Tag: Original BMW Brake Parts

The ultimate question is, should you attempt to repair your own BMW? BMW is particularly popular with the young owners modifying them actively.

With the help of YouTube, people think they can tackle literally anything on their beloved car. So why bother taking it to a professional mechanic, right?

Repair your BMW at home. Should you try?

We had recently two actually 3 BMW when their respective owners tried to repair, fix with terrible results.

Owner #1: Young gentleman replaced his BMW’s suspension with fashionable lowering kit. While doing so he decided to replace the corroded steel brake lines and the old flex-lines with braided “race” ready version.

The suspension replacement went relatively well, only the suspension angles and alignment was messed up.  But YouTube brake line replacement went absolutely terrible, in fact more like terrifying.

BMW Brake Calipers Mounted to the Wrong Side.

Routing it thru control arms and moving components deleting the flex lines permanently to top it off he managed to mount the rear calipers upside down so they will never bleed the air from the system.

BMW Brake calipers are mounted to the wrong side, upside down, so they will never allow to bleed off the air within the hydraulic system. Brake lines are criss crossing and dangling against the fuel filter on the same BMW.

The question is what will leak first fuel or brake fluid? Flexible brake hose cut off and remnants are left in the mounting secure bracket on the same BMW.

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I’m not here to judge anyone’s job or competence, except this car came in with non existent rear brakes, brake fluid was dripping constantly on the floor.  It begs the question:  Why would you endanger your life and the life of others getting into a repair which is way beyond your knowledge and or qualifications?!

Oil Change on a Late Model BMW at Home. Was it Worth it?

The second owner performed an oil change on his own late model BMW.  Doing the process he removed the top of the air box, while doing so he accidentally left the paper rag in the lower part of the air box.

After the restart the engine lost power.  He had it towed to us and we did all the regular system test and kept having low boost and no boost faults from the computer. Naturally we checked wastegate operation and every aspect of related components.  Finally we decided on to see the turbocharger impeller face, with our fiber optic camera system .

Long behold we found a paper rag being sucked in by the turbocharger blocking the impeller entirely. Than we had the job to trying to extract the wrapped up paper rag and try to not to damage the fragile turbocharger impeller in the process.

Suffice to say, we managed to do it, but while the rag has been extracted we still had some paper pieces stuck between the impeller and the casing of the same. Finally we managed to remove all the bits and pieces and all is well at the end.

Culprit found, our labor on oil change is $20.00*, to resolve this issue costed him $240.00. You do the math, was it worth?

BMW Turbocharger in Action

BMW Drive-train Malfunction Message on the Dashboard.

The 3rd owner had a drive-train malfunction message on his BMW dashboard when the vehicle was driven in a spirited manner.  Owner diagnosed it with his hand held OBD 2 scanner.  After the scanning, he decided to replace the low pressure pump, but the problem still reoccurred. Than he decided to replace the high pressure fuel pump as well.

Needless to say the problem still persisted and the amount of money he spent is ludicrous to say at least . All was really required is a proper factory level diagnostics to pin the problem down.  Which actually was only a faulty high pressure sensor, reporting wrong data to the engine computer.

While the owner was busy replacing the high pressure fuel pump, he managed to crack the fuel line to the pump,  therefore it had to be replaced to.  The repair took additional hours, and considerable effort, as it was the low pressure line feeding the high pressure pump, and pretty much wrapped around the engine.

Please note, on BMW, the high pressure pump’s fuel lines must be torqued to the manufacturers specifications or may cause a split flare or a fuel leak onto the hot exhaust system.

Clients try to repair their own BMW.

This is ultimately world wide problem, created by YouTube. Clients try to repair their own BMW without the necessary knowledge base. Doing so at the end they  risk their own life and the life of others, which is wrong in so many ways, is a understatement.

Would you allow someone to perform “brain surgery” without any qualifications, on yourself or your loved ones? You wouldn’t.  Right?

So why is that people think they can just go in tackle anything on their own without any training or knowledge and see how it will turn out to be only by watching YouTube? This is just wrong so many ways .

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Related:

Oil change on BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, and Mini.  Oil, Lube & Filter Service

Proper Maintenance of European Cars

Ester Core full synthetic motor oils from Motul.

* Our labor on a simple oil change presently on a BMW is $20.00, plus materials (oil, oil filter,  air filter cabin filter and what ever else needed to be replaced). This price is a subject to change at anytime with out any given notice!