[eduardomi]

Hey guys,

I have been following these forums for a while now, reading and learning more each day.

A few days ago, I bought a beautiful 2007 335i with 68k miles. The car looked and performed perfectly. Nothing wrong, just out of warranty.

Yesterday, I decided to take it to the dealer to perform the so called HPFP recall, upon checking the car's history the agent told me it had another recall due (injectors), so, cool I got 2 recalls done for free.

Hours later the agent called and said the car was ready but that the mechanic noted a water leak on the pump and a few warnings on the computer on the pump not building/maintaining enough water pressure. He mentioned replacing that pump would cost me $1400. I told him not to perform the water pump thing and called an indy shop and they quoted $700 for the same job.

I picked up the car and asked the agent how bad was the leak (I inspected the car well before buying it and also had an indy shop checking it on a hoist and never saw any leak), he said a bit of water was sipping from it...

Anyways, I am about to embark on a 1000+ mile trip so I decided I that even
though the water pump was working fine I didnt want to take the risk of it failing during the trip, so I decided to have the indy shop do the job.

They use genuine parts and are one of the most respected shops in Glendale, CA so I was cool with leaving the car there.

Today, I picked up the car from the shop and everything was good for the first 8miles, but upon reaching home I noticed that the oil sensor was giving me an "inactive" message. The one on the idrive (navigation) was fine but the one on the dash (the one you check with the controls on the left of the steering wheel) was reading inactive. That seemed weird as a day before it was working fine.

Anyways, the wife and I packed up everything, loaded the car and hit the road...I didnt feel very confortable not knowing what was going on with the oil thing so I decided to stop by the indy shop and ask them if they knew what the problem was and upon checking they couldnt find anything (sensor connected). They told me that most likely the dealer messed with the programming of the car when they did the recalls and that I should go back and talk to them.


I drove 2 blocks to the BMW dealer (Pacific BMW, Glendale CA) and the agent gave me the most strange explanation for the gauge on the dash reading inactive. He said "on cars with navigation, we never read the oil level gauge on the dash, we go by what the idrive says, because the gauge on the dash is connected to it" and I said, it was working before bringing it to you, could it be that while doing the recalls something could have happen during programming? and he denied it and said I should ignore the gauge on the dash.

I drove out of the dealer literally 100-ft and then hell came down... yellow warning for engine temperature, 3 seconds later red warning and a big red ENGINE OVERHEATING text on the idrive.

Before deciding to change the water pump, I read many horror stories here in the forums of this scenario and in light of avoiding this, I decided to change the water pump.

I called the indy shop and they immediately came, opened the hood...nothing looked exploded, put some coolant on the reservoir and asked me to drive it back to the shop.

I left it there, they said they will swap the pump but that they doubt it is a pump problem and they think my programming is messed up and it may not be sending the right signal to the pump.

Anyways, I do not what to think now...trying to avoid a tragedy I got into it.

The dealer wants to charge money to troubleshoot the problem and completely denies they could have messed with the programming.

I will keep you posted about my ordeal tomorrow once I hear a word from the indy shop. I am thinking that if the pump change does not fix the problem I will drop my pants and take it to the dealer so they can check the programming and make sure everything is fine. I mean, I have a new water pump...what else could it need?

The M shop (another reputable shop in Glendale) is booked until mid August so they are not an option.

It sucks that this is happening with my first bmw...

Anyone have a good advise to give?

Many thanks in advance.

k.