BMW cooling system is inferior

How can BMW build such nice cars and have such a poor cooling system !

From my own experience, and the large number of posts about overheating, I'm now going to sell my car and buy a Mercedes!

I bought my first 5-series less than 6mths ago and I'm sick of the whole cooling system/overheating thing. I paid my money and expected excellence and quality. Instead all I get is stress and worry.

The first time my car was overheating, I was told it was the fan clutch, which was replaced, along with the thermostat for good measure.

A few weeks later, the next overheating saga seemed to be from air in the system, so countless head-under-bonnet bleeding sagas ensued.
This worked for a few weeks.

Now there is NO cooling, i.e. engine overheating after 10 minutes, so car is now sitting in driveway waiting for BMW specialist's attention.
Owner (me) is worried that engine has been damaged as limped home in the red, and at one stage it went PAST the red zone !

Am I sorry I bought a BMW.

Just think it could be alot worse you could have my touring! Screwfix direct comes to mind as they do a good range of nails also.

Still my 525 saloon has never missed a beat however I do think the viscous fan is on its way out as it had a murmour the other day as the temp started to creep up.

everything is in the maintenence - previous and future, if it wasnt looked after properly previously it will give you problems. I have proof, one car mint the other a nail

Jon

-I absolutely agree. Of the (thankfully few) major faults I have had to deal with on various cars, most of them can be attributed to poor or absent maintenance.

-This is borne out out by the results of a survey a few years ago. Statistically you are most likely to break down within 500 miles or so of having had your car in a garage for a service, during which they presumably did something wrong.

-Regarding KarlF's problems; it seems quite likely that (if not from the start, then almost certainly now) the head gasket may be leaking. It does not need a very large leak to cause the symptoms he describes, and every excursion into the red zone on the temperature gauge will make the leak worse....

hope you manage to get it sorted out.

cheers

 

Karl

Gotta disagree with you.  My '97 523i warms up, needle moves to half way up the guage and then doesn't budge regardless of the driving or weather conditions.  The only problem I ever had with a BMW heating up was after a long, quick motorway dash in the e30 convertible on one of the hottest days of summer '03.  Needle flicked up a bit after coming off in to slow moving traffic.

I've put 32k on it since Jan'03 and it hasn't skipped a beat.  Only non standard service items were a windscreen washer pump, front pads and a rear ball joint (both at 75k).

Sorry to hear that you're having problems Karlf. I too had cooling problems with my E34, but they were all due to lack of maintenance/ran with no antifreeze/poor bleeding. That was how I bought the car. After I rebuilt the block I replaced everything to do with the cooling system except for the heater matrix. I bled the system thoroughly and now 8 months later I still have no problems - temp guage stays at 1/2 way, heaters can go up to mad hot if you want them to. Even my crankshaft wear was caused by poor maintenance. I know it's 14 years old but I bet there are other E34's of a similar age that have been cared for and maintained and only get minor age related aches and pains now and again. If everyone was as careful with their cars as us guys on the forum we wouldn't be buying cars with hidden faults but sometimes people buy BMW's etc just to trash about and impress their pals on how quick they think it is. No doubt some young boy racer who's spending all his wages on insurance wouldn't be bothered to spend £20 on quality antifreeze, or be interested to cure that knocking noise on the front suspension, and I'm sure that company car owners too will treat their vehicles poorly as well. Maybe you will have your car fixed and it will run (as long as it gets serviced) for many years to come. Good luck anyway!

Shaun

I wonder if there's anywhere on the 'net that gives a list of vehicle manufacturers most likely to break down. Anyone got any free time to find out? Maybe the AA/RAC have some sort of data. That would tell us who's making reliable cars nowadays!

ShaunJavaScript:AddSmileyIcon('%5B:biggrin1:%5D')

well, i'm on my 7th BMW and wouldn't be without if i can help it! I've never really had a problem with any (until the M5, but it's 14 years old with 154k on the clock! and it's still perfectly drivable and smilable!) apart from the likes of exhausts/batteries/alternator/tyres (all of which BMW DON'T make!!) i've had little to moan about and have never owned a better car! (again, forget about the M5 gearbox!!)

just my 2p worth!!

BMW's fall off in reliabillity has only happend in the last few years, so it doesn't refer to cars like the E34. In fact when I was buying my E36 more than one person told me that the E34 five was lot better built than either the E36 or the E39.

Just because it has fSH and low mileage doesn't mean it is better then a higher mileage with part history.

I do servicing myself and also for others, I have seen on more than one ocassion the absence of oil on the dipstick and when drained, I might aswell have used an egg cup - so long as it doesn't seize up and the service is carried out and oil is filled back to the correct level and the service recorded in the history, the next owner is none the wiser to inbetween service 'life', and with very low oil it could have had split seconds with no oil (eg, when cornering) cause excessive internal wear.

Even BMW dealers can skip certain maintenance procedures, biggest are brake fluid and coolant throughout dealers and non-franchise garages - this is exactly why I do it myself. BMW won't pressurise you into an Inspection II if you can only pay for an oil service.

Also problems can arise but at the end of the day it is upto the customer to pay and give the go-ahead on certain repairs - some say can't afford that we'll do it next time  - Oh I'm selling the car now and they are definatelt not going to pay for a repair/maintenance.

All manufacturers are not imune from dodgy running or repetitive failures. I had a Rover Coupe Turbo who some might say are poorly made, brake down and have head gasket failures - I owned it for 5 years and sold with close to 100K miles on it STILL running sweet, even after trackdays!! Infact the BMW which people would say is better has had more major work - but this is part of owning a car in my opinion.

The reason for the models in the top ten for reliabilty etc is sometimes due to the owners, BMWs may tend to be driven harder etc, some owners may put up with small niggles and not do very many miles. Japanese owners are ususally old - no hard driving and plenty of time to pop to the dealer for a quick chat about a small noise and could prevent a future failure, car mad people who are padantic on maintenance - Moddified Evos Subarus etc  - you get my drift?

I wouldn't tarnish a whole company just because the car I had owned is a lemon and to be truthful there are particular cars that will percist in having problems - others of exactly th same model even colour, don't.

I would expect that now the temp has gone right into the red that the head is most probably warped and this will not go away until its repaired. If you are lucky it may not be. i would never allow any car to get even near the red on the guage - I always keep an eye on all instrumentation to if mine even crept above halfway, I would stop and investigate as this is not how it normally behaves.

Some will carry on as the engine is still going - but at the same time is being shafted! I know one person who had a Vectra V6 and they had a common fault with the cambelt tensioner ( though Vauxhall were not to keen to admit). He heard a noise, the car lost some power (as the left bank had distroyed itself - pistons and valves having a fight) but soldiered on mercifully until the other 3 cylinders went on the other bank - great £6,500 for a new engine - luckily we informed him that there was a fault with the tensioners and with much a deleberation with Vauxhall, they paid for the repair, but it could have been less!!

Not sure if you are talking about E34's or E39's but the E34 definitely has an oil level sensor (the 3 E34's I have owned have had one) ?


Miles