Problems with BWM 320i SE Timing Chain

irish legend

Hi,

I hope that you can help me by providing advice on the situation that I am currently having with my car.

My 2010 BMW 320i SE was making a rattling noise every morning when I got into it and on one or 2 occasions the rattling caused the engine management light come. I brought the car to 2 separate garages on 2 different occasions to find out what was wrong with it and each garage gave me the same response after plugging into the diagnostics - it was a build up of carbon in the Catalytic Converter that needed to be blown out by driving at high revs.

After the last garage told me this I brought the car out onto the motorway and did what they told me to do. I took the car to over 100mph and when I did an oil light followed by over heating light followed by the engine management light came on. I let the car cool on the side of the motorway and then drove it back to the garage that had just checked the car for me.

They inspected the car the next day and informed me that the problem was the timing chain on the car was damaged, had become loose and needed to be replaced. As the car had only done 45k miles and was only 5 years old, I asked the garage to put in a claim for goodwill with BMW. BMW agreed to pay 100% compensation on the parts and labor for this repair. The lead mechanic took the car home that night after the timing chain was fixed and came back the next day and said that he was still not happy with the cars performance. They re-examined the car and found that after the drive chain became loose the parts holding the chain in place fell to the bottom of the engine and blocked the oil coming into the bottom of the engine resulting in damage to the crankshaft and therefore they needed to replace this part.

The garage put in a goodwill claim for this part of the work and BMW came back and said that they would compensate for the parts but not for the labor. The garage has quoted me €2,600 for labor alone and they say that the parts were of a similar value.

I have a couple of questions that I hope you might be able to help with:

1 - Is €2,600 quite a lot to be charged by an authorized BMW garage for this work to be completed?

2 - Do you think that BMW, by offering me compensation of 100% on the timing belt and the parts on the second problem, have been fair or do you think I can push further on the labor costs?

Any help that you can provided is greatly appreciated!

Thanks

vectra

I wonder are BMW saying they will not pay for them to remove the engine and re-do the job again as they should have done it properly first time?

Is this the petrol engine you are talking about or is it a typo and you have a diesel?

I wonder if you rang BMW Ireland yourself for clarification?

Bigus

By paying the 2600 you're getting the crankshaft and parts free, an independent garage while potentially cheaper would come out dearer by paying for a reground crank plus new parts which would be inferior perhaps.
Yes push harder for more compo.
I think your valve stem oil seals may go next , these model BMW s are not great at all at all.

Good luck , in fairness remember car is heading for 6 year old so lucky you had BMW service history .

bazz26

Did I get this right?

They have admitted fault so replaced the stretched timing chain and presumably the tensioners and guide rails with it (the bits that hold the chain in place), they have also admitted that these defective parts damaged the crank shaft but will only cover the cost of the crank shaft part and not the cost of fitting it? If one was damaged a result of the other parts being defective then I would expect them to cover the lot, not picking and choosing. Based on above it would sound like they are trying to get the dealer some extra work at your expense.

The other option is to price the job from an independent garage, it might be possible the price an independent garage charges for the part and labour may well be cheaper than the labour cost that the BMW dealer will charge you even including the free part. At the very least you should try and negotiate down the labour cost with the dealer if he wants to retain your business.

irish legend

vectra wrote: »

I wonder are BMW saying they will not pay for them to remove the engine and re-do the job again as they should have done it properly first time?

Is this the petrol engine you are talking about or is it a typo and you have a diesel?

I wonder if you rang BMW Ireland yourself for clarification?

Hi Vectra,

Not sure if this is why BMW will not cover the Labour.

I have called them today and they are pretty adamant that they will not provide any contribution to Labour for the second work. All they said was that they went above and beyond what they were legally obliged to contribute.

Correct it is a petrol engine.

irish legend

Bigus wrote: »

By paying the 2600 you're getting the crankshaft and parts free, an independent garage while potentially cheaper would come out dearer by paying for a reground crank plus new parts which would be inferior perhaps.
Yes push harder for more compo.
I think your valve stem oil seals may go next , these model BMW s are not great at all at all.

Good luck , in fairness remember car is heading for 6 year old so lucky you had BMW service history .

Thanks, I will try BMW again to see whether they will budge any further in providing contribution to Labour but think I might be out of luck!

irish legend

bazz26 wrote: »

Did I get this right?

They have admitted fault so replaced the stretched timing chain and presumably the tensioners and guide rails with it (the bits that hold the chain in place), they have also admitted that these defective parts damaged the crank shaft but will only cover the cost of the crank shaft part and not the cost of fitting it? If one was damaged a result of the other parts being defective then I would expect them to cover the lot, not picking and choosing. Based on above it would sound like they are trying to get the dealer some extra work at your expense.

The other option is to price the job from an independent garage, it might be possible the price an independent garage charges for the part and labour may well be cheaper than the labour cost that the BMW dealer will charge you even including the free part. At the very least you should try and negotiate down the labour cost with the dealer if he wants to retain your business.

Hi Bazz,

Yeah you got the problem just right - the one problem that they were willing to cover 100% has caused the other issue which they are not willing to cover the Labour on. Seems to be unfair to me but I have called BMW myself independently on this and they are not budging!

I have tried to negotiate down the Labour cost with the garage but they say that they cannot go any cheaper. 2,600 does seem to be a lot of money for the time required but I am not a mechanic so not sure!

bazz26

irish legend wrote: »

Hi Bazz,

Yeah you got the problem just right - the one problem that they were willing to cover 100% has caused the other issue which they are not willing to cover the Labour on. Seems to be unfair to me but I have called BMW myself independently on this and they are not budging!

I have tried to negotiate down the Labour cost with the garage but they say that they cannot go any cheaper. 2,600 does seem to be a lot of money for the time required but I am not a mechanic so not sure!

Well my advice is to price the job (parts & labour) with an independent garage or BMW specialist. Main dealers are well known for charging eye watering hourly rates so it might actually work out cheaper to forgo the goodwill of the "free" part and get it done by an indy.

rebel.ranter

Just bear in mind that the independent garage will likely not be in a position to give the same 2 year warranty on the job that you would get from the BMW dealer.

BTW I'm amazed that no boardsie picked up on your comment about driving it 100MPH!

bazz26

rebel.ranter wrote: »

Just bear in mind that the independent garage will likely not be in a position to give the same 2 year warranty on the job that you would get from the BMW dealer.

BTW I'm amazed that no boardsie picked up on your comment about driving it 100MPH!

That's a fair enough point but I'd imagine that would depend on whether the OP plans on keeping the car or not. If I was keeping the car for a few years then the 2 year warranty on the parts and work is a consideration but if the OP has lost all confidence in the car then getting the car back to working order at the lowest cost would be the preferred way, in order to get shot of it in the short to mid term.