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Sedans BMW 3-Series BMW 3-Series Maintenance and Repair
4446 messages, Last post on Nov 29, 2009 at 12:04 PM
You are in the BMW 3-Series Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
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Replying to: roadburner (Feb 01, 2008 12:25 pm) Are those reasonably good? At what price? I really enjoy doing what I can to my car, but I do need shop manuals to help me determine what's do-able, given the current state of affairs. Then, if I think I can do something, it's nice if the manual is complete & correct. Doesn't always happen.
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Replying to: cdnpinhead (Feb 01, 2008 12:45 pm) The BMW Service CD is known as the TIS. It contains service procedures, torque specs, TSBs, etc. The problem is, BMW went online a few years ago so all the information on the newer cars are accessed through www.bmwtechinfo.com, which is a subscription service. The TIS CDs for the older cars run  $150. More info can be found here.
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Replying to: roadburner (Feb 01, 2008 9:19 pm) The online thing might not be all bad, at $30 per day, assuming it's possible to print off the relevant bits from the PDF file(s). One can print a lot of stuff in 24 hours.
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Replying to: cdnpinhead (Feb 02, 2008 5:21 am) I agree. I haven't had to use it yet as my wife's X3 hasn't needed anything other than scheduled maintenance. Often if you cultivate a relationship -and spend some money- at your dealer's service and/or parts department they will run off something you need. |
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Just decided to keep our '03 325 and wanted to know what general items I should expect to go wrong so that I could go ahead and replace myself without my pregnant wife possibly being stranded somewhere Immediately before the warranty expired, I got the dealer to replace both control arms and just had the power steering pump replaced by BMW NA for free even though we were 10mos out of warranty and at 42K miles. You know what they say about honey and flies - it worked!!! Anyway, I was going to replace the brake pads but anything else. I seem to recall something semi-major going out around 60K miles usually on these e46s but can't remember. I've got some time on my hands right now so no better time that the present. And can you recommend any brake pads that will yield less brake dust than the OEM pads. Don't need performance as this is the wife's car and most likely baby-mobile for the first 6mos Thanks as always
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Replying to: chile96 (Feb 03, 2008 10:10 am) After 60K I'd keep an eye on the water pump, but it will begin to leak rather than suffer a catastrophic failure. And can you recommend any brake pads that will yield less brake dust than the OEM pads. Don't need performance as this is the wife's car and most likely baby-mobile for the first 6mos What you want are Axxis Deluxe Advanced pads; $88 for all four wheels from Zeckhausen Racing. Little if any dust and OEM levels of braking performance on the street. |
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Well, I had to add another quart after ~ 850 miles and about 3.5 weeks (recall this is a '01 330i with 84.9K miles; I live in the Bay Area so the temperature has been colder [35ish] but not midwest-cold) Any thoughts on what to do? I'm planning to drop it off at my mechanic later this week, but would like to suggest what he should look for (besides leaks, which he hasn't found in the past)-- PCV valve? oil separator? Other than this, the car is great but I don't want to be adding a quart every month. I change the oil (BMW 5W-30) every 7.5K miles... should I use Mobil1 0W-30 and/or increase the oil change frequency to 5K miles?
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. For about the last week or so, everytime I start driving my car after it's been sitting awhile, I hear a grinding noise (definitely not the ABS self-test) when applying the brakes. If I drive only a couple of miles and stop, there is a distinctive burning-brakes smell as well. However, as I continue to drive, the sound goes away and the smell also goes away, so I'm assuming things cool down with further use. Yesterday I took my son to a friends house about 3 miles from home. The grinding was present and when we got there the smell was bad. At the risk of great pain, I walked around the car and touched all 4 rotors.. they were warm at best. I've done the same thing with a previous car and I knew when I came across a rotor with a frozen caliper because I was on the ground screaming and crying seconds after contact...  Would a bad wheel-bearing exhibit these symptoms? Any thoughts on the emergency drums doing this (I almost never use the emergency brake and it hasn't been on in weeks)? Any other thoughts? My next step is to start pulling wheels/rotors to look for something. Unfortunately, I probably won't have time to do that until the weekend. Thanks! EDIT: The car is a 2001 330Ci w/133K miles
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Replying to: kominsky (Feb 05, 2008 7:58 am) In my case, I've had two BMWs, and both of them managed to wear at least one set of pads at an odd angle, an angle that was able to allow the backing plate to start grinding on the rotor while at the same time holding the sensor far enough away from said rotor to prevent any contact and subsequent light. My guess is that you have a pad that has worn funny and is only partially contacting the rotor. Sounds like it's time for new brakes.  Best Regards, Shipo
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Replying to: shipo (Feb 05, 2008 1:22 pm) I just replaced the pads and rotors in August... being an average mechanic at best, I guess we can't eliminate user error as a source of the problem. Everything has been fine up until now, though. I guess I'll know for sure on Saturday when I start pulling things apart. Thanks!!
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