[asuri54]

Hi Everyone,

First time BMW owner, and so far not an ultimate driving experience.

I just got the car at the beginning of this May. It’s a 2008 335i with 95k miles which I’ve now learned was a huge mistake to buy, shame on me for not doing my research.

Long story short, I took it to get its oil changed last month at an Indy shop following that I started having misfires which the Indy diagnosed as faulty ignition coils and/or plugs which I replaced. Car was fine after that, next thing on the recommended maintenance tasks was carbon cleaning the intake valves which I got done at the same shop. That’s when the trouble started, they said the upper hose was leaking and needed to be replaced so they did that, drove the car home and as soon as I got home the plastic coolant line across the radiator split and spewed coolant everywhere so I got that replaced as well.

The car was fine for two weeks, no more coolant leaking until last Sunday I went to go drive it and got a low coolant sign, it lost nearly a gallon of coolant and I couldn’t find the leak myself so I took it to the bmw dealership yesterday and they told me that the oil filter housing was leaking onto the coolant hoses causing them to fail and leak coolant but also the water pump and thermostat now need to be replaced. Thing is the previous owner had the exact same work done according to the car fax last feb about 12k miles ago.

My question is, it seems odd for all three things to fail that quickly, is there something inherently wrong with the engine that’s going to bring this problem back again and again or if I fix this will I be able to last at least a few months before needing to drop another 2200 in repairs on the car?

Oh and also I think the Indy may have botched the valve job. I noticed tiny impact marks on the windshield washing the car after the job that I swear weren’t there before, this is based on me having inspected the windshield rather thoroughly because a tiny bird flew into it on my drive home after buying it... so far this car has been a curse.

[BioChemBro]

Service advisors are sales people at the end Of the day. I believe the oil filter housing gasket can fail in as little as 12,000 miles. Mine failed after less than 1000 miles of being replaced

Is there proof/signs of the water pump and thermostat failing? Or are the service advisors recommending this as a preventive measure (and to bring up the price of the bill)

[asuri54]

Thanks biochembro, no, they haven’t actually presented any proof but I didn’t get much time to speak to them since they called me right before closing yesterday. I’m going to call the shop (in another state) that did the previous work and see if they have the receipts for the genuine bmw parts that they claim they used because bmw said they’d honor the warranty on them for the parts charge.

I was going to ask them to explain how they know it failed after talking to the shop and calling them back to discuss options.

Is there a way to definitively know the pump and thermostat have failed?

[asuri54]

Of course I expected maintenance, I didn’t expect thousands right off the bat and everything to fault spectaculalry all at once. I knew I’d have to do quite a bit to keep it running but I thought it would all be reasonably spaced out a bit. But as I already said, yes it was a mistake buying it, thanks for re-emphasizing that.

And I can confirm it’s leaking coolant, I had to put a gallon in to get it back to max and got the low coolant within the 2.5 mike drive to the bmw service, which is why I took it there to begin with because it was the closest and I couldn’t see where the leaks were coming from.

[PhaseP]

Check if your waterpump is leaking, turbo model waterpumps tend to crack on the propeller housing. The coolant reservoir also is reported to crack and leak. The water pump is on the lower left front side of the engine (when standing in front of the car and looking down on the engine)

You can easily check the OFHG leak, it leaks oil and it is on the front side of the engine. Get some flash light some inspection mirror look around there. Especially the front wall of the engine if it has fresh oil it is OFHG leak.

If OFHG leaked after 12K I would say installation was not done right, they didn't torque the bolts right or didn't place the gasket right.

The waterpump cracks and it is a chance looks like, probably manufacturing tolerance or assembly makes it more suspect or less suspect to crack.

[asuri54]

Thank you PhaseP I’ll check those!