BMW E46 M3 Engine Failure Archive
Discussion
M series engine recalls
http://members.roadfly.com/jason/m3engines.htm
just in case we get too hung up this sort of thing is unique to TVR!
http://members.roadfly.com/jason/m3engines.htm
just in case we get too hung up this sort of thing is unique to TVR!
Correct. I agree with the sentiment and agree that both BMW and TVR realised that they had inherent problems with their designs.
TVR shoved the problem under the carpet and when it occurred out of the first year warranty, they held their hand out and asked loyal customers for £5000 to fix it. If/when it happened again after the 6-12 month warranty period regardles of very low milage, they asked for an additional £5000.
BMW realised the problem, issued a statement to all customers concerned explaining the problem and how it will be fixed WITHOUT CHARGE. Additionally they chose to extend the warranty for any parts of the engine lubricated by oil for 6 YEARS OR 100,000 miles.
IMHO those are the actions of companies who lose loyal customers and those you retain and build on them. I think *that* is the factor which customers got hung up about, and unfortunately it is almost unique to TVR...
Whether the situation as of today is still the same I do not know, but I feel the difference in the way the problems have been addressed by both of the companies will haunt TVR for a good while.
>> Edited by justinp1 on Thursday 19th January 21:28
TVR shoved the problem under the carpet and when it occurred out of the first year warranty, they held their hand out and asked loyal customers for £5000 to fix it. If/when it happened again after the 6-12 month warranty period regardles of very low milage, they asked for an additional £5000.
BMW realised the problem, issued a statement to all customers concerned explaining the problem and how it will be fixed WITHOUT CHARGE. Additionally they chose to extend the warranty for any parts of the engine lubricated by oil for 6 YEARS OR 100,000 miles.
IMHO those are the actions of companies who lose loyal customers and those you retain and build on them. I think *that* is the factor which customers got hung up about, and unfortunately it is almost unique to TVR...
Whether the situation as of today is still the same I do not know, but I feel the difference in the way the problems have been addressed by both of the companies will haunt TVR for a good while.
>> Edited by justinp1 on Thursday 19th January 21:28
Daftlad said:
TVR shoved the problem under the carpet and when it occurred out of the first year warranty, they held their hand out and asked loyal customers for £5000 to fix it.
That's not strictly true. They undertook a lot of free rebuilds out of warranty.
Engine warranty has always been two years on the Speed Six, I had mine up-graded after four years & 20K + miles FOC.
NCE 61 said:
TVR shoved the problem under the carpet and when it occurred out of the first year warranty, they held their hand out and asked loyal customers for £5000 to fix it.
That's not strictly true. They undertook a lot of free rebuilds out of warranty.
Engine warranty has always been two years on the Speed Six, I had mine up-graded after four years & 20K + miles FOC.
Thanks for that posting. The S6 reputation is bad enough without blatant misquotes by folk who seem to have gained some sort of authoritative status with regards to the engine.
justinp1 said:
Correct. I agree with the sentiment and agree that both BMW and TVR realised that they had inherent problems with their designs.
TVR shoved the problem under the carpet and when it occurred out of the first year warranty, they held their hand out and asked loyal customers for £5000 to fix it. If/when it happened again after the 6-12 month warranty period regardles of very low milage, they asked for an additional £5000.
BMW realised the problem, issued a statement to all customers concerned explaining the problem and how it will be fixed WITHOUT CHARGE. Additionally they chose to extend the warranty for any parts of the engine lubricated by oil for 6 YEARS OR 100,000 miles.
IMHO those are the actions of companies who lose loyal customers and those you retain and build on them. I think *that* is the factor which customers got hung up about, and unfortunately it is almost unique to TVR...
Whether the situation as of today is still the same I do not know, but I feel the difference in the way the problems have been addressed by both of the companies will haunt TVR for a good while.
>> Edited by justinp1 on Thursday 19th January 21:28
If i remeber correctly, in 1999-2000 the original s6 warranty was as standard ie one year. Maybe someone could check with someone like fernhursts?
When problems were encountered, to reassure people this was changed to a 2 year engine warranty, rebuilds i believe only ever had a 1 year...
Still very different to BMW ISSUEING A RECALL, TVR never did this, to the early cars, and I believe the owners of these early cars are justified to feel agreived in this, ie they were doing the tvr development testing, on an engine, shall we say that TVR has evolved over the years to correct these problems..
The reason we still talk about this is there ARE 1999-2001 s6 cerberas/tuscs for sale, and as they've been 2nd/third 'toy' cars there are a lot out there with less than 15 k miles, a quick look at autotrader will find some ate less than 10 k miles....
In the example above, these would have been recalled, and sorted out even now... SO if a potential owner innocently is it OK to buy, those who advice caution, should not be shouted down, for the reasons given.
imho
B
B
>> Edited by bjwoods on Friday 20th January 12:21
To be fair both main angles on TVR's performance on this thread are true to an extent.
I got a 'good will' rebuild on a late 2000 car with less than 15k on the clock in 2004 - but it was one of the last. My warranty document only ever said one year cover for everything inc. engine and the new owner did not get much help from TVR when he had oil pressure problems soon after the 'fix'.
This reaction to my problem (thanks Jason) was good for me, but did not answer the generic questions and the new owner got rid of the car soon after (for a '65 E-type FGS!) and swore never to come back to the marque.
Why has there never been a formal re-call or statement of facts about the Speed 6 problems about either the early engines or later ones? Basically TVR simply did/does not have the volume or capitalisation to cope unlike BMW. This will, inevitably IMHO, do TVR Engineering in and a big company will buy up the residual assests and the Marque.
I think BossCerbera's strategy (posted elsewhere), for sorting the punter's view of the company and the engine, would have helped, but was rejected. It is a moot point whether taking up that advice now would make a substantial difference to TVR's commercial prospects.
I think many of us feel;
1. This spring/summer's sales will crucial
2. Having more than one power plant in the cars might help quite alot from many perspectives
3. The first true Smolensky car will be make or break
4. We would like a Cerb replacement
CwC
>> Edited by CiderwithCerbie on Friday 20th January 12:03
I got a 'good will' rebuild on a late 2000 car with less than 15k on the clock in 2004 - but it was one of the last. My warranty document only ever said one year cover for everything inc. engine and the new owner did not get much help from TVR when he had oil pressure problems soon after the 'fix'.
This reaction to my problem (thanks Jason) was good for me, but did not answer the generic questions and the new owner got rid of the car soon after (for a '65 E-type FGS!) and swore never to come back to the marque.
Why has there never been a formal re-call or statement of facts about the Speed 6 problems about either the early engines or later ones? Basically TVR simply did/does not have the volume or capitalisation to cope unlike BMW. This will, inevitably IMHO, do TVR Engineering in and a big company will buy up the residual assests and the Marque.
I think BossCerbera's strategy (posted elsewhere), for sorting the punter's view of the company and the engine, would have helped, but was rejected. It is a moot point whether taking up that advice now would make a substantial difference to TVR's commercial prospects.
I think many of us feel;
1. This spring/summer's sales will crucial
2. Having more than one power plant in the cars might help quite alot from many perspectives
3. The first true Smolensky car will be make or break
4. We would like a Cerb replacement
CwC >> Edited by CiderwithCerbie on Friday 20th January 12:03
Daftlad said:
TVR shoved the problem under the carpet and when it occurred out of the first year warranty, they held their hand out and asked loyal customers for £5000 to fix it.
That's not strictly true. They undertook a lot of free rebuilds out of warranty.
Engine warranty has always been two years on the Speed Six, I had mine up-graded after four years & 20K + miles FOC.
Thanks for that posting. The S6 reputation is bad enough without blatant misquotes by folk who seem to have gained some sort of authoritative status with regards to the engine.
Before I am accused of misquoting and not ascertaining the facts myself, it may have been wise to actually find out the facts yourself.
As far as I am aware, when I bought my Tuscan, and even before that the original warranty standing was 1 year, and 2 years on the 'S' versions. Whilst I understand that there are of course some 'S' versions, and of course they may have given a 2 year warranty later on, for 85% of the Tuscans in the first two years at least there was a 1 year warranty. Ironically this is the exact group which had the most problems. When the engine was rebuilt, people have stated on PH that they either got a 12 or even a 6 month warranty. This is obviously not in the same ballpark of 6 years...
I also realise that 'a lot' of goodwill rebuilds *were* done. Some of them were covered by TVR, some of them still required the customer to pay a proportion. Also in some cases, TVR for whatever reason may have increased a customers warranty standing for a further year. However, I still think that it is reasonably obvious that this was not the policy, and was not offered to the huge majority of owners.
The fact still remains however that TVR expected a hell of a lot more people to pay for their own rebuilds. They never released the detail of the problem to current owners, gave them a freephone number to ask about it and a convenient method of upgrading their engines for free at their convenience. So, when the worst did occur, a lot of them had to pay for their rebuilds, and have their car of the road for a number of months.
The point of my post is that we can now discuss the exact dates when the warranty changed from 1 to 2 years, and we can say that some people did get 'free' rebuilds. The fact remains however that the way that BMW handled the situation, and the way the problem affected a considerable proportion of owners differs completely to the way TVR did. If someone wants to defend that, or even say it was the right thing to do, then that would be a great talking point.
>> Edited by justinp1 on Friday 20th January 13:15
Daftlad said:
TVR shoved the problem under the carpet and when it occurred out of the first year warranty, they held their hand out and asked loyal customers for £5000 to fix it.
That's not strictly true. They undertook a lot of free rebuilds out of warranty.
Daftlad said:
The S6 reputation is bad enough without blatant misquotes by folk who seem to have gained some sort of authoritative status with regards to the engine.
justinp1 said:
Before I am accused of misquoting and not ascertaining the facts myself, it may have been wise to actually find out the facts yourself.
My statement is 100% correct. TVR did undertake a lot of free rebuilds out of warranty.
You were wrong and I would suggest that it's not always advisable to try and defend your error with long winded response - especially when its loaded with inaccurate assumption.
For info. Warranty in 2000 was 1 year all car, 2 year Engine.
>> Edited by Daftlad on Friday 20th January 13:40
Daftlad said:
TVR shoved the problem under the carpet and when it occurred out of the first year warranty, they held their hand out and asked loyal customers for £5000 to fix it.
That's not strictly true. They undertook a lot of free rebuilds out of warranty.
Daftlad said:
The S6 reputation is bad enough without blatant misquotes by folk who seem to have gained some sort of authoritative status with regards to the engine.
justinp1 said:
Before I am accused of misquoting and not ascertaining the facts myself, it may have been wise to actually find out the facts yourself.
My statement is 100% correct. TVR did undertake a lot of free rebuilds out of warranty.
You were wrong and I would suggest that it's not always advisable to try and defend your error with long winded response - especially when its loaded with inaccurate assumption.
>> Edited by Daftlad on Friday 20th January 13:38
Ok. Heres a short one. Your response it correct of course however my only qualm is that mine is a misquote. Its not, unless of course my aging memory is failing me and I misread my owners handbook. In which case I stand corrected, thanks for correcting me. I *did* think though that the original release Tuscan warranty was 1 year, and 2 year for the 'S'...
>> Edited by justinp1 on Friday 20th January 13:55
justinp1 said:
The fact remains however that the way that BMW handled the situation, and the way the problem affected a considerable proportion of owners differs completely to the way TVR did. If someone wants to defend that, or even say it was the right thing to do, then that would be a great talking point.
Justin
BMW is a huge multi national business. TVR is a tiny microscopic business hand building a few hundred cars a year.
As a TVR owner I do not expect TVR tbe able to react to issues in the same way as BMW and if I wanted the security of a belt and braces level of development and customer care I would buy a BMW or a Merc or whatever, not a TVR.
If TVR had recalled all the early SP6's they would have gone bust.
This is an interesting thread and I think it helps focus on the realities at the time. If I understand the BMW letters correctly they identified a build contamination issue and a component quality issue which triggered a recall. BMW took on board the cost themselves.
With the original problems with early cars a component quality issue was idenbtified after a number of engines went bang. TVR also offerred a free rebuild service to their customers.
The differences are that TVR did this on a customer by customer basis rather than the blanket approach ataken by BMW and did not 'publicise' the problem to the community.Why this happened we will never know but cost and personalities on both sides of the argument no doubt play a large part with TVR as its a very small personality driven company whereas BMW have a systematic approach based around maintaining their brand.
Subsequent problems with later cars,changes to design etc have been exhaustively review on PH and there is no point in repeating them here,but with a new owner isn't it possible the the quality builds and now excellent warranty's in place we might accept they are trying to improve?
Personally I am convinced that the heated exchanges over the S6 -whatever the motivations-have put off buyers which is bad for TVR.
With the original problems with early cars a component quality issue was idenbtified after a number of engines went bang. TVR also offerred a free rebuild service to their customers.
The differences are that TVR did this on a customer by customer basis rather than the blanket approach ataken by BMW and did not 'publicise' the problem to the community.Why this happened we will never know but cost and personalities on both sides of the argument no doubt play a large part with TVR as its a very small personality driven company whereas BMW have a systematic approach based around maintaining their brand.
Subsequent problems with later cars,changes to design etc have been exhaustively review on PH and there is no point in repeating them here,but with a new owner isn't it possible the the quality builds and now excellent warranty's in place we might accept they are trying to improve?
Personally I am convinced that the heated exchanges over the S6 -whatever the motivations-have put off buyers which is bad for TVR.
unrepentant said:
The fact remains however that the way that BMW handled the situation, and the way the problem affected a considerable proportion of owners differs completely to the way TVR did. If someone wants to defend that, or even say it was the right thing to do, then that would be a great talking point.
Justin
BMW is a huge multi national business. TVR is a tiny microscopic business hand building a few hundred cars a year.
As a TVR owner I do not expect TVR tbe able to react to issues in the same way as BMW and if I wanted the security of a belt and braces level of development and customer care I would buy a BMW or a Merc or whatever, not a TVR.
If TVR had recalled all the early SP6's they would have gone bust.
Hi Unrepentant.
Completely agreed! A good post.
I am not in a position to say whether they would have gone bust or not, I am just commenting on the publicity and views surrounding the two ways of handling a similar situation, BMW and TVR took different routes.
The outcome of those routes is that I dont think anyone can deny that TVR took a publicity beating. I have just been searching through some of the posts from 2003 with regard to rebuilds. The situation now does seem hugely better to then, but at that time from the large numbers of posts, I feel that is when the damage was done.
sideways mostly said:
This is an interesting thread and I think it helps focus on the realities at the time. If I understand the BMW letters correctly they identified a build contamination issue and a component quality issue which triggered a recall. BMW took on board the cost themselves.
With the original problems with early cars a component quality issue was idenbtified after a number of engines went bang. TVR also offerred a free rebuild service to their customers.
The differences are that TVR did this on a customer by customer basis rather than the blanket approach ataken by BMW and did not 'publicise' the problem to the community.Why this happened we will never know but cost and personalities on both sides of the argument no doubt play a large part with TVR as its a very small personality driven company whereas BMW have a systematic approach based around maintaining their brand.
Subsequent problems with later cars,changes to design etc have been exhaustively review on PH and there is no point in repeating them here,but with a new owner isn't it possible the the quality builds and now excellent warranty's in place we might accept they are trying to improve?
Personally I am convinced that the heated exchanges over the S6 -whatever the motivations-have put off buyers which is bad for TVR.
Agreed. I am not sure it is the 'post match argument' which did the damage, it was posts like these in 2002-2003:
ulster tuscan Wednesday 9th July 2003
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
judging by mine they may well have sorted it. 2 factory rebuilds 1 at less than 6k and 1 at 25k.Car back both times. Both valve gear ( cam followers I was told but I didn't see engine stripped to verify this but no reason to doubt it) Now on about 45k. Had car from new and it was one of the early ones(April 00) Currently speccing replacement and yes its got to be another. Nothing else seems to put the same smile on my face. Anyway they tell me problems were due to faulty bought in components and suppliers now changed.
This is from this thread, which I think is pretty similar to those at the time:
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?p=1&f=5&t=46505&h=0&hw=engine+warranty
I feel that the arguments now revolve around new owners quite rightly pointing out that the new Tuscan with a three year warranty is a cracking buy. The 'burned' owners recount what has happened to them. The potential owners wonder whether they should risk it. Then we all argue about what actually imporved in the SP6 and if it makes a difference, whether someone else rebuilds them better etc.
And of course AS their was no recall, on the early ones, it is buyer beware buying an early 2002 an earlier car... As, sorry to bang on, many of these cars are still on very low miles, and 'MAY' need to have that rebuild.
AS, I'm afraid i know of personally of one tuscan owner (2002), where the owner IS trying to sell/pass it on to an unsuspecting punter, knowing full where his engine is on the way out, Tvr dealers/specialist have confirmed this, so it just sits on his drive waiting test drives.
B
>> Edited by bjwoods on Friday 20th January 15:32
AS, I'm afraid i know of personally of one tuscan owner (2002), where the owner IS trying to sell/pass it on to an unsuspecting punter, knowing full where his engine is on the way out, Tvr dealers/specialist have confirmed this, so it just sits on his drive waiting test drives.
B
>> Edited by bjwoods on Friday 20th January 15:32
Tuska said:
My 2000 Tuscan had a 'good will' rebuild in Jan 2003. (2.5 years old and 10000 miles)
Work was carried out by TVR Power and was charged £2500.
No problems since, thank God. (now upto 25000 miles).
My paper work lists the engine warranty as 1 year.
I thought so. I had a horrible feeling that I was losing my mind as people were saying I was making up rubbish...
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