I fixed my BMW!

[digitalwanderer]

Oh, I am beyond pissed right now! I just got my car back, but after they explained the price difference was because they got a quote on the wrong back rotors, and they claimed that the rear rotors were $169 each!

I can get f'in Brembos for under $60!

But I didn't lose my shit, I was nice and just thanked them for their time and was gonna leave...when the secretary actually said, "Well, I think we're going to have to charge you something".

"Why? You didn't do anything, did you?", I replied with as much of a poker face as I could.

"No, but I spent hours calling around for parts and we did have to have it up on the racks.", she insisted.

"I offered to bring you the parts and just have them installed, and you refused", I answered.

"Well we can't do things that way", she smugly replied.

"Well I don't pay for nothing, and you did misquote me and rather upped the charge; so without meaning to be rude or anything if you expect to see a dime from me for nothing you better come after me with a lawyer, and a damned good one at that.", I said with my most charming smile.

"WELL I'M NOT GONNA GET IN A F***ING PISSING MATCH OVER IT WITH YOU, TAKE YOUR F***ING CAR!", she angrily retorted red-faced and blathering.

"C'mon kids, let's go", I told my children who were staring at the crazy lady.

 

[Freak'n Big Panda]

Wow that's crazy. I've decided that when I do get a car I'm going to do *all* the work on it myself. Yes the tools will cost a small fortune but I can no doubt keep them for the better part of my life. I just do not trust mechanics at all, it'd be like bring your computer to best buy.. they're bound to rip you off.

 

[Geo]

Members will please recall that B3D is the family-friendly tech website that hides all the really unpleasant stuff in RPSC, and will thus decorously disguise their f-bombs in GD with asterisks and such. Thank you.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Sorry G, residual anger.

Am I right in assuming that if one of my front ball joints is going bad that I'm going to have to replace both my front controller arms?

 

[RudeCurve]

Those guys are criminals.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Found this not-bad complete kit here for $320, but it doesn't excite me.

But for $274 at Autohausaz for 2 Brembo front rotors and 2 Zimmerman rears, 2 new sensors, 4 new bolts I supposedly need, some brake pad installation lubricant, a pad spreader, and $140.50 for Akebono ceramics for front/back.

So the bargain one that's boring or this set up for $414.50 that actually excites me a bit?

(Oh, and that "bargain $320 kit also has a $80 shipping fee added on...so there is only about a $14.50 difference. )

 

[digitalwanderer]

Found my controller arms, just gonna be a while before I can afford 'em I think...

Not stock, but the stock ones have a design flaw that makes 'em go bad every 20k miles or so....these don't and they're a DIY easy bolt on.

 

[Geo]

Every 20k miles!? And they didn't come out with new ones as a free replacement under the original warranty?

 

[Sxotty]

Good gracious Digi you are paying a lot for parts. Though I might have to pay that much for the same item for my wagon I guess sedan prices are much less though ($270ish).
http://www.scoobytuner.com/products/?vApplicationID=3&sfID1=66&productID=96

 

[_xxx_]

You have to replace both, wouldn't make sense otherwise.

And yeah, that garage are criminals.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Ended up buying all the parts locally at Advanced Auto Parts, which was swell 'cept they gave me the wrong rear rotors and they didn't have the right ones.

Oh, and I did drop the car accidently when I figured out why I couldn't get my rear rotor off. Had the emergency brake on, so I went and turned it off, and the tree right in front of my car kept it from falling on my leg and breaking it.

Advanced Auto didn't have the right rotors, but they were cool about refunding me. Ended up buying the rear rotors from BMW for like $85ea, but they were the only place I could find them. (The 325xi has weird back rotors because of the AWD for some reason, they're funky)

We got the rotors this morning, as well as a proper floor jack & wheel chocks. Took about 3-4 hours total and the thing is blowing my mind at how improved it is. It doesn't just brake better, it accelerates better. The old back rotors were so rusty that the emergency/parking brake was constantly rubbing against them slowing the car and ruining the gas mileage.

Now she just wants to roll, it feels great. Total cost including 4 rotors, new pads, new socket set, new allen set, floor jack, and wheel chocks was just under $400.

 

[Sxotty]

Well it sounds like you learned hte lesson about wheel chocks in a relatively painless fashion at least.

 

[Geo]

Sweet, Dig. Congrats.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Thread bump for all the sweet memories, it came up when I was posting my thread engine diagnostic hardware for it next.

Man, I still love the car! Hasn't really given me much grief either, a few little problems but they were all easily fixed with a little help from the interwebs. Added a nice GPS to her and I've been putting 80 miles a day on her for the last few weeks and she's been solid as a rock. (Well, 'cept for the stupid "Service Engine Soon" light being on since the gas cap was loose...thus my hunt for a engine diagnostic interface. It's like $30 in hardware compared to having BMW tell me what's wrong for $100 each time! )

A truly exceptional little vehicle, still my favorite father's day present.

 

[_xxx_]

You can get the interface for a few hundies easily, but the software/diagnostics database files might be much harder to find unless you have some friend working in some garage who can get you that.

Though I think the OBD II (OBD = "on-board diagnostics") scan tools used by cops over there can delete the failures too, I'd take a look at that as well, might be much easier to find and also much cheaper. Something like this, there are many out there though: http://www.google.com/products/cata...og_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDcQ8wIwAg#

Or maybe you can find some PC software like this, though that might still require some additional hardware too depending on manufacturer: http://www.scantool.net/

There are even some with bluetooth or WLAN, like some of these here: http://www.diydiagnostics.com/ - the one you need for BMW is available for mere $35, look towards the bottom of the page. It can only reset the service interval and nothing else though.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Nah, I found the cables I need for $30...but they're all out of Japan and I don't think I'll still be in this house 2 weeks from now so I'm holding off on ordering until after we move.

The software is no problem believe it or not, it's probably not legal but it's not a problem.

EDITED BITS: Make that China instead of Japan.

 

[Dooby]

My 98 Audi A4 S-Line was perfect when I bought it 2nd hand... until I got it home and realised the central locking wasn't working. When you pressed the button, you could hear a faint humming noise from the offside rear wheel well.

Turns out it's a vacuum system, and there's a 2mm thick carbon ring inside said system, that because the part is over a wheel, can break easily cos it rattles a lot. Audi wanted £50/hour to even find the problem (10 hours I reckon), garage wanted a flat £100 to find it. And, to be fair, the hum was so low that I only heard it by "accident".

But once I had, it took me 15 mins of googling to diagnose.

Audi wanted £900 to repair it. Garage wanted £250 + £350 for the part. Back to googling.

Turns out it's not a very hard job, and even better, the A4 shares a lot of parts with the VW line. I went to a breakyard, found a 98 VW, paid NINE POUNDS for the guy to take the vacuum pump out of the write off. Got a non-broken carbon ring from it. It took me an hour to figure out how to get the pump outta MY car (I'm a techie, not a mechanic), tweezer the broken carbon parts out, put new ring in, refit part.

Ok, there was still maybe a half second delay when you pressed the fob, but still... a bit of research and you can save 99% of the cost of a dealership? Rip off bast**ds!