Hi all,
I am new to this forum and forums in general, used them for info in the past as they are a great source of information but never really posted on them until now. I will give a bit of back ground into me and the whole story about the car below. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read and give advice.
Long story short, I am 28 and have always been into cars/motorbikes. I had spent most of my 20s with fast motorbikes rather than fast cars but always had semi fast cars, Saab 9-3 aero and e46 330i to name a couple. I am also fairly mechanically minded and enjoy doing work on my own vehicles and would tackle most jobs.
So onto the story!
In early July of 2018 I was in a very fortunate position to be able to afford my dream car an M135i. I had been keeping an eye on prices and searching for my ideal spec for about a year prior to this. After selling my bike I needed something to scratch the itch for speed that it had left me with and my old 330i with 140+K miles just didn't do it. The car was advertised with the John Clark group (Motorchoice Edinburgh) who are a reasonable sized dealer here in Scotland, with having franchised dealerships from BMW, Audi and JLR group. Motorchoice was the outlet they had to sell good used trade-ins that they couldn't put on the forecourt of the main dealers, they had some very nice stock of used cars. The car was a 2013 63reg, registered in late November of that year. It had 34k miles on it and was in my perfect spec with ZF8, Estoril blue paint and cream leather on the inside. Condition of the car overall was very good, a few age related marks but well above average for its age. The service history was all main dealer and the car seemed to have been well cared for, the tyres had even been changed with Michelin PSS and were all matching. I made the deal and the car was mine, managed to haggle in a years warranty but that was it!!
The collection, all went smoothly and the car was great. A couple day later I noticed a slight clattering noice as if a pump was priming itself as it only occurred when unlocking the car. I had the codes checked and nothing logged so put it down to a pump on its way out. The car drove perfectly, I test drove several when on the hunt for one and they all felt the same which is a good sign to me
. Fast forward to May of 2019 and I got the car serviced at Klasse series automotive near Livingston who are BMW and Mercedes specialists. There service was great and the diagnosed the problem to be the valvetronic motor for the eccentric shaft. The independent Warrenty was still on the car so I booked it in with a garage more local to me who were also meant to be a BMW specialist to carry out the work. They replaced the motor no problem at all but were unable to programme it in, I ended up falling out with them over this because they were insistent that there was software issue on the car which I did not believe. I suspect they didn't have the correct diagnostic equipment or upto date equipment to do it, a bold claim as I have no proof of that. I tried to compromise with them saying I would take time away from work to take the car to BMW who were quoting £165 to do the job and I would cover half the cost if they would pay the other £82.50. I thought this was the best way out for everyone but not according to them so I gave up and stomached the cost.
The car was taken to Peter Vardy in Edinburgh to have it coded in. I was in and out within an hour so can't imagine it was a software issue! Upon leaving the dealer the minute I started the car there was a slight hydraulic lifter tap present so I went back in and one of the head technicians came out for a listen. He said it did sound like a lifter but to give it a good run to see if it will repressure itself, as the eccentric shaft hadn't been working properly for sometime. I did this and kept running the car for a while and it got ever so slightly louder but not that much. I should clarify now that the car is a weekend toy and only gets used occasionally as I have a van for work and most other things. I proceeded to get a quote from BMW to carry out the work as after my fall out with a supposed specialist I didn't really trust anyone else with it. They quoted £2150 to replace all the intake lifters. This was quoted in November of last year so saved up the pennies and avoided using the car too much. The car was booked in on the 27th of February this year to have the work done, I dropped the car off and prayed there was nothing else! Of course there was and it now gets juicy! After some phone calls on the 27th I decided to go and have a look at the valve train on the top of the engine myself on the 28th. I also took my father along to look as he is very mechanically minded. What greeted us when arriving was to me very worrying for a car that had just turned 6 years old with only 46k miles on it with a full service history. Time for the photos now. As you can see below the intake cam has signs of corrosion which did wipe away, as can be seem in some photos. The worst part was how heavily worn the camshaft lobs were, the rocker arms also showing signs of wear. Add to that the eccentric shaft was toast it pretty much needed everything replaced on the intake side along with a new timing chain and vanos pulleys cleaned up or possibly replaced. To me a catastrophic list of items on a car that probably had these issue when I purchased it at 4.5 years old. I think it was masked then because the valvetronic motor didn't work. I requested that they went to BMW for a good will warranty gesture with me saying I was willing to spend £2.5k of whatever the bill was myself. No luck with BMW UK and the dealers initial price of £7200 was eye watering. They eventually came down to £5229.26 with a huge amount of help for Peter Vardy which to be frank was still eye watering! After looking at all options, trading it in against something else, punting it to trade or just risking it a little longer. I decided to just fix it and swallow the cost. A massive kick in the teeth all in. Due to the lockdown situation I don't actually have the car back yet but do have a nice 335d touring as a courtesy car, silver lining and all
.
I am sharing as I would like some feed back on whether this is a common issue and whether people think its a defective camshaft? My personal opinion is that the camshaft has been manufactured incorrectly, whether that be badly moulded to cause the pitting or that the hardening process on the lobs wasn't done correctly. The main shaft between the lobs and journal seems to look fine to me. I have requested that they keep all parts as I would like to examine or get them examined more closely as I would like to try and persue this with BMW UK. The photos are below. Thanks for any suggestions and if anyone has had any luck with BMW UK direct I would like to hear it. Thanks.
IMG_8462.HEIC
IMG_8463.HEIC
IMG_8464.HEIC
IMG_8465.HEIC
IMG_8466.HEIC
IMG_8469.JPG
IMG_8470.JPG
IMG_5286.JPG
IMG_5277.PNG
IMG_5278.PNG
IMG_5614.JPG
Thanks Matt
I am new to this forum and forums in general, used them for info in the past as they are a great source of information but never really posted on them until now. I will give a bit of back ground into me and the whole story about the car below. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read and give advice.
Long story short, I am 28 and have always been into cars/motorbikes. I had spent most of my 20s with fast motorbikes rather than fast cars but always had semi fast cars, Saab 9-3 aero and e46 330i to name a couple. I am also fairly mechanically minded and enjoy doing work on my own vehicles and would tackle most jobs.
So onto the story!
In early July of 2018 I was in a very fortunate position to be able to afford my dream car an M135i. I had been keeping an eye on prices and searching for my ideal spec for about a year prior to this. After selling my bike I needed something to scratch the itch for speed that it had left me with and my old 330i with 140+K miles just didn't do it. The car was advertised with the John Clark group (Motorchoice Edinburgh) who are a reasonable sized dealer here in Scotland, with having franchised dealerships from BMW, Audi and JLR group. Motorchoice was the outlet they had to sell good used trade-ins that they couldn't put on the forecourt of the main dealers, they had some very nice stock of used cars. The car was a 2013 63reg, registered in late November of that year. It had 34k miles on it and was in my perfect spec with ZF8, Estoril blue paint and cream leather on the inside. Condition of the car overall was very good, a few age related marks but well above average for its age. The service history was all main dealer and the car seemed to have been well cared for, the tyres had even been changed with Michelin PSS and were all matching. I made the deal and the car was mine, managed to haggle in a years warranty but that was it!!
The collection, all went smoothly and the car was great. A couple day later I noticed a slight clattering noice as if a pump was priming itself as it only occurred when unlocking the car. I had the codes checked and nothing logged so put it down to a pump on its way out. The car drove perfectly, I test drove several when on the hunt for one and they all felt the same which is a good sign to me
The car was taken to Peter Vardy in Edinburgh to have it coded in. I was in and out within an hour so can't imagine it was a software issue! Upon leaving the dealer the minute I started the car there was a slight hydraulic lifter tap present so I went back in and one of the head technicians came out for a listen. He said it did sound like a lifter but to give it a good run to see if it will repressure itself, as the eccentric shaft hadn't been working properly for sometime. I did this and kept running the car for a while and it got ever so slightly louder but not that much. I should clarify now that the car is a weekend toy and only gets used occasionally as I have a van for work and most other things. I proceeded to get a quote from BMW to carry out the work as after my fall out with a supposed specialist I didn't really trust anyone else with it. They quoted £2150 to replace all the intake lifters. This was quoted in November of last year so saved up the pennies and avoided using the car too much. The car was booked in on the 27th of February this year to have the work done, I dropped the car off and prayed there was nothing else! Of course there was and it now gets juicy! After some phone calls on the 27th I decided to go and have a look at the valve train on the top of the engine myself on the 28th. I also took my father along to look as he is very mechanically minded. What greeted us when arriving was to me very worrying for a car that had just turned 6 years old with only 46k miles on it with a full service history. Time for the photos now. As you can see below the intake cam has signs of corrosion which did wipe away, as can be seem in some photos. The worst part was how heavily worn the camshaft lobs were, the rocker arms also showing signs of wear. Add to that the eccentric shaft was toast it pretty much needed everything replaced on the intake side along with a new timing chain and vanos pulleys cleaned up or possibly replaced. To me a catastrophic list of items on a car that probably had these issue when I purchased it at 4.5 years old. I think it was masked then because the valvetronic motor didn't work. I requested that they went to BMW for a good will warranty gesture with me saying I was willing to spend £2.5k of whatever the bill was myself. No luck with BMW UK and the dealers initial price of £7200 was eye watering. They eventually came down to £5229.26 with a huge amount of help for Peter Vardy which to be frank was still eye watering! After looking at all options, trading it in against something else, punting it to trade or just risking it a little longer. I decided to just fix it and swallow the cost. A massive kick in the teeth all in. Due to the lockdown situation I don't actually have the car back yet but do have a nice 335d touring as a courtesy car, silver lining and all
I am sharing as I would like some feed back on whether this is a common issue and whether people think its a defective camshaft? My personal opinion is that the camshaft has been manufactured incorrectly, whether that be badly moulded to cause the pitting or that the hardening process on the lobs wasn't done correctly. The main shaft between the lobs and journal seems to look fine to me. I have requested that they keep all parts as I would like to examine or get them examined more closely as I would like to try and persue this with BMW UK. The photos are below. Thanks for any suggestions and if anyone has had any luck with BMW UK direct I would like to hear it. Thanks.
IMG_8462.HEIC
IMG_8463.HEIC
IMG_8464.HEIC
IMG_8465.HEIC
IMG_8466.HEIC
IMG_8469.JPG
IMG_8470.JPG
IMG_5286.JPG
IMG_5277.PNG
IMG_5278.PNG
IMG_5614.JPG
Thanks Matt