E46 new Rear brake pipes needed

[RanchoGrande]

Hi, car failed its mot due to corroded rear brake pipes. Anyone had this work done recently? Wondering what a ballpark figure for this work would be. I appreciate it's not a quick job but want to make sure I'm not being overcharged.

Thanks in advance

[RanchoGrande]

The garage has said they'll need to drop the tank and exhaust so going by that, I'm assuming they'll be doing the job as the factory intended. I've been quoted £385 for the work but have been warned that this may increase.

[RanchoGrande]

ftypical said:

The Offside pipe can apparently be replaced without removing the tank.

Details here:

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=...

It's the nearside rear which needs doing for the MOT, although I suspect they'll end up replacing both sets

[RanchoGrande]

Hainey said:

Just do a round the tank repair. I've been doing that to avoid dropping tanks since the days of the Peugeot 205. Perfectly acceptable.

The garage may not have done this before or be comfortable doing it this way but I'm definitely going to ask the question.

[RanchoGrande]

RanchoGrande said:

The garage may not have done this before or be comfortable doing it this way but I'm definitely going to ask the question.

Just to update this thread in case anyone is interested: The garage wouldn't do any other method other than what the factory intended (both of the garage owners actually own E46 BMW's so I kind of accepted their take on it)

The ended up replacing both offside and nearside brake pipes from front to back as they were totally corroded. The job ended up involving the total removal of the rear axle and fuel tank to get to everything properly. They showed me a load of pictures and to be fair, it did look like a total mare. All in it came to £385 and I'm sure that the new copper pipes will last another 16 years!

[RanchoGrande]

Sure, it wasn't cheap but I did my due diligence and rang around some other BMW specialists who all quoted around the same price.

I'm super happy for all the guys on here that managed to do the job in a matter of hours for the price of parts. Good work.

[RanchoGrande]

4rephill said:

It sounds to Me as though they did the job exactly as a BMW dealer would rather than cut corners, and it's interesting to note that they took pictures to show you the work carried out on your car to prove it (they've probably had accusations of charging for work not really carried out in the past and so now cover themselves by photographing the work as they go along).

Based on BMW charging @ £700 for this job, £385 sounds about right for an non-BMW garage to do the job.

There are always going to be people who know how to do the job for a lot less, or know an easier way of doing it, but at the end of the day, all that matters is that you're happy with the work done, and price you paid. If others have a problem with any of it then that's their tough st!

I'm happy with it and the pricing, I probably could have saved £50 or so by pushing another place to do it but the issue with that is I would have had to pay another £55 for a new MOT test so it was a false economy. Of course there is always a niggling doubt that a garage is trying to rip you off but sometimes, you have to put an element of trust in and yes, it's good that they document what they're doing as it puts customers minds at rest.

That and these are central London garage prices!