BMW Swarf in fuel leading to major damage 4 December 2020 at 6:50PM in Motoring 12 replies 1.1K views

duckychick

Hi I am hoping someone has had some experience/heard of this:   BMW 330D broke down last night, got towed to garage, car is 3 years old, I have been told that there was swarf in the fuel system.  I have not misfueled the car or let it run dry , I always keep topped up, and they are telling me whole fuel system needs replacing at a cost of £9600 and possibly also a new engine!!!!!  Has anyone heard of any HPFP problems on BMW's?  The car gave no warning at all, it just spluttered and stopped and that was it! Any  advice appreciated as to whether this could be a parts fault or similar that I could approach BMW with

born_again

Taking it that the car has been fully serviced in the 3 years. Then unless the fuel pump has fallen apart (will be easy to prove) 

daveyjp

Always worth a google when you have a fault.

Looks like another BMW inherent design fault.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=&t=1845149

https://www.bimmerfest.com/threads/metal-flakes-in-fuel-system.1334831/

BMW owners club will also be worth a visit.

AdrianC

That monumental bill is because the manufacturer-approved repair for anything like this is to replace absolutely everything in the fuel system, including the tank and pipework. That's massive overkill, and just replacing any damaged components and cleaning out the rest would be perfectly adequate - there are filters in the fuel system.

Ectophile

How would swarf from misfuelling get into the engine? Don't BMW fit fuel filters?

I would suspect something like an injector pump as the culprit.

daveyjp

The links tell all.  The high pressure fuel pump is after all the filters.  Premature wear of the pump due to lack of lubrication causes the swarf issue.

duckychick

Thanks for all the info, I called BMW garage today to confirm that we had not misfuelled and to tell them I wanted to know what else could have caused it but they said it is still under investigation ?? Im wondering why, if that is the case, they told us it would be £9600 yesterday!!  If it is the HPFP that was the problem would we be within our rights to expect them to put it right as the car is only 3 years old and has done less than 36000 miles?

fred246

Have you paid for main dealer servicing? If you have goodwill will pay for everything.

duckychick

No unfortunately only  had the car a year and took it to another dealership to service

LudaMusser

fred246 said:

Have you paid for main dealer servicing? If you have goodwill will pay for everything.

I used to work as a service advisor. If the customer was known to us and always used us for servicing we would have contributed in part. Absolutely no way would we have paid for all of it 

LudaMusser

OP it may be worth a call to BMW UK. Not sure what you paid for the car but it will be considerable as it’s only three years old. You never know, they may contribute towards the bill. Having to spend that sort of money on a three year old car is not something I would expect to have to do. Ten years old, yes. You could always try another garage. Main dealers like to replace multiple parts without ever spending time trying to find and fix the problem