specialist like everyone else?

atrixblue.-MFR-.

as with all garages if the OP has had a good run with them and think their decent enough we will return to them, the ford garage said they could do the HG if they simply stated we dont have experience in doing them OP would have gone else where is suppose.

OP you have a right to know whee your car is going, what they intend on doing to about it.

colino

While its a PITA they don't appear to be denying responsibility and are getting, albeit slowly, the car fixed. The 2.5 BMW isn't a mysterious black box but it sounds like the garage probably didn't check properly the water pump and thermostat before rebuilding first time around.

CRH71

Having had one of these fine beasts (in fact, I'm on my second now...) the problem your garage is having isn't with the "vacuum unit", it's the VANOS unit not being set up correctly - the setup of this is critical (and should have been "locked" when removed - if it wasn't, and someone's "guessed" the setup when replaced this would explain your problems) and the ONLY people that can set it back up once the settings have been lost (it's critical, because it operates on one of the camshafts, or both, dependent on engine type) is a BMW dealer or a good independent that has the setup tools - a Ford dealer will not have these and won't buy them for a one-off job as they are incredibly expensive and the job is fiddly, to say the least.

The first question in my mind is why the HG blew at "only" 110,000 miles. I've had two of these, albeit slightly different engine models (the M50 lump) and both stomped up over double your current mileage on their original head gaskets. The main reason for these blowing is that the wrong antifreeze has been used (it's a nitrite-free special mix for the BMW and is blue in colour - anything else is wrong and must not be used) and/or it hasn't been changed every two years.
Second question is why take it to a Ford Dealer? I understand, and totally 'buy' the idea that it was a trusted garage, however a HG job on a chain-driven, 24v overhead-cam straight six, with VANOS (hydraulic control of cam timing) on one, or both cams is way beyond the experience level of your average non-specialist mechanic (and I'm not running down ANY mechanics here, just recognising that BMW's technology differs to other manufacturer's, even on their older cars).

It could be worth the OP joining the BMW owner's website (not sure if I can post links, but it's w w w. b m w l a n d . c o . u k) - I seem to remember a lot of threads on there a while ago about the 523i engine and HG failure and how to get round the issues experienced thereafter.

If it's going to a specialist this time, I assume you're not going to be charged any extra on the (probably already very high) cost of the HG replacement? If so, count your lucky blessings - most specialists that I know are around the £60 an hour mark and, apparently, setting up the VANOS system is 2-3 hours work, per cam and that will have to be done before any other fault-finding can go on....

rodenal

I have some potentially bad news for you - when I had my 328i it was pretty widely known that to fix a knackered head gasket (properly) was financially unpractical on that model - something to do with the stretch bolts, special service tools needed and tightening sequence. Basically it was not a diy job and unless the garage carrying out the work really know what they are doing with the 6 cylinder 2.8 the repair will almost inevitably fail.

The vanos advise already posted is sound too - a specialist should be able to sort it though.

I don't know if the 2.5 unit is the same, but given it's near enough the same engine I suspect this may be the case - It might be better to drop a new engine in, the good news being you can pick these up for not too much cash now. I would seek the advise of a specialist, talk to them first before spending more money on the car.

colino

Let them crack on and fix it, you certainly don't want to be paying out twice to do the job. It is not a wildly exotic engine any more, even Haynes gives details of how to easily make the "BMW Special Tool", what they havent done is actually fix what caused the HG to blow in the first place.

rodenal

as i previously intimated, I can only reccommend reading up on the engine and repairing HG faults along with taking advice from a bmw specialist - IF this engine is the same or very similar tohe 2.8 from the e36, in almost all cases it isn't worth fixing.

Hammyman

john4efc66 wrote: »

2. guiy also said they had to send a mechanic to bmw to 'learn' the job.. what change a head gasket???? basic job for an average mechanic!

Have you seen the amount of crap bolted to the average BMW engine that needs to be removed to do a headgasket? Its not like the old days where you unbolted the manifolds, took off the spark plug leads, the top hose and away you go.

Nowadays it is specialist tools to lock the cams in place, a ton of electronics and emissions gubbins to remove.