Advise needed please

[johnny m3]

Went to Donington yesterday to the fast car show got three hundred yards from the entrance when I got low oil pressure warning so pulled as soon as I could to find the front of the car was covered in oil and a big pool on the floor,at first I thought a pipe had gone on the oil cooler as it was concentrated on the bottom left but when the recovery guy loaded it up I found a hole in the bottom plastic grill and a hole in the oil cooler and a large bolt sat on top of the oil cooler that had been flicked up from a passing car.
What are my best options,the car has been recovered to Stratstone BMW in Derby
Do i go through my insurance and insist Stratstone repair it,have it recovered to my local dealers or my local indie or repair it myself,hopefully I stopped in time before any major damage was done any advise welcome .

[Smuler]

johnny m3 said:

Went to Donington yesterday to the fast car show got three hundred yards from the entrance when I got low oil pressure warning so pulled as soon as I could to find the front of the car was covered in oil and a big pool on the floor,at first I thought a pipe had gone on the oil cooler as it was concentrated on the bottom left but when the recovery guy loaded it up I found a hole in the bottom plastic grill and a hole in the oil cooler and a large bolt sat on top of the oil cooler that had been flicked up from a passing car.
What are my best options,the car has been recovered to Stratstone BMW in Derby
Do i go through my insurance and insist Stratstone repair it,have it recovered to my local dealers or my local indie or repair it myself,hopefully I stopped in time before any major damage was done any advise welcome .

I hit a what seemed a small rock, spiky little B'stard at 45-50mph, it went up under the bumper. I pulled over and had fluid leaking from the car. I too called recovery to my local BMW dealership and when they gave me a rough estimate, 12k!! they said in damage, well let's say I was on the phone to insurance; I insisted that BMW did the repairs, which included new subframe and DCT. My deductible was sadly 500£ but obviously a no brainer. I think you could certainly go the insurance route and insist onBMW S'stone as repairer, some insurers, check policy, will charge excess increase if you don't use their chosen repairer/s. It will be deemed an at fault accident so will have some impact on premiums, but unless the damage is less or not substantially more than the repair costs, it would surely be best route.

[johnny m3]

Smuler said:

I hit a what seemed a small rock, spiky little B'stard at 45-50mph, it went up under the bumper. I pulled over and had fluid leaking from the car. I too called recovery to my local BMW dealership and when they gave me a rough estimate, 12k!! they said in damage, well let's say I was on the phone to insurance; I insisted that BMW did the repairs, which included new subframe and DCT. My deductible was sadly 500£ but obviously a no brainer. I think you could certainly go the insurance route and insist onBMW S'stone as repairer, some insurers, check policy, will charge excess increase if you don't use their chosen repairer/s. It will be deemed an at fault accident so will have some impact on premiums, but unless the damage is less or not substantially more than the repair costs, it would surely be best route.

I'm hoping it's just the oil cooler that's damaged in which case I'll either do it myself or get my indie to do it,just waiting for the quote from Stratstones which should be a laugh.

[W12GT]

That's the problem with plastic grilles! At least the old metal ones would have slowed it down!

[johnny m3]

W12GT said:

That's the problem with plastic grilles! At least the old metal ones would have slowed it down!

So true might see if I can one fabricated.

[Dan_M5]

That's going to be near 1k to fix. It all depends how long you drove it with low oil and you won't be able to tell the damage unless you fix the cooler or strip it down. New engine is around 16k then you have 3/4k on top for fitting.

[CarsOrBikes]

Perhaps just a D.I.Y repair, you know how long you drove it, and if low oil rather than oil pressure, you need 1 x grille and a cooler. Any garage will feel obliged to put much more on an estimate as they can't see inside, so if it were me, I'd drain and measure the remaining oil to be sure it may be an issue or not.

[AW10]

My two pence worth...

If it was the yellow low oil level light you can take a chance and get the cooler replaced at your own expense to save the long term cost of an insurance claim. The previously mentioned idea of measuring the oil that comes out of the sump is a good one to see how much was lost. More than perhaps 30% lost and I would start to wonder if the oil pump sucked air instead of oil at some point.

If it was the red low oil pressure warning light then I would make a claim on your insurance so that if the oil cooler is replaced and the engine is then found to be damaged you don't end up in a p*ssing contest with your insurer over the cost of the engine repair/replacement.