car help! :(

Mar 17, 2006 44 Replies

BMW is fecked, nikasil s*it and they won't replace it for nothing through BMW, totally gutted, dunno what to do now :( thinking of chopping it in and grabbing something else but dunno what i want really. i really liked the BMW, it was comfy, handled good and had a bit of grunt behind it.



basically i want something that don't understeer, is either 4WD or RWD and has a bit of poke. considering volvo T5's at the moment as i can save a bundle on insurance for some reason there cheap to insure! wish i saved a s*it load of cash now and bought an over priced AE86 corolla! would have been a giggle cost sweet FA to run and be practical with 4 seats :(



and steve i know i know you told me so but as i said i learn the hard way! don't wanna give me £3900 to have the beamer fixed in good will do you?


So, what's happening with it, then?

Have you threatened the dealer with baseball bats yet?

Serious suggestion. Alfa 156. A paragon of reliability compared with an E36.

And yes, I told you so :-P

Which end are T5s driven?

cheers, clive

This story makes my heart sink. Thats a crap thing to happen. Is it definately the Nikasil thing? I'd approach BMW, and the dealer you bought it from in a reasonable but firm manner. Get it fixed and get shot of the car, and put the whole thing down to experience mate.

Alternatively, set fire to it with a brick on the accelerator and a collision course dead ahead to the place that sold you the car. (c:

the wrong end but with a quote of £800 with my 'record' and at 24 it's well tempting! mmm what are they 240bhp? hehe

I "think" you can get them AWD too although I beleive the implementation can be troublesome....

If you don't get any joy with the dealer, have a word with Jason at

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You may be aboe to get a deal on an exchange short engine. If you do get an M52 lump from them ,it will be a good one. Don't give up hope no the BMW yet. (forget that old Alfa s**te too :>) Post 98 M52 engines are certainly clear of this problem for your info. It's not a major job to swap out a lump on an E36. A weekend should do it easily if you've got a mate to help. Let me know if you can't find an engine. I may know of one round here. Cheers, JB

cheers dude my mate is gonna see if he can source a lump, anyway to easily avoid a nikasil lump? i'd LOVE to do the old 540 conversion a few have done and have a 340 :) hehe or M3 convert it but that's £££'s

I'd get that checked again. The high sulphur petrol that caused the problem hasn't been around for many a year.

Then *not* the T5 but the R model, which is all wheel drive (but they both understeer).

Or something cheap and RWD. Not something cheap, pokey and FWD, you'll learn to hate it heh.

Wonder how you know the Nikasil is at fault? .................most dealers dont have the equipment to tell unless they remove the head!

k

Doh, bad luck mate. That's a real shame. My Volvo failed its MoT yesterday with a fair bit of rust and plenty of advisories, and I was pretty pissed off with the few hundred its gonna cost me to sort it out. You must be proper pissed!

Volvo's are stupidly cheap to insure though, which is pretty useful!

Do you wanna another MR2? My missus is thinking about selling hers. Or how about a E30 325i?

Older (pre 2000 I think) ones are permanent AWD and need tyres changing in sets of four, making a puncture an expensive business. Newer (new shape V70 and S60 etc) ones are Haldex and don't care.

You've not had this five minutes - given what you paid for it, I trust it came with a warranty of sorts.

If not, I won't take the piss - it's a shithouse thing to happen when you spend any amount of money on a car, but especially when you've sunken that much into it..

Was it on HP or financed by bank loan?

If the former, you might have a bit more leverage - might potentially f*ck your credit rating up if it gets nasty, but let them repo it unless the dealer does something about the problem.

What's your MSN ID - email it to me if you want, the address in the headers is unmunged.

-- JackH

As far as I know, the post May '98 were all Alusil. Apart from a compression test, there is no way to see if a Nikasil block is good or not. The V8 is indeed a nice conversion but I prefer a e34 '550' V12 conversion!

JB

IIRC, you do a leakdown test which is rather different.

Hmmm E30 325? nice! how much for the MR2? whats the millage/condition of both?

which is why I'm seriously thinking of heading that way myself. Swedish safe, mainly quick rather than fast, but very reliable.

And the older ones are getting the "doesn't look like the latest design trend, so they cool" the modern Leadsled will be based arround a Volvo. The older Amazons replicated the traditional sled nicely, the 144/240 and beyond RWDs are going to take over in the Sled/lowrider custom stakes.

Boiiiing. This the blue one?

Legally, if you've not had it long, then you are covered by consumer protection law.

Start quoting legal stuff at them - basically if you've had it less than 30 days then it's their problem, not yours.

Trading Standards is also worth a call.

David

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