[tracerit]

My 335i has had the wastegate rattle for the last year since I bought it. It's bothering me now more since I park in a parking structure and the rattle is embarassing when i'm driving inside :/

I brought the car to Bullet Motor Works in Costa Mesa for a second opinion and they believe it should qualify for the recall, so now i'm looking for a wastegate rattle friendly dealership to bring the car to.

Shelly BMW is not preferred because they flat out lied to me that my oil pan was "leaking substantially" but it was actually due to an old leakage they never cleaned up when they worked on my oil filter housing gasket.

Sterling BMW once told me they'll cover an air filter change under warranty but then after waiting for 30 min there, they changed their mind and wasted my time.

Crevier BMW can look at the rattle but they'll charge me a $1500 diagnostic fee (apparently they need to remove a few parts around the engine) if BMW NA determines my car doesn't qualify for the replacement.

[itlynstalyn]

Go to South Bay BMW, they were great, albeit a bit far from you in the OC.

[TheOneDoubleN]

Sterling recently did my warranty replacement turbos and did a fantastic job. It's all about the SA, ask for Tony Cardenas. I actually got a diagnosis from bullet for the wastegates, brought it to Tony, and a week later I had two new turbos, a new cv axle boot, blower motor, and right passenger mirror, all covered under cpo warranty, with no headaches, just a $50 deductible. Even had a fun 128i to play with in the meantime. Look at reviews of bmw dealerships, sterling is pretty high compared to the others in the greater LA area.

South bay is actually the one currently wasting my time diagnosing my a/c compressor for 2 weeks, couldn't possibly recommend them, extremely rude and pushy staff to boot!

And I live near Santa Monica....I won't even go near that dealership...

BTW, I've never heard of an air filter replacement being covered under warranty. Sounds like some kind of misunderstanding.

There's no reason to deal with the wastegate rattle as long as you have. Go with the route I suggested or a similar one and they will be replaced. I bought my car a month ago from Rusnak Thousand Oaks (Terrible) and thought it was normal at first until doing some research. Thank god it still had 4 months left on the cpo warranty. Had the repairs started at Sterling within a few weeks of buying the car, when after installing a cobb ap I started throwing underboost codes. Took it to bullet to diagnose what I thought was a boost leak. Instead was told right away it was my wastegates. I dropped my car off at Sterling the next day. Now I'm hitting 18psi and running a 4.6 0-60, so I'm quite happy .

The catch 22 of course was that the cobb ap would void the warranty if found (it wasn't), but at stock boost levels I didn't trip any fault codes, so without it, I never would have gotten the turbo's replaced under warranty....

[tracerit]

Ah thanks for the detailed reply. I'll give sterling a try. What kind of documentation did you bring there from bullet? Bullet just revved my car and the rattle is so obvious as the throttle is let off. Of course they didn't charge me

[TheOneDoubleN]

I just asked them to write up an RO with service recommendations as if I were getting it done at Bullet (they barely charged me anything too). Mike Chaco, the shop foreman, gave me the contact info for Tony Cardenas at Sterling, I called him right there while at Bullet, told him who diagnosed the car and referred me, and set up an appointment to drop it off the next day.

[hybrid_e90]

Mark @ ShellyBMW helped me get both of mine replaced without me even realizing. Not sure if you got it done yet, but just thought I'd throw out the suggestion.

[tracerit]

Brought my car to Sterling and spoke with Tony. Says there's no recall on the wastegate and wanted me to the pay $160 for a diagnosis fee and then that would be applied towards the ~$2800 total cost of the wastegate replacement if it were the case. Told me the bulletin was there to help the tech diagnose but in the end I would be the one responsible for paying for all repairs....

Sucks there's no consistency procedure wise for the BMW dealers to handle this issue.

[ak_47]

I just had my turbos replaced at Beverly Hills BMW under CPO warranty.. they also tried to charge we the 160 diagnosis fee, but since i havent had the car even a week, i talked them out of it.

[tracerit]

it seems people are getting it easy if they have the CPO warranty.

I'm planning on getting a hold of BMW NA to see if they can help. Is this the route most people take? https://www.bmwusa.com/Secured/Conte...tactUsWeb.aspx

[ak_47]

Good luck.. I read something about an 82,000 mile warranty on waste gate here:

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=729833

[HTran]

You know what sucks is when I took off the jb4 my car would not rattle as violently as it would with it on obviously due to the higher boost, so sterling, Valencia, and riverside BMW all denied me of the wastegate rattle. I had my wastegate replaced three months ago, an obviously it didnt do anything to help the problem. Now I am out of warranty. Do whatever you can to keep pushing for a repair!