Second Opinions? Is my car done or worth fixing?

[Captain Blood]

I agree COMPLETELY on a second shop. Yesterday, the 1st shop I took my 135 to emailed me with a coupon. The same shop that told me I needed a walnut blast ($800)for my rough running N55 DCT. They insisted on it (3 years ago). I replied yesterday that I thought they were a sham and shouldn't email me again.

[Captainrob]

Update....

Well I had to lease the GF a new car because she is over this whole thing and it just flat out made sense unfortunately. : (

Tapatalk doesn't work and I have some pics on my phone so I'll have to setup an image hosting account.

I made it into the garage today and after fixing an exhaust hanger on my Fiesta ST I pulled off the air box and snorkels on the 135 to get a better look.

I decided to check things over before lifting it up. I could see a bit of wetness around the front of where the head and block meet. I squeezed the upper radiator hose a few times and I can see some fluid come in around that area right below where the coolant hose goes on under the oil filter housing. This is one of the coolant hoses that was replaced. The hose goes into a black "housing". I suppose there is a gasket behind this. Now I'm no #$#@$ BMW mechanic, but I believe the fluid is coming right from there and running down.

Could anyone please give me the part name or even # so I can go get a new gasket and even new black plastic housing either online or at the dealer so I can get this done a little quicker?

This is also not just a guess. I did a scientific qtip test. I cleaned off under the hose area corner and I can see fluid coming down. I can't get very enthused about this because if it really is only a gasket and the shop was trying to take me for 4k they still succeeded in costing me a rental car for a week $400, 4k down, and 240 a month for the next three years. This took me literally 15 minutes to figure out. At least my gf is happy (edit- she's not happy now that I told her this. )

[ssalinas]

Here you go, just had this service done to my car. If this gasket fails in a specific manner, oil and coolant can mix.

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-assemble...11427537293kt/

[JimVonBaden]

I hope you found it, regardless of the future. You can t least sell it if you want.

[Dackelone]

There is a great BMW online catalog where you can look parts up by model and build date of by VIN(last seven digits)...

www.realoem.com


Click ENTER and then the rest is self explanatory.

Good Luck,
Dackel

[Captainrob]

Thanks everyone for the links and advice! That link will come in handy Dack!


I bought the O Ring (BMW dealer for $10) for the coolant hose right under the front side of the oil filter housing. The parts guy called it the Mickey mouse housing or something because of the two bolt setup that makes it look like ears. Makes sense.... Anyhow, I cleaned the front of the block where it was wet from coolant and I then put a plastic bag over the belt and then shoved rags in everywhere in preparation for pulling off the hose.

I removed the upper radiator hose on the right side first to get the fluid out in a more controlled manner and then I removed the suspect hose with the O Ring. I wish this website worked with Tapatalk so I could easily post pics. The Oring that was in there did not have any obvious signs of damage, but upon very close comparison it looks ever so slightly thinner than the BMW O Ring. I cleaned up everything and reinstalled the hose with the new O Ring, installed the other hose, topped off coolant, bled the system, waited for the car to charge more since it has a weak battery and bleeding it killed the battery.

She fired up and no more leak..... Yes, this is good. I txt the GF and she was super excited and then said she felt sick to her stomach that Bruce is ok, but she has another car. Haha Well I'm going to go ahead and replace the OFHG and the thermostat gasket, oil line O rings, and then both upstream O2 sensors .... And then I guess we will put her up for sale if she still wants, or we will both have weekend cars. : / I'm trying to pay my mortgage off, not be a baller. If it was a manual tranny then I'd be thinking racecar. It'd be tough to replace my Fiesta though.


This was a lesson for me in a few ways. Not the mechanical portion. I still have yet to talk to RG Motorworks. They are in Henderson, NV and Id look elsewhere if you need service. To recap.. They replaced the coolant hoses (one burst from oil dripping on it from the OFH he said) and the O Ring that was leaking was part of one of the coolant hoses that they replaced thereby causing the leak themselves, and then diagnosed that leak as a head gasket and warned me to not drive the car at all until a head gasket was replaced with their quote of $4200. The service mgr seemed to avoid me when I picked up the car and didn't speak to me. Because of their sad mechanic or shady business practices I paid $750 for the coolant hoses installed, $400 for a rental car for a week, and now 4k down and $240 a month for a lease. I have a good friend that is a lawyer and I feel they are responsible in some way for something, but don't expect much. My point with this is that if anyone else searches "n54 head gasket" or similar they will read this and make sure they cover their bases as you all lead me to do in the end. The timeline and my work schedule out of town just screwed me in the end, but I should have put up a better fight. ; )

If she goes up for sale it's a beautiful 09 M package, shadowline, with Coral seats, moonroof, Hid zippidy do da lights, and 72k Miles. Oh, and fresh water flood title forever ago.

[Mandinca]

Just reading this - what a story. Any way to back out of your lease ? Maybe leave them with some of that 4K as a gesture of good will ?
I ask this because I know that dealers have wiggle room from my Mazda ownership days when they quoted $10K to swap a CX-7 motor where the turbo seals had blown, burnt off the oil seeping through them and blown the motor. What they had failed to share with their customers was that they had a TSB for that very reason. The car was out of warranty as well. We called Mazda North America and bitched about it and they wound up doing it for $3800. I realize your circumstances are very different but the premise is the same, dealers can back off considerably from what they first tell you and it's worth a few phone calls to people in higher places than just the sales manager with a "cap in hand" offer having explained your circumstances. If you offer to forgo some of the deposit they may agree to take the car back. Maybe. It's worth a shot.

I wish you luck.

[Happy Jose]

Note the first video which discusses how to replace the Oil Filter Housing Gasket. This isn't a difficult repair, and the guy in the video does a good job of explaining how to do it.

http://www.1addicts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1477955

This car in the video is a 335i, but it uses the same engine as your car. The only difference is you might have to pull the radiator for more room.

As you must know by now, the failure of these gaskets can allow coolant to mix with the engine oil. BTW, you should see some oil seepage around the housing.

You can obtain parts from ECS Tuning or FCP Euro.

[Gangplank]

If your in Henderson start using Southwest Bimmers. Devon and guys there know their BMWs. I used to live in Green Valley Henderson and took my cars there for 4 years. Good shop.

This forum has its own Bimmerpost app. You can use it to post and upload photos. I like it better than Tapatalk.

Oh and Hi Rob. Josh here - I bought that suspension from you a while back...