Diesels, rubbish.
Discussion
Morning
Ok, maybe not entirely rubbish but has anyone else experienced this?
My boss has a BMW X3, 56 plate and 60k, mix of commuting and general motorway driving, I'd say an average BMW X3 owner. Engine management light came on so he took it to a dealer who reported that engine needed de-coking at a cost of £2.5k! After arguing he got them down to £1.5k as they would cover the rest as a sign of goodwill.
I thought this sounded crazy so offered to take a look for him, I expected to see some build up around the EGR as is usually the case with diesels, what I found was amazing!
EGR
Cleaned up
Inlet manifold
Having researched it a bit on the net, it appears this is pretty common for BMW's although I guess it would be the same for all diesels. The fact that the dealer offered a goodwill gesture for £1k means they know it's an issue.
So, commuting in a diesel, they may be economical but if you do low miles, don't get the engine warm or at least give it a boot full now and again, expect some hassle in the future. If you do, don't pay dealer prices, this took me a couple of hours to sort out, clean up and put back together, resulting in a marked increase in power and the engine light going out.
A bill for £2.5k would have serious impact on the value of a diesel over a petrol in my opinion.
Anyone else suffered from this?
Ok, maybe not entirely rubbish but has anyone else experienced this?
My boss has a BMW X3, 56 plate and 60k, mix of commuting and general motorway driving, I'd say an average BMW X3 owner. Engine management light came on so he took it to a dealer who reported that engine needed de-coking at a cost of £2.5k! After arguing he got them down to £1.5k as they would cover the rest as a sign of goodwill.
I thought this sounded crazy so offered to take a look for him, I expected to see some build up around the EGR as is usually the case with diesels, what I found was amazing!
EGR
Cleaned up
Inlet manifold
Having researched it a bit on the net, it appears this is pretty common for BMW's although I guess it would be the same for all diesels. The fact that the dealer offered a goodwill gesture for £1k means they know it's an issue.
So, commuting in a diesel, they may be economical but if you do low miles, don't get the engine warm or at least give it a boot full now and again, expect some hassle in the future. If you do, don't pay dealer prices, this took me a couple of hours to sort out, clean up and put back together, resulting in a marked increase in power and the engine light going out.
A bill for £2.5k would have serious impact on the value of a diesel over a petrol in my opinion.
Anyone else suffered from this?
tty too, but 140k miles the engine light hadn't come on - i just cleaned whilst doing the cam belt.
My Fabia VRS conked out on the way home from being serviced at a set of lights and wouldn't restart. Got it towed back to the dealer and they took it apart and it was so sooted/coked up they said they weren't surprised it conked out.It was the worse one they had ever seen. This was after 150k of learner drivers dawdling around in it though!Now its been retired from service it gets used a bit harder now
It seems that there's a mixture of people knowing about it and dealing with it and others that have no issues at all, I'd suggest anyone who's spending time with an engine revving fairly hard or doing decent motorway miles will get away with it, the people doing school runs or just a couple of miles to work will suffer the worst.
Different cars have EGR's in different places, getting at the X3's was easy, as was the one on my own Land Rover that I removed and blanked off some time ago.
I think my issue is less with the fact that it happens and more with the fact that maybe people should be aware that diesels sound an excellent idea, but if you only tootle around in them they are likely to need work, as such these parts should be counted as consumables and dealt with at service time. I have no knowledge of other brands but for BMW to charge lots of money to put this right, I think is out of order.
Just my view!
Different cars have EGR's in different places, getting at the X3's was easy, as was the one on my own Land Rover that I removed and blanked off some time ago.
I think my issue is less with the fact that it happens and more with the fact that maybe people should be aware that diesels sound an excellent idea, but if you only tootle around in them they are likely to need work, as such these parts should be counted as consumables and dealt with at service time. I have no knowledge of other brands but for BMW to charge lots of money to put this right, I think is out of order.
Just my view!
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Well the seminar I had to go to about diagnostics equipment had a little bit on doing DPF regeneration and stuff, and to do the BMW's it's something about sitting at 100mph in 4th gear on the motorway to get it hot. It was a while ago but it's something along those lines.But DPF regeneration is different.
One way I was told to decoke petrol engines is to simply do 40mph in 2nd gear for a few minutes, but they don't get as bad as diesel ones.
My missus used to have an E46 320d which was a constant pain in the arse! We had around £3K's worth of engine bills from that car in just over a year. We took it to our local independent specialist who advised he has a constant stream of BMW diesels in on a weekly basis. I would go petrol everytime now, the money you save on a diesel on MPG is spent on repairs!
Acehood said:
What is an EGR?
Its to reduce the temperature of the burn in the cylinder, to reduce NOx emissions. If you fill the cylinder with say 70% fresh air & fuel, and 30% inert exhaust gasses then it burns a lot less fiercely. Its the high temps that cause NOx to be made.From Wikipedia -
NOx reacts with ammonia, moisture, and other compounds to form nitric acid vapor and related particles. Small particles can penetrate deeply into sensitive lung tissue and damage it, causing premature death in extreme cases. Inhalation of such particles may cause or worsen respiratory diseases such as emphysema, bronchitis it may also aggravate existing heart disease.[7]
NOx reacts with volatile organic compounds in the presence sunlight to form Ozone. Ozone can cause adverse effects such as damage to lung tissue and reduction in lung function mostly in susceptible populations (children, elderly, asthmatics). Ozone can be transported by wind currents and cause health impacts far from the original sources. The American Lung Association estimates that nearly 50 percent of United States inhabitants live in counties that are not in ozone compliance.[8]
NOx destroys ozone in the stratosphere.[9] Ozone in the stratosphere absorbs ultraviolet light, which is potentially damaging to life on earth.[10] NOx from combustion sources does not reach the stratosphere; instead, NOx is formed in the stratosphere from photolysis of nitrous oxide.[9]
NOx also readily reacts with common organic chemicals, and even ozone, to form a wide variety of toxic products: nitroarenes, nitrosamines and also the nitrate radical some of which may cause biological mutations. Recently another pathway, via NOx, to ozone has been found that predominantly occurs in coastal areas via formation of nitryl chloride when NOx comes into contact with salt mist. [1]
Though from a laymans point of view its just yet another random object on the engine that lands you with big bills every now and then.
Edited by buggalugs on Sunday 16th January 13:22
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