[FJc335]

Not sure if this is true, just heard from one of the Sales manager that only a batch of shipment was affected, that's why they are recalling some and not others. don't know what batch or size... not sure if she meant batch of cars or fuel pumps, but its a batch...

[gizmo335i]

Oh my God, this just gets more stupid by the day...

[OnlyTruth]

Originally Posted by gizmo335i

Oh my God, this just gets more stupid by the day...

[OnlyTruth]

Originally Posted by TrackRat

Typical clueless sales mgr. talking thru her arsehole.

The "batch" it applies to is every N54/N55 powered vehicle ever produced. that's the "batch".

Hopefully NHTSA will make BMW retrofit every single x35i vehicle imported to the U.S. with a properly engineered solution for this safety defect.

Maybe just a bad batch of brains upon birth?

[FJc335]

It's Gremlins, the new Batch in our car...

[oulaw]

Originally Posted by Oleg

Once again recall is a result of an economical calculation of expenses. They dont care about lives or personal inconveniences. If the cost of a recall is less than any other trouble absence of the former can cause then the recall will happen. Applying this to Germany, there is no law suits or media campaigns against fuel pump malfunction so BMW keeps it quiet there. In USA there is a media campaign plus a law suit, somewhere on the forum it was posted.

This likley. Personal Injury Death cases involving product defects get such big verdicts at trial because companies ACTUALLY perform internal math that predicts the cost per death due to the defect versus the cost to recall. BMW did not recall until the news story because the cost per death of BMW owner or other killed due to the defect was not even close to the cost of the full recall. Once BMW knew the story was going to run and they were aware of the content, their corporate counsel and people in charge of figuring the cost per death may have quickly agreed that to do nothing opened them up to substantial verdicts if there was a death, as the jury would hear that BMW was aware of the defect, see evidence that they in fact calculated the cost per death due to the defect (as most companies that recognize a defect in their product that could cause death) and take the cost per death and blow that cost out of the water. For example, if BMW figured the cost per death would be only one or two million dollars, the jury is not going to award that amount, they are going to want to send a message of much more. I could retire off a case like that!!

NOTE: This is my personal opinion and while most companies do this sort of internal cost to recall vs cost per death analysis, I am not stating as fact that BMW did that here, nor would I. I love my 335i, and despite BMW waiting this long, they are doing the responsible thing and going through the recall.

[oulaw]

Originally Posted by badass335

This still sucks that BMW Canada, wont move on this for the Canadians! This is their response when asked:

If I were anywhere in the world with a BMW, if would walk the recall info for the USA and take it to your local dealer on a busy saturday and make a scene if the wont perform the recall work.

[Quisp]

in 2007 alone BMW sold 1,276,793 cars. 555,219 of those were 3 series, 230,845 were 5 series, and 165,803 were 1 series. Those are worldwide sales figures.
The total number of cars sold by BMW in the US in 2007 was 293,795 and in 2008 249,113 in US sales all models.
The N54 engine is available in the 1, 3, and 5 series cars which are also the top 3 selling series of cars for BMW.
Why are only 130,000 being recalled?

[Tag]

Some of those 1/3/5 US cars have N53 engines.

[jeremicium]

Anyone that's seen the movie or read the book Fight Club should know about this calculation. That is what Edward Norton's character did for a living...before blackmailing the company with all the dirty secret information he had. So maybe that is the solution, find an insider that knows all this and get him to "talk".

Originally Posted by oulaw

This likley. Personal Injury Death cases involving product defects get such big verdicts at trial because companies ACTUALLY perform internal math that predicts the cost per death due to the defect versus the cost to recall. BMW did not recall until the news story because the cost per death of BMW owner or other killed due to the defect was not even close to the cost of the full recall. Once BMW knew the story was going to run and they were aware of the content, their corporate counsel and people in charge of figuring the cost per death may have quickly agreed that to do nothing opened them up to substantial verdicts if there was a death, as the jury would hear that BMW was aware of the defect, see evidence that they in fact calculated the cost per death due to the defect (as most companies that recognize a defect in their product that could cause death) and take the cost per death and blow that cost out of the water. For example, if BMW figured the cost per death would be only one or two million dollars, the jury is not going to award that amount, they are going to want to send a message of much more. I could retire off a case like that!!

NOTE: This is my personal opinion and while most companies do this sort of internal cost to recall vs cost per death analysis, I am not stating as fact that BMW did that here, nor would I. I love my 335i, and despite BMW waiting this long, they are doing the responsible thing and going through the recall.

[jeff2.0t]

If someone find a solution to this, he will be an instant millionaire.

Does a private company work on a solution? If BMW doesn't come with something maybe an aftermarket company could...

I would like this conclusion... That would mean cheap cheap cheap used 335i available, you ship the car on a towing with a 500$ aftermarket pump on the seat to the closest Indy shop ;-) i see a lot of 15K 335i on the used market in the near future.

[OnlyTruth]

Ask Porsche to create a fuel pump? Porsche is actually also a lab that can design and produce anything you want.

They probably can produce a fuel pump that doesnt fail using military or space nasa technology, it will have expensive parts that bmw may refuse to pay for. Current pump cost $60-80 retail. hi-tech fuel pump will cost much more that is again not economically viable for bmw....

[SoYank]

My car is in the shop now for whatever they can discover. It hasn't thrown any codes...yet. It had a long start this morning (3 seconds) and last week they'd said it needed a software update (even when I told them of the long start AND the recall). This morning they said it could be the spark plugs and/or the fuel injectors leaking into the cylinders.

[Devil's Advocate]

Originally Posted by sfhondapilot

The easier thing to do would be to got to bmwusa.com and register your car. You will need your VIN.

For what it's worth and just as an fyi, I called to bring my car in for a minor (non-fuel pump) issue and asked about the recall as well. The women gave me the same line -- I need to wait to receive a letter from BMW. I bought my car CPO, have warranties etc..., and have registered the car on-line, so I assume I'm on the list to receive this mysterious letter, I just don't know for sure. I'll press them again when I take the car in this weekend.

[gizmo335i]

Yeah, having to wait for a letter makes NO sense WHATSOEVER and has NO relevence to this.....I think I'm repeating myself....but GD that irritates me.....

[Kruz]

Just got my car back again from the dealer AGAIN and they somehow cannot replicate the long cranks I get every 5 starts. No CEL means no action? Stupid. Just plain stupid.

Just glad to return that 128i loaner....what a dog that car is. Makes a ton of noise but goes nowhere. No sports package made it unbearable. The auto tranny is DS mode is super slow.

Oh well...waiting for my letter.

[ragingclue]

Originally Posted by Kruz

Just got my car back again from the dealer AGAIN and they somehow cannot replicate the long cranks I get every 5 starts. No CEL means no action? Stupid. Just plain stupid.

Welcome to my world. Last time I brought it in for funny starts with no codes (which had gone on for a couple months at least), they had the car for five days, and handed it back to me without doing anything.

The next day, I started it up and finally got limp mode. Drove it straight to the dealer and they ended up replacing the HPFP.

I guess you just have to pray for limp mode. Odd how much more difficult it is to attain these days (along with codes).... I'm no conspiracy nut, but I think that's intentional.

[John 070]

Originally Posted by ragingclue

Welcome to my world. Last time I brought it in for funny starts with no codes (which had gone on for a couple months at least), they had the car for five days, and handed it back to me without doing anything.

The next day, I started it up and finally got limp mode. Drove it straight to the dealer and they ended up replacing the HPFP.

I guess you just have to pray for limp mode. Odd how much more difficult it is to attain these days (along with codes).... I'm no conspiracy nut, but I think that's intentional.

Could you even imagine the type of people who work with BMWs, working in a licensed industry and performing the way that they do, sometimes even making things up as they go along?

Does this make any sense? My car died on the expressway for no reason, they duplicated the issue, and told me the problem was I don't put my CA fob into the dash, which needs to happen daily, since the CA fob has TWO batteries, one of which charges in the dash. And nothing was done with my car as well over two days (they drove less than 1 mile). We all know the CA fob does not have two batteries, it has a 2032 coin cell. And not just that, I'm pretty GD sure that BMW designed it as such that if the coin cell died, your motor doesn't simply shut off. This was an SA that's about 50 lbs. overweight and one fat SOB co*****pri** named Mike ******. He told me don't go to the internet, there's a lot of bad information out there.

I went through this c*** for 6 mos. between 10/09 and 4/10 until they fixed it. It's now been 7 mos. on the road and no problems. BMW can fix a 335, believe me, they just don't want to because they are out a bunch of $$$ that has to come from somewhere, so they'd rather have the customer die and stall and long crank and whatever.

Who's going to buy another BMW, raise your hand (my hand is raised)? Because I'm a fanboy just like everyone else here that lets BMW wipe their feet on us like we're a doormat. But doormats can yell and get in SA's faces too.

[John 070]

Originally Posted by Kruz

Just got my car back again from the dealer AGAIN and they somehow cannot replicate the long cranks I get every 5 starts. No CEL means no action? Stupid. Just plain stupid.

Just glad to return that 128i loaner....what a dog that car is. Makes a ton of noise but goes nowhere. No sports package made it unbearable. The auto tranny is DS mode is super slow.

Oh well...waiting for my letter.

I hate to say this, it pains me, I went through that from 10/09 to 4/10, over 6 visits to the dealership. It gets worse and worse, and eventually the car will die regularly. I could not get to the Post Office only 1.5 miles away without a stall. But until that happened, the dealership would repeatedly give me the car back saying car performing as designed. Mysteriously, on one of the receipts everything discussed was not printed out. I realize now that would be very handy in the event of a lawsuit, to the benefit of the dealership.

With BMW, you seem to have to reach the point of the car being undriveable even around the corner before they will lift a finger to do anything. Just saying the car dies unexpectedly in traffic is not enough. Think about it, does that make sense?

And yes, I understand, they can't afford to spend $10k retail on every car to repair 130,000 cars, they'd have to raise the price of a 328 up to 75k to cover it.

[jeff2.0t]

Why dont you just pay the repair elsewhere in an indy shop instead of messing with those clown that bulshit you for months while you live this horror everyday and pray for a limp mode or a cell.

You pay 500$ and your set for 30K milles. Driving with a bad pump for months and waiting for it to explode or trowing a limp mode can probably cause other catastrophic problem (mess the injectors, mess the turbo, running lean= detonation= cracked piston). If the HPFP explode it can contaminate the entire fuel system with metal parts... BMW are a bunch of morron with this issue but as an owner you have to take action to minimise your loss.

i will follow this issue closely, i am not a BMW owner, I was seriously considering a BMW but I will pass my turn until they solve this. They are a bunch of clown, this is going on since 4 years without a solution, now they bring the N55 and the fuel system is exactly the same... wow... I dont know what grass they are smoking in Germany but this is incompetent at the highest degree.

[John 070]

Originally Posted by jeff2.0t

Why dont you just pay the repair elsewhere in an indy shop instead of messing with those clown that bulshit you for months while you live this horror everyday and pray for a limp mode or a cell.

You pay 500$ and your set for 30K milles. Driving with a bad pump for months and waiting for it to explode or trowing a limp mode can probably cause other catastrophic problem (mess the injectors, mess the turbo, running lean= detonation= cracked piston). If the HPFP explode it can contaminate the entire fuel system with metal parts... BMW are a bunch of morron with this issue but as an owner you have to take action to minimise your loss.

i will follow this issue closely, i am not a BMW owner, I was seriously considering a BMW but I will pass my turn until they solve this. They are a bunch of clown, this is going on since 4 years without a solution, now they bring the N55 and the fuel system is exactly the same... wow... I dont know what grass they are smoking in Germany but this is incompetent at the highest degree.

It isn't like that at all. The retail price on what gets done after a PUMA case is opened up can approach $10,000. Not only that, an indy does not have the resources to do all the troubleshooting once the dealership has gotten the green light to proceed.

[jbass524]

Took my '07 335 into the dealer for a check engine light. I was getting limp modes at 270 degrees. I chalked it up to the coolant temp causing the limp mode as I didn't get the half power warning light.

I have been noticing slightly longer starts than normal and under moderate to hard acceleration a very slight misfire. I almost didn't trust that I was actually feeling the misfiring under acceleration but I told myself to trust my instincts.

I went in armed with all of the various things that could cause these to happen and had a heart felt conversation with my SA in re BMW and the way they have handled the HPFP and other issues. Also, my lack of faith in BMW due to their politicking and covert efforts to try and handle the mechanical deficiencies of our cars.

My dealership has been amazing throughout the life of my car and I can't stress enough that you go to a dealer you like and trust if at all possible. They are not all the same.

I asked that they look very closely at my car and use intuition and care because I feel like there is impending doom. "Work on it like you don't have a computer to aid you" I said. He agreed.

So they checked for all of the potential problems: HPFP, thermostat, dirty injectors, turbos/wastegates, spark plugs. They quickly found that the HPFP needed replacing.

This is the problem: They only looked for it because I critiqued what was happening very specifically. The check engine light helped but they said it helped a lot that I went in with specific issues and potentials.

The summary. If you think you might have symptoms of a bad HPFP but you have no limp modes or warning lights and you just feel your car isn't performing like it should, you very well may have a bad one. Report it to the dealer as specifically as you can.

I imagine a lot of BMWs are out there with HPFPs going bad that people don't feel or know about.