Quote:
Originally Posted by c0bra
I mostly trust what the German engineers at BMW designed into these cars.
It wouldn't make sense to design a longer hose with more fittings that serves absolutely no purpose. It's more expensive for them to produce, more materials and machining, etc. They could easily produce a simpler hose that costs them less and still charge the same price for the car!
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Agreed. It's costing them
more to do it this way, there must be a reason for it. Increased fluid capacity, cooling, steering feel, and/or modular compatibility with different steering rack configurations all seem like plausible explanations to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dtla1
What the German Engineers at BMW should focus on is making sure their gaskets/gasket applications work for more than 4 years, just my opinion though.
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The gasket issue is pretty irritating, especially because many of them are such a PITA to access - but 4 years?!? I got twice that out of my OFHG (which is long after most people would have traded in their BMW). The VCG was changed at the same time, due to eccentric shaft sensor replacement (which was itself due to another gasket failure). Now at 10 years, I think my oil pain is starting to leak. I need to triple check that it's not actually the valve cover leaking on the firewall side (which would be my fault), but it makes sense for it to be the oil pan based on inspection so far, and is a common failure point on these cars at this age.
By comparison, I just changed the oil pan on my new-to-me 2003 Toyota MR2 Spyder, because the threads for the drain plug were stripped. The steel pan was secured to the aluminum block with a proprietary RTV, and they were damn-near fused together. A PITA to remove, but a super dry bottom end, even after almost 20 years. The OEM FIPG is similar to Permatex Black, but it's supposed to be better. It was not too difficult to use and so far the new pan has shown no sign of leaking. No reason to think it won't hold up another 20 or more years. The funny thing is, I wouldn't even mind a rubber gasket on that car, even if I had to change it every 4 years, because the oil pan is
so easy to get to.
On the BMW, I have to drop the damn front subframe first. I'm tempted to use some RTV when I finally get to it (but I probably won't, because I'll want to do it the "right" way, even though that means I'll have to do it all again in another 10 years...).