Friday
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Or, it can knock the magnets loose from the housing....
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BMW starting problem
- Thread starter edmxz2002
- Start date
Or, it can knock the magnets loose from the housing....
Thanks for all the advise and offers.
I got it back today. It was the starter. There were a couple other things needing attention also.
I replaced the battery (might have needed it) The intake had to come off to replace the starter, The intake actuator had to be replaced, some hoses and gaskets. Throw in the oil change and some other minor stuff and towing charge, it came up to a grand total of $1,450.
Not what needed right before Christmas.
My next car will be a mid 70's Chevy. I can fix those myself.
Rant over.... thanks for listening.
OH! I forgot 1 more thing! If any of you hear that I might ever buy another BMW, promise you will come and hit me in the head with a hammer for having such a STUPID thought!
I got it back today. It was the starter. There were a couple other things needing attention also.
I replaced the battery (might have needed it) The intake had to come off to replace the starter, The intake actuator had to be replaced, some hoses and gaskets. Throw in the oil change and some other minor stuff and towing charge, it came up to a grand total of $1,450.
Not what needed right before Christmas.
My next car will be a mid 70's Chevy. I can fix those myself.
Rant over.... thanks for listening.
OH! I forgot 1 more thing! If any of you hear that I might ever buy another BMW, promise you will come and hit me in the head with a hammer for having such a STUPID thought!
$1450 for a starter, yikes man...I like BMW but I've said before, I'd never want to own one outside of warranty. So that basically leaves leasing as the only decent option for those.
What actually stinks is that one of my favorite (in the realistic sense) is a 2009ish m6 coupe. if I didn't think it would cost $5k a year to keep the thing running I'd probably have one.
BMW.......reminds you...... Bring My Wallet.
Prices on electrical stuff.... starters,alt on all cars have really gone up. Wer generally use Denso and more often now factory direct as prices are competitive on a lot of cars in that 4-7 year old window.
Not much left on cars you can do on the cheap.
Prices on electrical stuff.... starters,alt on all cars have really gone up. Wer generally use Denso and more often now factory direct as prices are competitive on a lot of cars in that 4-7 year old window.
Not much left on cars you can do on the cheap.
Gone are the days of $35 starters and alternators and 1/2 hour installation charge's.
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My brother is a mechanic who used to work at BMW Norwell, he would always complain about getting stiffed on his rate because whoever was in charge at the time would comp work on out of warranty cars when the owner would cause a scene.
I own an E46 coupe...do a fair bit of my own work on it. I've had it for about ten years now, it has about 130,000 miles on it. Running costs aren't horrible. Changing the thermostat and the water pump was a breeze. Ditto pads and rotors. The only real expensive repair job I've had a shop do is the alternator. That thing's down in there and looks like you need an arm with about four extra elbows to reach it. And it's insane amounts of fun to drive.
my wifes mercedes had the a plastic pulley wheel break off from her ac unit. they have no replacement pulley we had to buy a whole new unit for almost 3k installed. i sold the damn thing as soon as we got it back and bought her an edge. the mercedes drove awsome and was comfortable but repairs were crazy. bmw is the same. bmw and mercedes need to be traded in when the warranty runs out or it will cost you. 1400 for a starter is insane
i was gonna PM you and say i know someone who owns a BMW shop in NH who is trying to score points with my family and i bet i could have got you a discount on the work.
either way i'm glad it's done and over with. dem bimmers, they nice but dat repair cost doe.
I am too late to offer my own speculation, but upon reading this thread I would like to offer a couple of collateral observations:
1) At one point, inferences were drawn about the state of battery charge based on voltage. Doesn't work. In theory, for a lead acid battery, cell voltage is a rough surrogate for state of charge if -- AND ONLY IF -- the battery has been isolated from all sources of charge and load for many hours. In modern vehicles, even with the key off, the battery is under a load to sustain the dashboard and electronics; these are not big loads, but they are enough to render terminal voltage entirely unreliable as a measure of state of charge. There are only two ways to tell the state of battery charge: direct specific gravity measurement of the electrolyte (works only for flooded cells) and sophisticated bi-directional summing ammeters (not found in cars).
2) Most of the time when a battery dies, the battery is a victim, not a culprit. That is to say, the battery almost never dies because it is worn out, but rather because it has been abused (usually by excessively discharging, which results in warped and shorted plates).
3) The life of a lead acid battery is measured in the number and depth of the discharge/recharge cycles it suffers. For good deep cycles batteries, the battery should last for about 500-750 deep (i.e., to the 60% charged state) cycles. For starting batteries, one should be able to get more than a couple of thousand cycles.
4) In fact, in an automobile application, the battery gets very little load. It is used primarily to start the engine. Most starters draw on the order of 150-250 Amps, but they do so for only 5 or 10 seconds (or less). This works out to less than 1 Amp-Hour (or about 1-2% of the battery's nominal capacity), and this minimal draw is almost immediately replaced by the alternator (assuming the alternator and regulator are functioning properly). After that, the alternator/regulator serve as a battery eliminator and carry all of the car's DC loads (again, assuming they are working correctly).
5) Alternators are consumptive devices; that is to say, so long as they are spinning, they are using up some of their useful life. High capacity alternators in marine applications are routinely rebuilt every three or four years. In most automotive applications, the alternator will begin to fail long before the battery does (but as the alternator fails, it will begin to take the battery down with it, because it will begin to shift to the battery load carrying duties that the auto battery was not designed to carry). Likewise, the regulators in most auto alternators are inexpensive, fixed-voltage, cannot-be-repaired devices that are not likely to survive more than three or four years. (The regulator lives inside the alternator case, where ambient temperatures routinely exceed 200F.)
6) As a side note, an automotive alternator/regulator setup is not designed to recharge -- and cannot recharge -- a substantially discharged battery. Such regulators operate on a fixed voltage that is slightly above the "float" voltage of the battery (say 13.6 or 13.8 VDC). At that voltage, the battery's internal resistance will quickly reach the point where it will not accept any more current from the battery. The only kind of charger than can practically recharge a materially discharged lead acid storage battery is one that can take the battery to, and then sustain it at, a voltage in the range of "gassing" (mid-14's for most battery lead-acid chemistries) for the right amount of time. These multi-stage, computer-controlled, shunt-regulated chargers are not found in automobiles.
7) For what it might be worth, I have been consulted a whole bunch of times about "dead battery" cases involving fire apparatus, fire command vehicles (usually Ford SUVs), and police cruisers. In every single case, the culprit was either the alternator or the regulator.
For those couple of folks who may still be awake: sorry for the long post.
1) At one point, inferences were drawn about the state of battery charge based on voltage. Doesn't work. In theory, for a lead acid battery, cell voltage is a rough surrogate for state of charge if -- AND ONLY IF -- the battery has been isolated from all sources of charge and load for many hours. In modern vehicles, even with the key off, the battery is under a load to sustain the dashboard and electronics; these are not big loads, but they are enough to render terminal voltage entirely unreliable as a measure of state of charge. There are only two ways to tell the state of battery charge: direct specific gravity measurement of the electrolyte (works only for flooded cells) and sophisticated bi-directional summing ammeters (not found in cars).
2) Most of the time when a battery dies, the battery is a victim, not a culprit. That is to say, the battery almost never dies because it is worn out, but rather because it has been abused (usually by excessively discharging, which results in warped and shorted plates).
3) The life of a lead acid battery is measured in the number and depth of the discharge/recharge cycles it suffers. For good deep cycles batteries, the battery should last for about 500-750 deep (i.e., to the 60% charged state) cycles. For starting batteries, one should be able to get more than a couple of thousand cycles.
4) In fact, in an automobile application, the battery gets very little load. It is used primarily to start the engine. Most starters draw on the order of 150-250 Amps, but they do so for only 5 or 10 seconds (or less). This works out to less than 1 Amp-Hour (or about 1-2% of the battery's nominal capacity), and this minimal draw is almost immediately replaced by the alternator (assuming the alternator and regulator are functioning properly). After that, the alternator/regulator serve as a battery eliminator and carry all of the car's DC loads (again, assuming they are working correctly).
5) Alternators are consumptive devices; that is to say, so long as they are spinning, they are using up some of their useful life. High capacity alternators in marine applications are routinely rebuilt every three or four years. In most automotive applications, the alternator will begin to fail long before the battery does (but as the alternator fails, it will begin to take the battery down with it, because it will begin to shift to the battery load carrying duties that the auto battery was not designed to carry). Likewise, the regulators in most auto alternators are inexpensive, fixed-voltage, cannot-be-repaired devices that are not likely to survive more than three or four years. (The regulator lives inside the alternator case, where ambient temperatures routinely exceed 200F.)
6) As a side note, an automotive alternator/regulator setup is not designed to recharge -- and cannot recharge -- a substantially discharged battery. Such regulators operate on a fixed voltage that is slightly above the "float" voltage of the battery (say 13.6 or 13.8 VDC). At that voltage, the battery's internal resistance will quickly reach the point where it will not accept any more current from the battery. The only kind of charger than can practically recharge a materially discharged lead acid storage battery is one that can take the battery to, and then sustain it at, a voltage in the range of "gassing" (mid-14's for most battery lead-acid chemistries) for the right amount of time. These multi-stage, computer-controlled, shunt-regulated chargers are not found in automobiles.
7) For what it might be worth, I have been consulted a whole bunch of times about "dead battery" cases involving fire apparatus, fire command vehicles (usually Ford SUVs), and police cruisers. In every single case, the culprit was either the alternator or the regulator.
For those couple of folks who may still be awake: sorry for the long post.
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