Well, my tech all but admitted to causing my E46 M3 engine failure...

[JetBlack2002SMG]

I just got off the phone with my tech and replacing the chain tensioner didn't get rid of the "death rattle."(Surprise). So, I'm officially #57 or #58 on <a href="http://members.roadfly.org/jason/m3engines.htm">Jason's list</a>. I was given the run around with the local dealership(which is 400 miles away from the dealership, I purchased it in) when it came to getting a loaner but that has now been rememdied. You'd be amazed at how much more acomidating a dealer will be when you can basically get them to admit their tech was responsible for the failure.

Here's that story: I got a tire remounted due to a screw. After they mounted it, I found scratches and bare metal around the edges of the rim from mounting. They said bring it by so we can take it to a local rim shop to see if it can be repaired. When I dropped it off to get the rim repair estimate a week ago, I left the car in S3. When I got it back, it was in S5, and the clicking noise was immediately noticable on the drive home. I immediately took it back and the tech that had driven the car, who looks and acts like he's in his late 20's, went white when he heard the sound. He suddenly started using more "ummm"'s than usual and went looking for a senior tech. Grrrrr... After a few minutes of deliberation, the tech that drove it comes back and says it may be tensioner, at the time I consider this a valid a possiblity. But this was Wed. the 3rd, no service on 4th, 5th, or 6th, "bring it back Monday."
-I ask, "Is it safe to drive?"
-"We think so"


Fast forward past 4th of July weekend. I take the car in Monday. They still say it may be the tensioner and they'll have one Wed. They also said, "there's a REMOTE chance it is a bearing problem." They also said that after talking to the BMWNA, I shouldn't drive the car, and they "didn't have any loaners."

Later, Monday night, I take my first serious look at Jason's failure page. Oh my god..., everyone was describing my car's sound exactly.
I then realized that there was no question about it, my engine had spun a bearing. I call again Tues. to tell them about what I've read and "when am I getting a loaner?" The tech said he had read up a little Monday night too but they were hoping it was just the tensioner and that they couldn't be sure until Wed.

Well, it's Wed. and it's been confirmed. Also the reasons for everything have become clear.

Here's a breakdown of what was really going on.

Last Wed. the 3rd:
Tech uses S5(possibly S6, since the car has been turned off) and liberally uses upper portion of rev range while taking my car to the rim shop. I take the car and come back. Techs, who have never encountered an M3 failure before, think it may be the VANOS or the tensioner. They don't want to give me a loaner so they say, "bring it back Monday" and "sure it's safe to drive."

Monday the 8th:
Tech's finally give a serious listen to the car. They call BMWNA, who tells them they have an M3 engine failure with a spun bearing. The tech that drove my car last Wed. goes pale and decides to continue pursuring the tensioner, just in case. He wants to cover his butt, and he has his fingers crossed it's just the chain. He goes home, gets on the internet, finds out about the same time I do about failures and finds out he probably caused mine with his joyride.

Tues. the 9th:
I call again Tues. this time with info about failures. The driving tech is noticably more reserved and complacent. He said he had "heard" about some failures (a week earlier he said he hadn't heard anything about them) but that it could still be the tensioner, he was praying for this. And, hoping it would just be the chain, I would have my car Wed., no need to give him one of the numerous loaners on the lot...so they lie, "a customer was supposed to bring a loaner back but didn't." I roll my eyes and say ok.

Wed. the 10th:
Tensioner comes, no effect...Failure confirmed. I mention having it shipped to home dealership, here's the resulting conversation:

-"We would loan you a car if you were having the service done here, but since you're sending it to your dealership, we can't help you. OUR loaners are reserved for our customers."

-"I'm sorry, I was under the impression you were servicing the car by waiting on and replacing the tensioner belt."

-"Yes, sir, we were but now that fix hasn't worked and roadside assistance is having it towed to your dealership, so I've been put in a situation here sir. Our cars are reserved"

-"No, I'm in the situation. I've been sitting in my apartment for two straight days, not getting anything done without a car. I can't run errands or even buy luggage I may need to fly home. I'm running low on food, but I can't get to the grocery store without a car. So I've been put in a lose-lose situation. If I hadn't told you, ten minutes ago, I was having the car taken to my home dealership, you would have kept blowing me off, lying about not having any loaners. But since I told you, you now have an excuse not to loan me one."

-"...short silence...I'm sorry sir but I can't help you anymore. You'll have to make arrangements with roadside assistance on how you're going to get home. Since the car is no longer our problem I can't help you.
-"So, that's that?"
-"Yes, sir, that's that"
-I hang up.

The dealer at home actually has an M3 engine, in stock, but it will cost more than Roadside assistance reimbursement pays for. In steps my hero, my home dealer, Grayson BMW. They say they'll pay the difference to get the car flatbedded home, and they'll pay any reasonable expenses used for me to get home. I'll also get a loaner for the duration of the repair, no questions asked.

This is great however, it still doesn't help me in the loaner I need for two days to get some errands done before heading home.

So I sitting here, trying to figure out a ways to do things that would have been noevents three days ago.
I need a haircut
I possibly need luggage for my plane flight home.
I need groceries, I'm sick of "Cup O Noodles" and "Easy Mac".

So, I call the local dealer and finally decided to use my trump card: "You know, it didn't start clicking until after your tech took my car out for a little spin in S5/S6."

Service Manager- "Well sir, I'll have to call you back about that."

Five minutes later: "It seems our tech agrees that the engine was fine until he drove it. You'll have a loaner tomorrow for as long as you need and we're ordering you a new rim immediately (no rim repair shop visit again). Is there anything else, at all, we can do for you?"



Moral of my true cautionary tale, when a tech dept. gets an M3, M5 or any other M in for service, it's a completely different situation from a 325i or 530i. They think it's a race car and treat it like it's their own car. It's like, "oooo he gave us his car to do with as we please." Don't trust any service dept. with an M. Always ask to be present for all drives and keep a tab on milage, shift mode(if SMG). And if they think your being paranoid, tell them my story.

[brice]

Hey-
I remember meeting you at the DTM East Coast Meet a few weeks ago. I was the other guy with the other Carbon Black E46 M3. Let me say that I am so sorry to hear about this. What that technician did to your car was completely absurd. Regardless of that fact, and from looking at all the horror stories revolving around the failures of 11/01 build date ///M3's, it makes me think that this day was doomed to happen to you sooner or later. I hate saying that as it sounds like I am saying that you couldn't have done anything about it, but that may be the case. Only time will tell how many, if not all, of the 11/01 ///M3's end up failing.

And to add insult to injury, the dealership treated you like total shit. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE put their name on here so we may all know who NOT to go to for service and sales in the future. You would think after all this carp regarding engine failures and people's horror stories about the service they received follwoing the engine failures, that BMW would wise up and let its dealers know "Hey listen, we messed up, we'll cover it. Make sure your customers know they will be taken care of." This is simple customer satisfaction principle. Own up to your problem, admit your fault, apologize for it, and by god, FIX IT!!! I do this everyday in my business.

I am sure I speak for everyone on the forum when I say that we feel for you. You got the shit end of the stick. Hopefully they will fix everything with brand new parts and hopefully they will spare nothing.

Please keep us updated on your situation, as everyone needs to be aware of what is going on. Myself included.

sorry,
brice

[JetBlack2002SMG]

I won't post the exact name of the dealer, because they still have my car for a couple days and they might run across this, but I'll give you some clues. It's a dealer in the Middle of Virginia, in a college town that starts with "C".

And I'll keep all you DTM'ers posted on the progress. I'll definitely be getting a new-new engine, as in, one produced within the last month. And the good news is, when they send the engine, it's been handbuilt with all the internals already installed. All the dealer has to do is disconnect everything from the broken block take it out and drop in the new one. Usually a two or three day job. This of course depends on if they find anything else messed up due to failure. I've had many people tell me I should lemon the car and get an entirely new one for free.

Va law states: "The Virginia lemon law covers any nonconformity, which is defined as a failure to conform with a warranty, a defect, or a condition that significantly impairs the use, market value or safety of the motor vehicle. "Significant impairment" means to render the motor vehicle unfit, unreliable or unsafe for ordinary use or reasonable intended purposes."

I would say a replaced engine would constitute a condition that significantly impairs the use and market value.

And if I got a new one, it would have the redesigned diff. they started installing in Feb, the revised bearing clearances that were instated in late Dec.(which probably would have saved my car), the updated crankshaft, and I'd get the OEM strut brace they started installing in mid-march. <br><br><br>




I wish BMW owners would get something like this in the mail.<br>

[Blitz]

I would like to say that what is happening to you f*ckin sucks! You should beat the shit out of that tech guy that drove your car like that!

I really feel sorry for you and your car and I hope that this situation gets resolved quickly and flawlessly.

P.S. If possible, try your best to get that Lemon Law on your side and pick-up a new, 2002 M3! That would be bad ass

[Suneal]

That totally sucks man. The dealership we purchased our E38 acts in the same manner also. Thats why I go to a dealership thats about 15 more minutes away from my house (to the north, the bad one is to the south). I always keep a tab of how much milage any car has when we leave it at any service place (body shop, dealerchip, etc.). I have the best wishes for you!

[Want a M3]

Sorry about the ride. Sounds like they are real a$$holes there at your dealer.

[M3PiNoYdRiVeR]

Damn dude that freakin sux. Use the lemon law and get a fully loaded 2002 M3

[m3mark]

Man im really sorry to hear that about your car. How long is your car going to be out 4? Im just wondering if theres a lawsuit going to be filed against bmw because there should be. You pay all that $$$ for the car and you have to deal with this? Just hope everything works out for you.

[JetBlack2002SMG]

Well the car's on a flatbed back to my home dealer who has an M3 engine in stock...there's another guy with an M3 in their service dept. but there's some holdup on his, so they're putting the engine they ordered for him in my car. It will be at my dealership by tomorrow. Then they'll drop the pan, inspect the innards and start the swap monday morning. They said barring any unforseen problems, I'll have the car back by Wed. or Thur. so the 17th or 18th. Considering my car went in on the 8th, that's not too bad.

Also I found this interesting, Based on data from <a href="http://members.roadfly.org/jason/m3engines.htm">Jason's Site</a>, where the majority of failure are due to Spun Bearings:

Notice any correlation between these three pictures? Notice the expiration dates on the parts and remember these two facts:


1.) It would take the factory a week or so to get rid of surplus inventory (in this case bearings) before getting the updated parts.
2.) Engines are produced before the chassis orders are filled so a engine built in Nov. often has to wait on chassis made in Dec.

My car is a Nov 01 build.

<br><br>



<font size=6>And BMW still say they don't know what's causing the extreme hike in failures of cars produced between Oct. and Dec. of 2001.</font>

[BMWGuy206]

I just performed a 1200 mile service on a customers M3 this morning. I treat every BMW that I work on as if I were working on my M3s.

This customer left his drivelogic setting at S5. I added 3 miles and left it at that setting.

JetBlack2002SMG -
sorry to hear about what happened with your M3 and the problems you faced. I cant speak for the technician that drove your car but that type of problem was bound to happen. It was just bad timing I guess.

Heck i'm still waiting for my E46 M3 to spin a bearing. (prod. date 11/01)

[JetBlack2002SMG]

I'm glad to hear it. I was just saying, watch out for dealerships you have not dealt with before. The dealer I bought my M3 from has an excellent service dept.and I've never had any problems. But, the guy at this dealership was new, a just a few months into the job. And it was bound to happen, but like I've said before, killing someone then saying they were going to die eventually doesn't make it right.

I have a question for you BMWGuy206: when my dealer swaps the M3's engine, it will be their first E46 M3 engine swap. What type of training in swaps do you get? Will the block come with instructions, and that's how they figure out what to do exactly? And will the car be as solid with a dealer installed engine as it would be with a factory installed? I know all the internals are already installed so that makes the swap go A LOT faster than rebuilding.

[Nick]

Hey man I remember you from the DTM/DVInsight meet as well. So sorry to hear about your car. I would tell that dealership that they f*cked up and you expect a new car or they can expect legal action. That is BS that a Tech ****ed up your car like that. Best of luck to you, man! Hope this works out well for you.

[porkyzilla]

well that really sucks i have a few questions for you! first of all what will happen to the tech think bmw will go after the tech? or whos paying for the new engine? and wont that put a salvage title or soemthing on it? also when they drop a new engine do they reset the mileage, and what kind of miles did your M3 have on it?

[Andy]

Man, I am sorry to hear your pain. I remember you from one of Nick's drives.
All i can say is be glad it didn't happen when you were driving it. Since that guy acted like a jackass maybe you can end up benefitting from the situation. Look into the legal ramifications concerning this. You can actually learn something from this, as in how the law works. Then you can share your knowledge with us so we all know what to do if something similar happens to us.
I look at it like this, your engine WILL be replaced, most likely BMW will replace the engine under warranty or the dealership where you had the work will. Let's see how liable the dealership is for what they did to your car.
Hope everything works out for you. I ma VERY curious how this turns out so please let us know how it goes.

[JetBlack2002SMG]

While I can't place total blame on the tech, the BMW dealership he's working at is supposed to get back to me on their course of action(probably a slap on the wrist or something).

The reason I say I cant place total blame is this:

It appears that BMW decided to make the change to red bearings after the 2001 production run, before beginning the start of 02 production. 2002 production.

Model year 2001 production stopped in mid august of 2001 for a month or so that the factories could retool, take a break, and make necessary changes for 2002 production to start. They began using blue bearings midway through 2001 production (I'm still researching into when, I'm guessing when they switched to 10-W60) to hopefully reduce the amount of failures that were occuring(VERY few compared to now, almost all due to abuse). Then to help further reduce failures, they decided to start using the red bearings beginning with the 2002 model year. However, the red bearings have made the situation worse than they could have imagined. The reason for the spike in recent months could be either due to milage or possibly even the warm weather. Based of the data that's coming in about production dates of cars and the implimentation of red bearings on 9/24/02, it is safe to assume that all 2002 production cars up until late Dec. have red bearings. This leads me to a logical conclusion I hate to make. Based on the data, it is reasonable to assume that all 2002 M3's made before mid-late Dec will fail prematurely. This of course is only speculation, based on limited data, but due to the spike from Oct-Dec and the corresponding changes in engine production it seems inevitable.

What is certain is that BMW has increased M3 engine production 150-200% within the past few months, apparantly in anticipation of the flood of M3 engine failures they plan on occuring.

Although, no one should panic. This increase in production will no doubt ensure the speedy recovery of M3's.

In my case, my car went into service Mon. 07/08 and should be out by the 17th. I'll keep everyone posted on events as they happen. I hope to get pictures and info on the process of swapping my engine.