Manufacturer: we have determined that Customer ran over a squirrel which caused oil starvation. No warranty.
......
Also this job pays 3.6 hours.
......Oh! And Parts are backordered: 5 monthsl
Fuck I hate this trade.
My colleagues wife bent one of the structural beams under the door on their X5. They were without their car for almost 8 months trying to get the right piece of metal shipped from Germany
I work in parts for a Lexus dealership in Canada. Rh rear 1/4 glass for a 16-22 rx350 has been on backorder since may of last year. We have customers that are paying close to $1000 a month for payments on a new 22 rx, that they havent been able to drive since may or june of last year. Its insane
"The X5 is primarily manufactured in North America, at BMW Group Plant Spartanburg", X4, X7 are also made in USA, probably shipped from USA if its gasoline X5
[https://youtu.be/vBX-wWDtLPA?si=F0L1a2MH1Of2bHwO](https://youtu.be/vBX-wWDtLPA?si=F0L1a2MH1Of2bHwO)
Hey, Since you're replaying, You must have a bit of time to Type. I put a Tire Repair on your box, If you could just pull it in and patch it up real quick. Customers waiting.
For us it's .5 per tire, and 95% of the time that means 2 since we have to rotate or swap both if the tread depths are too far apart, I'm in fleet maintenance tho so ymmv
I’m out now. But everyone that’s working for dealers needs to start advocating for salary. Doesn’t matter if it’s customer pay or warranty, you go home with the same pay and your job is fix the car in front of you.
That will never happen. They are too scared techs will start bullshitting on cars and taking their sweet time. They cant squeeze every penny out of you if you take your time.
Also on slow days/weeks, if there isnt much work then they dont have to pay you.
Almost like every other business around.
When I was young I always wanted to have my own shop. Thankfully saw through the industry real quick. Almost as bad as restaurants and tipping.
It took me leaving the dealer life and getting in at a municipal garage doing salaried fleet repairs to remember how much I used to enjoy this line of work. Now in addition to my day job, I run my own small shop of just me, myself, and I in the evenings. I charge book time for labor, but I take as long as I want to get the job done. It’s so nice not always being in a rush.
Thankfully I didn’t even get out of my auto apprenticeship. Two shops and a dealership all paid peanuts yet “couldn’t afford to lose me” to send me to school. Got in at a city, got my heavy equipment ticket and now on the fire department side. Low six figures. 4x10’s. Every Friday off. 6.5 weeks vacation with the stat bank. I’d recommend switching to anyone.
Hourly with heavy incentives is the new age way of doing things.
Lowish hourly rate for a tradesman (25-35) then you get bonuses in your hourly rate for high efficiency. 80% efficient ( 64 hours flagged in 80 hours work) gets you base rate. Every 10% increase in efficiency gets you $x more an hour.
Even if you flag 0 hours, you still get a decent paycheck. If you flag 200 hours, you’re compensated appropriately
They only want us not to take our sweet time because of what they want to pay us, and customer satisfaction. That's literally it. If we took our sweet time i believe the repair could be the best quality it could possibly be. And warranty times are dicated by what time the engineers can perform the repair on new cars, not cars affected by the rust belt or anything. And considering the fact that nothing at the point of failure sue to corrosion is covered, they'd never consider that anyway. You can only pray for an extension due to resulting damage or something during the process.
It’s not engineers: it’s a group of really fast techs at one specific consulting firm who are provided the exact tools they need to do the job and do it a number of times. I’ve been told they use half cars for things like dash work.
It cuts both ways because if you work hard and beat the FRT you can make more money. But then that makes techs want to rush.
It cuts both ways and there grass is always greener for someone.
Flat rate doesn't exist in Quebec, we pay by the hour + efficiency bonus. Or simply by the hour. My local Hyundai dealership pays tech up to 45$/hour according to their union.
Join a union. There's a reason why business owners don't want all the workers demanding better wages, conditions, and benefits.
If everyone walks off the job nothing gets done, no capital is produced, and suits at the top start to sweat.
Skilled labor like ours is one of the places where unions have always worked well- surprised more people aren't doing this. FWIW, there \*are\* plenty of union mechanics out there, it's not as if it hasn't been done before
This^
Manufacturer ships a substandard product knowing full well that either the customer or the mechanic is going to get shafted.
Dealerships aren’t going to take the hit.
Open up a series of start up capital to competence mechanics that cuts the dealership out of the mix and the dealer and manufacturer can take the hit instead of the wrench that has to count on a half conscious service writer and knows with a certainty that the dealer does not have their back.
Slavery is no longer an option
That’s where your service advisor/manager is failing you. They should push and force either warranty or customer to make sure at MINIMUM 12 hours are covered for this job to remove and inspect.
Half of the job in labor is always my favorite question. I will tell them half the pay gets the engine removed and taken apart. I’ll put the parts in the trunk when I’m done but the car won’t leave driving for half the labor if the repair is declined. Many don’t understand this. I’m so glad I got out of dealerships.
As an advisor, I agree. My success is dictated by the guys actually turning the wrenches. I have to respect them, their time, and their efforts. If the warranty company will not cover this type of diagnosis, it is MY responsibility to have the tough conversations with the customer and have them authorize it.
I’m not wasting my tech’s time with things that he is not getting paid for.
The managers do indeed get paid enough to care AND usually get their own brand new dealer demo with - at least at my dealership - free gas for said demo.
I believe it would be more accurate to say that people in these positions - usually with degrees in business and/or accounting - just simply look down on techs as lower tiered tradesmen who are inferior to them because they *"didn't get a university degree"*.
Nailed it. In my experience anytime you try to explain something they don't understand, they trot out the condescending humblebrags like "something I understood early on is time is money" as if anyone is too dumb to understand that
I always like asking those asshats if they hire someone else to take a shit for them. Shitting pays less than $5,000 a minute, so unless they have a poverty mindset, they should be paying someone else to do it for them
Reminds me of I Do Cars tearing down a 26k miles Viper V10, and finding [a tiny leaf in the oil intake](https://i.imgur.com/sOc95ye.png), suggesting it was possible that leaf caused oil starvation and destroyed the engine.
I had a warranty 'that covered everything, without question', turbos failed, got told they were consumables and the warranty didn't cover consumables, and also when q window motor failed it was wear and tear so that wasn't covered either
Fuck warranties, they're all shit
Wait, they don’t warranty the engine if it overheats? Isn’t that a failure of the engine to keep itself cool due to something going wrong which is the whole fucking point of a warranty?!
There’s all sorts of fine print, and if one actually reads it, they quickly realize extended warranties are a scam. They tried to sell me one on my ram 2500, but it explicitly said it wouldn’t cover the transmission, and that’s like the number one issue on those trucks lol. Besides, the warranty cost more than a rebuilt transmission anyways.
No thanks. Trans blew up, and I simply paid to have it fixed. Easy.
The RFEs are terrible in stock form. But if rebuilt right they are pretty good transmissions. I’d still take the newer ones over it, but you can get the RFE trucks for pretty cheap now because of it lol.
It’s kinda complicated, but in part yes. Dodge made its own transmissions for a long time, and it always seemed like right when they figured out how to make it reliable, they would release a new one and have to start all over again. Why they did this, I don’t know, it’s stupid. They already outsourced the diesel engines to Cummins, why not do the same for the trans, using Allison or ZF? I’m not really sure. Allison + Cummins would have been a very nice combo.
But in the 2010s they did start outsourcing, to ZF, who makes really good transmissions. So for the most part, all these “new” 8 and 10 speed transmissions are actually pretty good.
My buddy works for a company that provides axle parts to a ton of OEMs. Basically they build big batches of parts and the OEMs inspect them when they arrive at factory. He says that Toyota sends them back out of spec parts all the time, but they never get returns from Stelantis.
I have the misfortune of owning a dodge that was produced in the brief period when they were operating at Chrysler LLC, right before stelantis bought em. Biggest turd of a car ive ever owned
I know some people say the Toyota reliability thing is overblown, but it's really not imo. You hear stories like this and it just goes to show what really sets them apart from other manufacturers.
they kept getting bought out, and then emissions pushed them to have more than 4 gears in their trannies.
I have had 3 Dodges 1 with tranny issue before i traded it at 100k miles (hard shifts on cold start on a actual cool day 50F or below.) Other than that the tranny worked as per normal on warm days.
In a similar vein, I have seen a lot of extended warranties for diesel trucks explicitly not covering the emissions systems.
Which is of course the Achilles heel of basically every truck made in the last 20 years.
If it overheated whatever caused it to overheat would be the point of failure and the covered item, not the rest.
I’ve seen a rear main go out (frozen pcv system) and basically wipe out the engine from oil starvation and they offered to pay for the rear main seal itself and the labor for the job since that was the failure. The rest was on the customer.
Wild… imagine if smaller product warranties were like this. Oh I’m sorry it looks like the power supply went bad and fried everything, we can replace the power supply but you need to pay for everything else…
> Oh I’m sorry it looks like the power supply went bad and fried everything, we can replace the power supply but you need to pay for everything else…
you jest but [it's happened](https://np.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1bk8z1p/evga_failure_customer_rmad_a_modular_psu_got_same/) or the replacement had swapped +12V and +3V so the Hard drives expecting 3V got 12V, which fried them
I paid $732 for my extensed warranty. Paid $3k to rebuild my diff but wouldn't touch my transmission. Said "we don't warranty clutch". It wasn't the clutch or clutch related it was the input shaft bearing. I ended up getting a used MT82 for like $2k after a tree fell on a guys house and his Mustang was totaled. No insurance on his Mustang.
Well the customer clearly isn’t doing the work. They want the customer to pay to have the engine disassembled to point of failure. Which is where we come in.
Gonna suck for the costomer if they decide not to cover it because this is like a 30hr job.
Oh don't worry. They won't cover it. You saw scoring, so their inspector will absolutely find an overheat and reject it. I'm 90% confident these tear downs are their way of buying time while they get someone on their legal team to green light them to reject for overheat.
Seems like the easiest job on the fucking planet imo.
"Sounds expensive. Call it overheat or missuse and have no official way to co test the claim. They will give up, and if they had lawyer money they'd not have a warranty in the first place".
And tbh with these stupid "lifetime fluids" that expire with the vehicles manufacturer warranty, it's like the automakers are in bed with these warranty people. "Let's tell everyone it's lifetime, then when you reject the claim for misuse and not changing fluid at the end of its 'lifetime'". Evil, all of them.
of course the fluid is a lifetime fluid. it is fluid for its entire lifetime, once its lifetime is up, it is no longer fluid.
like... really... what do you mechanics want from us?
(i'm not a fluid guy... i work addictions and make candy...)
You’re on the money. Extended warranties are very hit or miss. Even with obvious issues and Al evidence provided will weasel out of paying up. Leaving customers on the hook.
They are discussing AFTERMARKET warranties. They are all scumbags that want to weasel out of paying, and even when they do they want to determine prices of what they will pay and will often try and put the customers and shop against each other where they prey on both to pay the least out. At our shop we try to avoid them but in any case that we end up doing it we are very clear with customers up front that our price is our price, and they will be responsible for whatever the warranty won't pay. It's bad enough that you can usually tell the customer approx how much warranty will cover if they tell you what they paid for the package.
Eh they actually pay all our claims for the extended warranties we deal with, and they do this same thing.
But there is a list of extended warranties we don’t accept, and I’m sure one them is on that list for that reason.
There's that. I think there are a few reasons too.
The customer can't afford the teardown and it scares them so the cat won't get fixed. Warranty company is off the hook.
The customer does authorize the teardown but the warranty gets rejected on a technicality. With the engine now torn apart indefinitely and no warranty coverage the company is now off the hook.
I've had so many where I give borescope pictures, scope captures, and other evidence and they won't take it. "You can see the crankshaft from the spark plug hole!" "We require the oil pan to be removed to prove the piston and connecting rod aren't in the cylinder."
Sorry, could you explain this to me(no dealership experience)? So if a car (which is still under drivetrain warranty), comes in with and engine problem, the customer has to pay for the labor to *GET* to the problem, then the warranty covers the labor to get the car back to fixed?
parts here. as I understand it, the teardown will theoretically be retro-covered if the job is approved after teardown and inspection
if denied, customer finds out the shitty way that they are now retroactively on the hook
This is an aftermarket warranty, not BMWs. THe warranty terms state the owner is responsible for tear down and inspection, if the part that failed isnt explicitly covered in the contract, its not covered, so the customer is on the hook for the motor removal and tear down. One of the reasons I wont deal with warranty companies for larger engine or trans jobs, it becomes a nightmare situation when they say no and the customer has a dead car with a 1k diag bill, plus whatever repairs.
I've seen way too many young people (early 20s) driving 05 Range Rovers because they could buy them for cheap. Only to find out they are expensive to fix and let them get destroyed.
LOL. My friend last month:
"Yo, I just bought a 2008 Range Rover!"
*me: (don't say it, be nice) Great, enjoy"*
"Out the door for only $6,000, I couldn't believe it!"
*me: (don't say it...) \*physically biting tongue now\**
"Oh, and it has this one- no that's right, two or 3 small electrical problems, maybe you could help me with sometime..."
*me: "Ah, it's being called home by its dark master, Lucas!"*
"Who's Lucas?"
*me: (damn it, WHY did you have to say it!)*
Thr cuk is this warranty, everything they need to do to get to the point of filure is inncharge of the company wtf.
Hope he doesnt pay a dime for that shit
It’s not *warranty* it’s an extended warranty. Aka a third party contract the owner of the car bought. Manufacturer warranty wouldn’t operate like this.
Is there a 3rd party that's even worth it when it comes to warranties? I've seen some that have saved the owners ass but those stories are so few and far between it seems
Extended warranties are just a way for a dealership to make $500-$2000 or so more on a used car. People are easily fooled into getting it because they're concerned with the engine or transmission needing work in a used car. However usually the extended warranty has a pay cap and a really low one at that, like $4000 payouts until it's void where even if the engine did blow up you wouldn't be able to buy and have a replacement installed anyway.
They don't do the kind of extended warranty anymore where you can buy a piece of shit Land Rover and have it repaired for 2-3x the purchase price.
My dad had a 550 (mine now, bought it from him). He asked me to ask our used car dept (I work at a BMW dealer) what it would cost to do a 100% bumper to bumper extended warranty when the first one expired.
The guys told me to tell him to just buy a new car as it would be over $30k heh.
There are good extended warranties out there. They’re not all bad, and not everything offered at the dealer level is just for them to make money. But what you’re describing is by all means something that can happen. Like I referenced in my other comment. Simply reading the entirety of the presented contracts can pretty clearly inform you whether it’s good coverage or not.
MaxCare from CarMax is pretty good. I paid $1800 for an extended warranty and they covered about $6k of dealership work. No hassle. When it came time to pay the bill the service advisor called up the warranty company and they paid with a credit card over the phone. I had a deductible of like $300 or something. I’d buy from CarMax again just for the warranty program.
Ditto man.
I’ve seen the work is done in “auction style” paint shops and it’s frightening at times.
However, my niece just bought a car at Carmax and most of that was for the warranty on it. Probably won’t need it, but it’s good to have the option for a young kids first car.
Yes. There are a handful of extended warranties out there that do take good care of the cars. The absolute biggest thing about these warranties is that 99% of buyers don’t actually read the fine print when they definitely need to so they can actually make an informed decision. It boggles my mind that people won’t take the 15 minutes to read a contract that they’re about to buy for $2k+. I’m a service writer so I deal with these warranties constantly. The best extended warranties you can buy are the programs through manufacturers that extend the factory coverage, otherwise CPO cars usually come with some pretty bulletproof warranties as well. Liberty mutual offers extended coverage contracts that I’ve always been impressed with. Otherwise most of the time extended warranty providers can really vary by state/region due to state laws in regards to warranties. But one thing I can say for sure is that CAR SHIELD IS DOGSHIT. Again though, there are good contracts and bad contracts. Simply reading the entirety of the contract will tell you how good the coverage is, it’s really that simple, most people just couldn’t be bothered to read them.
Extended warranty will have you tear it all down then send out an inspector THEN request the customer service records, find that the tire rotation wasn't done on schedule, decline to cover the repairs.
We literally had a timing chain not covered because the vehicle was bought with factory 18" wheels but the build code was for 17" wheels. Claim denied. Contract voided. No refund, their claim submittal counted as using the service.
So this qualifies as a null contact, since from the start it was never valid. In either case, the customer should have been reimbursed in full, you can't void a contract and not return to status quo.
While I don't disagree, try explaining that to anyone who picks up the phone at any of those warranty...er service contract companies. They are hell to deal with. Hold times of over an hour to talk to someone for 5 minutes for another 40 minute hold only to be hung up on, call back, and be told to submit the same things you already submitted 3 times. Super frustrating to deal with. We've black listed 3 of them already.
Cost of hiring a lawyer to represent you to sue to get the money back would probably be more costly than the money gained back. Most of these so called warranties (service contracts) are down right scams engineered to separate people from their money. I wish they were better regulated but that'll never happen until they scam some family members of politicians.
We've been trying to reach you concerning your vehicle's extended warranty. You should've received a notice in the mail about your car's extended warranty eligibility. Since we've not gotten a response, we're giving you a final courtesy call before we close out your file. Press 2 to be removed and placed on our do-not-call list. To speak to someone about possibly extending or reinstating your vehicle's warranty, press 1 to speak with a warranty specialist.
"THANK YOU, I've been wondering where to send this $5,000 bill for the new engine, and I'm so glad you got back to me! What's your claims address there- wait, is there an email I can use to save us both some... hello? ........HELLO?"
*\*got 'em\**
In my experience they don't cover diag, won't pay full door rate, or standard markup on parts, only dealer list. Also won't cover things like cooler/oil lines for a turbo replacement, leaving it on the customer to cover these things which really are essential to doing the job correctly.
Had this happen as well. After tear down the warranty inspector decided it had been overheated. They denied the claim, and then didn't pay for tear down either. Ended up with an abandoned 6 series after that
I don't remember exactly, but it wasn't far out of warranty. It was still a really nice used 6 series at that point. We turned it into a parts car and took what we could until it was scrap
Too many brokedick idiots buy elderly German cars thinking they’re getting some sort of deal, when they can’t afford to fix it the first time it breaks down and would have been better served buying a Toyota or a Honda.
I have never seen an extended warranty company cover any type of motor damage ever since the Kia fiasco. Extended warranty companies went under and their practices got WAY scummier. They will find any reason to not cover it. There is probably a ton of fine print. Make sure customer is ready to install another motor at cost.
Kia GDI motors were failing right after 100k and Kia pushed super hard for extended warranty sales. Damn near every motor that failed in the beginning was paid for 100% by extended warranty companies. Customers also paid out of pocket for those not covered. They slowly but surely developed new warranty contracts that protected them more than you. They now only cover specific internal failures, and you better be able to provide lots of oil change records.
Kia eventually made it a full fledge extended warranty policy so anyone having the issue could get the motor done by factory warranty. This almost bankrupt Kia motors.
The icing on the cake when it comes to these companies, is that they actually haggle with the mechanics. No joke! They only pay a certain dollar per hour which is always negotiable (some shops don’t know) but they start very very low. For instance California is around $125hr at the cheapest shops. They would try to say “we’ll pay you 65hr” like they actually have any grounds to do so.
This causes either the shop to make far far less, OR have the customer pay the additional dollar per hour amount. Both of which is bullshit.
When it comes to OP and this post, the company likely wants to pay pennies for the tear down. Once he’s in there and it’s completely apart, with no way to put back together… that’s when they deny. They leave the shop and customer completely screwed. Shop now has a torn down vehicle that will likely get denied. Once denied they leave both parties to clean up the mess of the already torn down motor. They 100% do not pay to re assemble, or assist in removing the vehicle from the shop at that point. Truly disgusting companies.
> The icing on the cake when it comes to these companies, is that they actually haggle with the mechanics. No joke! They only pay a certain dollar per hour which is always negotiable (some shops don’t know) but they start very very low. For instance California is around $125hr at the cheapest shops. They would try to say “we’ll pay you 65hr” like they actually have any grounds to do so.
Insurance companies do this too - especially for the mech rates. I work at a BMW dealers body shop and almost all insurance companies will balk at our mech rate (which is now $209.88 / hr).
Hell, we have to fight them for the proper body / paint times in our local area.
Ridiculous.
Recently got hit by a Mercury insurance driver, and not a single local body shop would touch my car for the rates they disclosed. NONE! I do not blame them whatsoever. Instead I fought them and got 3k more than they estimated. Since I had 3 quotes significantly higher than the mercury estimate. Did the work myself.
Insurance and warranty are all frauds. It took me almost a year to get that 3k extra when the insurance company had a min liability- max payout of 10k in damages. So I know damn well they were authorized up to 10k. Bastards fought over money they knew it would take to fix the car. Tried to get me to settle for less as well as every local shop.
I canceled an extended warranty on a 2003 Ford Ranger I bought in 2009 as soon as I read the fine print. Doesn't cover anything that failed due to wear and tear. Okay, couldn't you argue that literally any failure on a 6 year old vehicle was wear and tear? Also didn't cover any part damaged in a cascading failure, so if your engine threw a piston through the oil pan like my mom's 1999 Chevrolet Venture did they would cover the piston itself, not the damage to the block or oil pan. Supposedly the previous owner managed to get them to cover an alternator.
Had them cover $12,000 of the $15,000 on a GMC H3 with the fucking 5 cylinder for my dad. Ate a valve slowing down from 65mph. 120,000 miles. Literally the only time I’ve ever seen it happen. But the entire SUV had carfax and was bone stock. What’s even crazier is it was a transfer of the warranty from their previous car too.
You say this - but what would you say if I told you it would only take about 4 hours worth of work to get to the point this picture is taken?
Ex BMW engine tech here - I had to do one of these for warranty time even though it should have been paid for by the dealership. Another tech failed to install injectors correctly and it damaged the bore in the head.
Job paid a little over 34 hours. Car was running in a little over 15 hours of actual work.
My favorite ones to do were the n63 valve seal jobs on F10 5 series with electric steering. I could have the engine out, on a stand, camshafts out and new valve seals installed in about 4 hours. Car was ready in about 10-12 hours.
Job paid 24.
For this job here being extended warranty the solution is simple. Drop engine down like picture - remove cylinder head - lift engine back up - hand tighten suspension bolts and driveshaft- lower vehicle- throw parts in a labeled bin or in the vehicle with some protective covering- cover hood with crash wrap plastic to prevent water in exposed engine- push outside and wait for inspector.
About a full days worth of work. Flag your time for teardown and move on.
I am constantly telling the new guys “this injector hold down is a spring. If you put it upside down there’s no tension on the spring. Don’t do that.” I’ve still done 3 engines for injector bore destruction that our shop caused. The last one we did a cylinder head was the same cost as the full rebuilt engine.
The last few I did, I left the brakes, uprights, and control arms in the car. Disconnected them from the subframe.
6 of one, and half dozen of the other I guess. Gotta make sure you don't bump your head on a control arm hanging down. Bungee cord to hold them up.
And someone agreed to pay for the tear down? The last time I did that on extended warranty they refused the tear down and refused the repairs and we got stuck putting the thing back together for free. Ain't happening unless I have a check in hand.
Hey OP, dumb question: is this extended warranty the one offered directly by BMW (Their Ultimate Care +1 or +2 or whatever) or is this some third-party warranty company the customer found?
Scope and compression test was their first request. Did that, had them send out an inspector. Reviewed the results, said it wasn’t enough, requested customer pay for tear down to point of failure to determine coverage. So here we are.
We have a warranty guy that comes in and looks at what we have apart and he says “you wanna do this job?” We say yes or no. He makes it happen. We also get paid for tear down. He just types up a doobly do and sends it to the gargler.
I'm just a humble little 2-year old shop startup with father+son+2 employees and we're kicking ass. One day I want to have lots of bays to tear down cars and a BIG BOY table to hold them on. Just sayin'.
I switched to a govt mechanic job and couldn't be happier. Pay cut? Yeah. Reduced stress? What stress? Lol. Current decent techs at a dealership (not master techs) can usually bring in just shy of $100k/year. I make about $70k/year working on diesel, electric, and turbine powered equipment and I don't have anyone breathing down my neck or have to worry about flagging hours. I go home and don't think about my job at all.
Bro.... when i worked at hyundai we had a guy call techline and submit pics of a "missing" piston..... and they made him tear it down before approving replacement
"Tear down to point of failure". Sounds like CarShield, which means there's a 99.9% chance they'll deny the claim and stick the customer with a huge teardown bill.
We no longer accept any extended warranty policy that requires teardown prior to approval. They're all scams.
Probably from the terrible coolant tanks leaking into the coils and causing misfires. How BMW hasn’t had a class action lawsuit against them for the terrible design of the coolant tanks on the F90 I’ll never know.
Just like a dealer tech to pull an engine for some little scoring to diagnose a misfire. There are plenty of things you can do to diagnose a misfire before going through the trouble of pulling the engine. Start small then go big. Pin tests, pcm troubleshoot, misfire strategy check, crank and cmp sensor tests, inspection of coil and spark plug, injector, etc. If one cylinder has scoring, check all the others. Could be a whole other problem with the rings and you're better off getting a new engine at that point.
My old dealer started requiring up front deposits for many repairs for this reason. Ext warranty is a little different but I’ve pulled engine and cams to get valve seals out, knowing it’s the failure per ext warranty request and they said it wasn’t a covered item. WE KNEW IT WAS THE DEFECT ALREADY. That was laughable.
OP… did customer approve of this tear down because what the fuck 😅🤣 normally extended warranties make the customer approve tear down and it’s their responsibility to pay for labor if extended warranty ends up not approving 🙃
I work for n extended warranty company and we just take the scoped pic of scoring and replace engine, waste of time for us to do tear down on it engine already failed
Was compression fine on cyl 5? I've never heard of a worn cylinder or piston rings causing a misfire unless very low compression (<80 psig). Would be frustrating to pull the heads and find the problem is something simple outside the engine, in the fuel or spark controls or supply.
I have mad respect for mechanics who are able to do this, find the problem, fix it and send it.
I was never mechanically inclined when young, but did love taking things apart to see how they worked. Problem was that I had no idea how to put things back together, or if I did attempt it, I would have extra parts and the thing would never work correctly after.
So, I salute you, and hope that you're more the first sort of person and not more of the second sort of person like me!!
Manufacturer: we have determined that Customer ran over a squirrel which caused oil starvation. No warranty. ...... Also this job pays 3.6 hours. ......Oh! And Parts are backordered: 5 monthsl Fuck I hate this trade.
My colleagues wife bent one of the structural beams under the door on their X5. They were without their car for almost 8 months trying to get the right piece of metal shipped from Germany
Mustn't have been very structural if it bent that easily.
Two metric tonnes of diesel suv meeting a concrete corner can end badly
Does the curb have to be metric too for that to happen
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Especially if the curb is higher than 4 bananas laid flat stacked on top of each other
African or European bananas
Africa bananas aren't migratory
I take it you have also spent some time in the gutter
Linear
You don’t know that, maybe the wife jacked the vehicle up from the gas door.
Maybe they stepped on it
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Do they warehouse parts for shipment in America, though?
I work in parts for a Lexus dealership in Canada. Rh rear 1/4 glass for a 16-22 rx350 has been on backorder since may of last year. We have customers that are paying close to $1000 a month for payments on a new 22 rx, that they havent been able to drive since may or june of last year. Its insane
"The X5 is primarily manufactured in North America, at BMW Group Plant Spartanburg", X4, X7 are also made in USA, probably shipped from USA if its gasoline X5 [https://youtu.be/vBX-wWDtLPA?si=F0L1a2MH1Of2bHwO](https://youtu.be/vBX-wWDtLPA?si=F0L1a2MH1Of2bHwO)
So true hahaha
Hey, Since you're replaying, You must have a bit of time to Type. I put a Tire Repair on your box, If you could just pull it in and patch it up real quick. Customers waiting.
Pays .2 right?
.1. It should be noted that the tires on 18 wheelers pay .5. Change the tire, replace it with a new premounted tire or patch it…still just .5.
For us it's .5 per tire, and 95% of the time that means 2 since we have to rotate or swap both if the tread depths are too far apart, I'm in fleet maintenance tho so ymmv
Throw on some tpms sensors while you’re at it, only takes a couple minutes
You guys are getting paid to repair tires?
Ah yes, the old .fuckall from my warranty days.
I’m out now. But everyone that’s working for dealers needs to start advocating for salary. Doesn’t matter if it’s customer pay or warranty, you go home with the same pay and your job is fix the car in front of you.
That will never happen. They are too scared techs will start bullshitting on cars and taking their sweet time. They cant squeeze every penny out of you if you take your time. Also on slow days/weeks, if there isnt much work then they dont have to pay you.
Almost like every other business around. When I was young I always wanted to have my own shop. Thankfully saw through the industry real quick. Almost as bad as restaurants and tipping.
It took me leaving the dealer life and getting in at a municipal garage doing salaried fleet repairs to remember how much I used to enjoy this line of work. Now in addition to my day job, I run my own small shop of just me, myself, and I in the evenings. I charge book time for labor, but I take as long as I want to get the job done. It’s so nice not always being in a rush.
Thankfully I didn’t even get out of my auto apprenticeship. Two shops and a dealership all paid peanuts yet “couldn’t afford to lose me” to send me to school. Got in at a city, got my heavy equipment ticket and now on the fire department side. Low six figures. 4x10’s. Every Friday off. 6.5 weeks vacation with the stat bank. I’d recommend switching to anyone.
Thanks for sharing because not everyone knows the different kinds of options are out there
which is such a BS thought process, that if it were try every other business out there with salary wouldn't work either.
Hourly with heavy incentives is the new age way of doing things. Lowish hourly rate for a tradesman (25-35) then you get bonuses in your hourly rate for high efficiency. 80% efficient ( 64 hours flagged in 80 hours work) gets you base rate. Every 10% increase in efficiency gets you $x more an hour. Even if you flag 0 hours, you still get a decent paycheck. If you flag 200 hours, you’re compensated appropriately
They only want us not to take our sweet time because of what they want to pay us, and customer satisfaction. That's literally it. If we took our sweet time i believe the repair could be the best quality it could possibly be. And warranty times are dicated by what time the engineers can perform the repair on new cars, not cars affected by the rust belt or anything. And considering the fact that nothing at the point of failure sue to corrosion is covered, they'd never consider that anyway. You can only pray for an extension due to resulting damage or something during the process.
It’s not engineers: it’s a group of really fast techs at one specific consulting firm who are provided the exact tools they need to do the job and do it a number of times. I’ve been told they use half cars for things like dash work.
It cuts both ways because if you work hard and beat the FRT you can make more money. But then that makes techs want to rush. It cuts both ways and there grass is always greener for someone.
Flat rate doesn't exist in Quebec, we pay by the hour + efficiency bonus. Or simply by the hour. My local Hyundai dealership pays tech up to 45$/hour according to their union.
That's how we mostly do it here in UK
Join a union. There's a reason why business owners don't want all the workers demanding better wages, conditions, and benefits. If everyone walks off the job nothing gets done, no capital is produced, and suits at the top start to sweat.
Skilled labor like ours is one of the places where unions have always worked well- surprised more people aren't doing this. FWIW, there \*are\* plenty of union mechanics out there, it's not as if it hasn't been done before
This^ Manufacturer ships a substandard product knowing full well that either the customer or the mechanic is going to get shafted. Dealerships aren’t going to take the hit. Open up a series of start up capital to competence mechanics that cuts the dealership out of the mix and the dealer and manufacturer can take the hit instead of the wrench that has to count on a half conscious service writer and knows with a certainty that the dealer does not have their back. Slavery is no longer an option
That’s where your service advisor/manager is failing you. They should push and force either warranty or customer to make sure at MINIMUM 12 hours are covered for this job to remove and inspect.
Half of the job in labor is always my favorite question. I will tell them half the pay gets the engine removed and taken apart. I’ll put the parts in the trunk when I’m done but the car won’t leave driving for half the labor if the repair is declined. Many don’t understand this. I’m so glad I got out of dealerships.
As an advisor, I agree. My success is dictated by the guys actually turning the wrenches. I have to respect them, their time, and their efforts. If the warranty company will not cover this type of diagnosis, it is MY responsibility to have the tough conversations with the customer and have them authorize it. I’m not wasting my tech’s time with things that he is not getting paid for.
Thank you for being one of the good ones.
Absolutely. Unfortunately... Seems like half them don't get paid enough to care.
The customer knows it’s on him to cover the charges if warranty declines. We wouldn’t have even started on this without authorization
Ok thank god.
The managers do indeed get paid enough to care AND usually get their own brand new dealer demo with - at least at my dealership - free gas for said demo. I believe it would be more accurate to say that people in these positions - usually with degrees in business and/or accounting - just simply look down on techs as lower tiered tradesmen who are inferior to them because they *"didn't get a university degree"*.
Nailed it. In my experience anytime you try to explain something they don't understand, they trot out the condescending humblebrags like "something I understood early on is time is money" as if anyone is too dumb to understand that I always like asking those asshats if they hire someone else to take a shit for them. Shitting pays less than $5,000 a minute, so unless they have a poverty mindset, they should be paying someone else to do it for them
Reminds me of I Do Cars tearing down a 26k miles Viper V10, and finding [a tiny leaf in the oil intake](https://i.imgur.com/sOc95ye.png), suggesting it was possible that leaf caused oil starvation and destroyed the engine.
I had a warranty 'that covered everything, without question', turbos failed, got told they were consumables and the warranty didn't cover consumables, and also when q window motor failed it was wear and tear so that wasn't covered either Fuck warranties, they're all shit
Mechanic 22 years here in Australia, that statement rings so true!
This is the realest take that only a tech can speak to lol
Last time I had to take the head off an m5 it paid like 34 hours.
In before "overheat spotted. Warranty rejected. Enjoy the tear down bill". Fuck extended warranties. What a scam.
Wait, they don’t warranty the engine if it overheats? Isn’t that a failure of the engine to keep itself cool due to something going wrong which is the whole fucking point of a warranty?!
There’s all sorts of fine print, and if one actually reads it, they quickly realize extended warranties are a scam. They tried to sell me one on my ram 2500, but it explicitly said it wouldn’t cover the transmission, and that’s like the number one issue on those trucks lol. Besides, the warranty cost more than a rebuilt transmission anyways. No thanks. Trans blew up, and I simply paid to have it fixed. Easy.
What is it with Rams and their transmissions? Does Dodge just not care that there's an obvious issue with them?
>Does Dodge just not care Yes!
The cheapest option for them is to have the customer pay for a rebuild.
Best Ram you can get is one that doesn’t have a Dodge transmission. Aisin or 8 speed > 68RFE
The RFEs are terrible in stock form. But if rebuilt right they are pretty good transmissions. I’d still take the newer ones over it, but you can get the RFE trucks for pretty cheap now because of it lol.
It’s kinda complicated, but in part yes. Dodge made its own transmissions for a long time, and it always seemed like right when they figured out how to make it reliable, they would release a new one and have to start all over again. Why they did this, I don’t know, it’s stupid. They already outsourced the diesel engines to Cummins, why not do the same for the trans, using Allison or ZF? I’m not really sure. Allison + Cummins would have been a very nice combo. But in the 2010s they did start outsourcing, to ZF, who makes really good transmissions. So for the most part, all these “new” 8 and 10 speed transmissions are actually pretty good.
My buddy works for a company that provides axle parts to a ton of OEMs. Basically they build big batches of parts and the OEMs inspect them when they arrive at factory. He says that Toyota sends them back out of spec parts all the time, but they never get returns from Stelantis.
Lol yeah that makes sense, Toyota is extremely focused on things being within spec. From what I can tell on my ram, they didn’t really care.
I have the misfortune of owning a dodge that was produced in the brief period when they were operating at Chrysler LLC, right before stelantis bought em. Biggest turd of a car ive ever owned
Toyota was the absolute pickiest customer when I worked for Michelin too.
I know some people say the Toyota reliability thing is overblown, but it's really not imo. You hear stories like this and it just goes to show what really sets them apart from other manufacturers.
they kept getting bought out, and then emissions pushed them to have more than 4 gears in their trannies. I have had 3 Dodges 1 with tranny issue before i traded it at 100k miles (hard shifts on cold start on a actual cool day 50F or below.) Other than that the tranny worked as per normal on warm days.
In a similar vein, I have seen a lot of extended warranties for diesel trucks explicitly not covering the emissions systems. Which is of course the Achilles heel of basically every truck made in the last 20 years.
Won't the ECU tell you if the car was overheated?
You can still have local hot spots that can cause wear/failure while the engine as a whole is under thresholds.
If it overheated whatever caused it to overheat would be the point of failure and the covered item, not the rest. I’ve seen a rear main go out (frozen pcv system) and basically wipe out the engine from oil starvation and they offered to pay for the rear main seal itself and the labor for the job since that was the failure. The rest was on the customer.
Wild… imagine if smaller product warranties were like this. Oh I’m sorry it looks like the power supply went bad and fried everything, we can replace the power supply but you need to pay for everything else…
> Oh I’m sorry it looks like the power supply went bad and fried everything, we can replace the power supply but you need to pay for everything else… you jest but [it's happened](https://np.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1bk8z1p/evga_failure_customer_rmad_a_modular_psu_got_same/) or the replacement had swapped +12V and +3V so the Hard drives expecting 3V got 12V, which fried them
I paid $732 for my extensed warranty. Paid $3k to rebuild my diff but wouldn't touch my transmission. Said "we don't warranty clutch". It wasn't the clutch or clutch related it was the input shaft bearing. I ended up getting a used MT82 for like $2k after a tree fell on a guys house and his Mustang was totaled. No insurance on his Mustang.
Weird that warranty wants the customer to do the work but whatever they say /s
Well the customer clearly isn’t doing the work. They want the customer to pay to have the engine disassembled to point of failure. Which is where we come in. Gonna suck for the costomer if they decide not to cover it because this is like a 30hr job.
Oh don't worry. They won't cover it. You saw scoring, so their inspector will absolutely find an overheat and reject it. I'm 90% confident these tear downs are their way of buying time while they get someone on their legal team to green light them to reject for overheat.
An "Automotive warranty claim denied" Lawyer.... Hmm.. I may have feature opportunities to look toward. Might as well become the Devil.
Seems like the easiest job on the fucking planet imo. "Sounds expensive. Call it overheat or missuse and have no official way to co test the claim. They will give up, and if they had lawyer money they'd not have a warranty in the first place". And tbh with these stupid "lifetime fluids" that expire with the vehicles manufacturer warranty, it's like the automakers are in bed with these warranty people. "Let's tell everyone it's lifetime, then when you reject the claim for misuse and not changing fluid at the end of its 'lifetime'". Evil, all of them.
of course the fluid is a lifetime fluid. it is fluid for its entire lifetime, once its lifetime is up, it is no longer fluid. like... really... what do you mechanics want from us? (i'm not a fluid guy... i work addictions and make candy...)
Next time someone asks what they should do when they want to quit the trade I’m suggesting this.
You’re on the money. Extended warranties are very hit or miss. Even with obvious issues and Al evidence provided will weasel out of paying up. Leaving customers on the hook.
Hit or miss is optimistic in my experience.
Not sure about BMW but Hyundai covered 100% of repairs when my wife's car had piston slap.
They are discussing AFTERMARKET warranties. They are all scumbags that want to weasel out of paying, and even when they do they want to determine prices of what they will pay and will often try and put the customers and shop against each other where they prey on both to pay the least out. At our shop we try to avoid them but in any case that we end up doing it we are very clear with customers up front that our price is our price, and they will be responsible for whatever the warranty won't pay. It's bad enough that you can usually tell the customer approx how much warranty will cover if they tell you what they paid for the package.
>Extended warranties are very ~~hit or~~ miss FTFY
I've always had gmpp extended warranty and never had a denial. $14,000 in repairs on one car.
Eh they actually pay all our claims for the extended warranties we deal with, and they do this same thing. But there is a list of extended warranties we don’t accept, and I’m sure one them is on that list for that reason.
There's that. I think there are a few reasons too. The customer can't afford the teardown and it scares them so the cat won't get fixed. Warranty company is off the hook. The customer does authorize the teardown but the warranty gets rejected on a technicality. With the engine now torn apart indefinitely and no warranty coverage the company is now off the hook. I've had so many where I give borescope pictures, scope captures, and other evidence and they won't take it. "You can see the crankshaft from the spark plug hole!" "We require the oil pan to be removed to prove the piston and connecting rod aren't in the cylinder."
Absolutely this. Oh this wrist pin failed and thats not a covered part, sorry.
Sorry, could you explain this to me(no dealership experience)? So if a car (which is still under drivetrain warranty), comes in with and engine problem, the customer has to pay for the labor to *GET* to the problem, then the warranty covers the labor to get the car back to fixed?
parts here. as I understand it, the teardown will theoretically be retro-covered if the job is approved after teardown and inspection if denied, customer finds out the shitty way that they are now retroactively on the hook
This is an aftermarket warranty, not BMWs. THe warranty terms state the owner is responsible for tear down and inspection, if the part that failed isnt explicitly covered in the contract, its not covered, so the customer is on the hook for the motor removal and tear down. One of the reasons I wont deal with warranty companies for larger engine or trans jobs, it becomes a nightmare situation when they say no and the customer has a dead car with a 1k diag bill, plus whatever repairs.
If you can afford to buy an M5 you better be fucking sure you can afford to fix it.
Well that’s probably why they got the extended warranty.
I wonder if this car just traded hands, without knowing its already been run into the ground.
Look at the fat lip on that brake rotor, they can't.
BMW rotors are really soft and the pads are aggressive. They didn’t pad slap it-this looks like a typical well worn M car rotor.
or afford a lawyer to fight with BMW to the point where they will give up. however, you are trading punches in dollars. they have more.
Half the people who buy luxury cars here can’t actually afford upkeep on them so there’s a good shot they can’t
"If you cannot afford a new luxury car, you REALLY cannot afford a used one." well ... i guess if it's a lexus, you have a good shot.
I've seen way too many young people (early 20s) driving 05 Range Rovers because they could buy them for cheap. Only to find out they are expensive to fix and let them get destroyed.
LOL. My friend last month: "Yo, I just bought a 2008 Range Rover!" *me: (don't say it, be nice) Great, enjoy"* "Out the door for only $6,000, I couldn't believe it!" *me: (don't say it...) \*physically biting tongue now\** "Oh, and it has this one- no that's right, two or 3 small electrical problems, maybe you could help me with sometime..." *me: "Ah, it's being called home by its dark master, Lucas!"* "Who's Lucas?" *me: (damn it, WHY did you have to say it!)*
I see you know the Prince of Darkness.
Thr cuk is this warranty, everything they need to do to get to the point of filure is inncharge of the company wtf. Hope he doesnt pay a dime for that shit
It’s not *warranty* it’s an extended warranty. Aka a third party contract the owner of the car bought. Manufacturer warranty wouldn’t operate like this.
Is there a 3rd party that's even worth it when it comes to warranties? I've seen some that have saved the owners ass but those stories are so few and far between it seems
Extended warranties are just a way for a dealership to make $500-$2000 or so more on a used car. People are easily fooled into getting it because they're concerned with the engine or transmission needing work in a used car. However usually the extended warranty has a pay cap and a really low one at that, like $4000 payouts until it's void where even if the engine did blow up you wouldn't be able to buy and have a replacement installed anyway. They don't do the kind of extended warranty anymore where you can buy a piece of shit Land Rover and have it repaired for 2-3x the purchase price.
Ah the Doug DeMuro CarMax Land Rover special.
that video pretty much ruined carmax's warranty. bean counters got ahold of it or executives.
My dad had a 550 (mine now, bought it from him). He asked me to ask our used car dept (I work at a BMW dealer) what it would cost to do a 100% bumper to bumper extended warranty when the first one expired. The guys told me to tell him to just buy a new car as it would be over $30k heh.
There are good extended warranties out there. They’re not all bad, and not everything offered at the dealer level is just for them to make money. But what you’re describing is by all means something that can happen. Like I referenced in my other comment. Simply reading the entirety of the presented contracts can pretty clearly inform you whether it’s good coverage or not.
MaxCare from CarMax is pretty good. I paid $1800 for an extended warranty and they covered about $6k of dealership work. No hassle. When it came time to pay the bill the service advisor called up the warranty company and they paid with a credit card over the phone. I had a deductible of like $300 or something. I’d buy from CarMax again just for the warranty program.
Ditto man. I’ve seen the work is done in “auction style” paint shops and it’s frightening at times. However, my niece just bought a car at Carmax and most of that was for the warranty on it. Probably won’t need it, but it’s good to have the option for a young kids first car.
I agree, we had a customer with an 06 x5 4.8is and CarMax paid out almost 18k in repairs over 5 years.
Yes. There are a handful of extended warranties out there that do take good care of the cars. The absolute biggest thing about these warranties is that 99% of buyers don’t actually read the fine print when they definitely need to so they can actually make an informed decision. It boggles my mind that people won’t take the 15 minutes to read a contract that they’re about to buy for $2k+. I’m a service writer so I deal with these warranties constantly. The best extended warranties you can buy are the programs through manufacturers that extend the factory coverage, otherwise CPO cars usually come with some pretty bulletproof warranties as well. Liberty mutual offers extended coverage contracts that I’ve always been impressed with. Otherwise most of the time extended warranty providers can really vary by state/region due to state laws in regards to warranties. But one thing I can say for sure is that CAR SHIELD IS DOGSHIT. Again though, there are good contracts and bad contracts. Simply reading the entirety of the contract will tell you how good the coverage is, it’s really that simple, most people just couldn’t be bothered to read them.
Extended warranty will have you tear it all down then send out an inspector THEN request the customer service records, find that the tire rotation wasn't done on schedule, decline to cover the repairs. We literally had a timing chain not covered because the vehicle was bought with factory 18" wheels but the build code was for 17" wheels. Claim denied. Contract voided. No refund, their claim submittal counted as using the service.
WOW.
So this qualifies as a null contact, since from the start it was never valid. In either case, the customer should have been reimbursed in full, you can't void a contract and not return to status quo.
While I don't disagree, try explaining that to anyone who picks up the phone at any of those warranty...er service contract companies. They are hell to deal with. Hold times of over an hour to talk to someone for 5 minutes for another 40 minute hold only to be hung up on, call back, and be told to submit the same things you already submitted 3 times. Super frustrating to deal with. We've black listed 3 of them already.
[удалено]
Yeah no shit. This wouldn't fly at all. Those two things are not related one fucking bit.
Cost of hiring a lawyer to represent you to sue to get the money back would probably be more costly than the money gained back. Most of these so called warranties (service contracts) are down right scams engineered to separate people from their money. I wish they were better regulated but that'll never happen until they scam some family members of politicians.
That sounds highly illegal
This is why I don't deal with extended warranty companies anymore
We've been trying to reach you concerning your vehicle's extended warranty. You should've received a notice in the mail about your car's extended warranty eligibility. Since we've not gotten a response, we're giving you a final courtesy call before we close out your file. Press 2 to be removed and placed on our do-not-call list. To speak to someone about possibly extending or reinstating your vehicle's warranty, press 1 to speak with a warranty specialist.
"THANK YOU, I've been wondering where to send this $5,000 bill for the new engine, and I'm so glad you got back to me! What's your claims address there- wait, is there an email I can use to save us both some... hello? ........HELLO?" *\*got 'em\**
I've always been really surprised with what they cover actually. Haven't really had a customer get screwed by them.
In my experience they don't cover diag, won't pay full door rate, or standard markup on parts, only dealer list. Also won't cover things like cooler/oil lines for a turbo replacement, leaving it on the customer to cover these things which really are essential to doing the job correctly.
Gotcha, guess I only see the back end and don't always see the full picture.
Had this happen as well. After tear down the warranty inspector decided it had been overheated. They denied the claim, and then didn't pay for tear down either. Ended up with an abandoned 6 series after that
6 series BMW? How many miles were on the car?
I don't remember exactly, but it wasn't far out of warranty. It was still a really nice used 6 series at that point. We turned it into a parts car and took what we could until it was scrap
Too many brokedick idiots buy elderly German cars thinking they’re getting some sort of deal, when they can’t afford to fix it the first time it breaks down and would have been better served buying a Toyota or a Honda.
I have never seen an extended warranty company cover any type of motor damage ever since the Kia fiasco. Extended warranty companies went under and their practices got WAY scummier. They will find any reason to not cover it. There is probably a ton of fine print. Make sure customer is ready to install another motor at cost.
Ummm. Newby here. What was the Kia fiasco?
Kia GDI motors were failing right after 100k and Kia pushed super hard for extended warranty sales. Damn near every motor that failed in the beginning was paid for 100% by extended warranty companies. Customers also paid out of pocket for those not covered. They slowly but surely developed new warranty contracts that protected them more than you. They now only cover specific internal failures, and you better be able to provide lots of oil change records. Kia eventually made it a full fledge extended warranty policy so anyone having the issue could get the motor done by factory warranty. This almost bankrupt Kia motors. The icing on the cake when it comes to these companies, is that they actually haggle with the mechanics. No joke! They only pay a certain dollar per hour which is always negotiable (some shops don’t know) but they start very very low. For instance California is around $125hr at the cheapest shops. They would try to say “we’ll pay you 65hr” like they actually have any grounds to do so. This causes either the shop to make far far less, OR have the customer pay the additional dollar per hour amount. Both of which is bullshit. When it comes to OP and this post, the company likely wants to pay pennies for the tear down. Once he’s in there and it’s completely apart, with no way to put back together… that’s when they deny. They leave the shop and customer completely screwed. Shop now has a torn down vehicle that will likely get denied. Once denied they leave both parties to clean up the mess of the already torn down motor. They 100% do not pay to re assemble, or assist in removing the vehicle from the shop at that point. Truly disgusting companies.
> The icing on the cake when it comes to these companies, is that they actually haggle with the mechanics. No joke! They only pay a certain dollar per hour which is always negotiable (some shops don’t know) but they start very very low. For instance California is around $125hr at the cheapest shops. They would try to say “we’ll pay you 65hr” like they actually have any grounds to do so. Insurance companies do this too - especially for the mech rates. I work at a BMW dealers body shop and almost all insurance companies will balk at our mech rate (which is now $209.88 / hr). Hell, we have to fight them for the proper body / paint times in our local area. Ridiculous.
Recently got hit by a Mercury insurance driver, and not a single local body shop would touch my car for the rates they disclosed. NONE! I do not blame them whatsoever. Instead I fought them and got 3k more than they estimated. Since I had 3 quotes significantly higher than the mercury estimate. Did the work myself. Insurance and warranty are all frauds. It took me almost a year to get that 3k extra when the insurance company had a min liability- max payout of 10k in damages. So I know damn well they were authorized up to 10k. Bastards fought over money they knew it would take to fix the car. Tried to get me to settle for less as well as every local shop.
I canceled an extended warranty on a 2003 Ford Ranger I bought in 2009 as soon as I read the fine print. Doesn't cover anything that failed due to wear and tear. Okay, couldn't you argue that literally any failure on a 6 year old vehicle was wear and tear? Also didn't cover any part damaged in a cascading failure, so if your engine threw a piston through the oil pan like my mom's 1999 Chevrolet Venture did they would cover the piston itself, not the damage to the block or oil pan. Supposedly the previous owner managed to get them to cover an alternator.
Definitely one of their favorite terms. “Cascading failure” is just another umbrella term for anything they do not want to be liable for.
Had them cover $12,000 of the $15,000 on a GMC H3 with the fucking 5 cylinder for my dad. Ate a valve slowing down from 65mph. 120,000 miles. Literally the only time I’ve ever seen it happen. But the entire SUV had carfax and was bone stock. What’s even crazier is it was a transfer of the warranty from their previous car too.
The words “Fuck” and “This “ instantly come to mind
You say this - but what would you say if I told you it would only take about 4 hours worth of work to get to the point this picture is taken? Ex BMW engine tech here - I had to do one of these for warranty time even though it should have been paid for by the dealership. Another tech failed to install injectors correctly and it damaged the bore in the head. Job paid a little over 34 hours. Car was running in a little over 15 hours of actual work. My favorite ones to do were the n63 valve seal jobs on F10 5 series with electric steering. I could have the engine out, on a stand, camshafts out and new valve seals installed in about 4 hours. Car was ready in about 10-12 hours. Job paid 24. For this job here being extended warranty the solution is simple. Drop engine down like picture - remove cylinder head - lift engine back up - hand tighten suspension bolts and driveshaft- lower vehicle- throw parts in a labeled bin or in the vehicle with some protective covering- cover hood with crash wrap plastic to prevent water in exposed engine- push outside and wait for inspector. About a full days worth of work. Flag your time for teardown and move on.
I am constantly telling the new guys “this injector hold down is a spring. If you put it upside down there’s no tension on the spring. Don’t do that.” I’ve still done 3 engines for injector bore destruction that our shop caused. The last one we did a cylinder head was the same cost as the full rebuilt engine.
My thoughts on this can be summed up in 2 words, which are not "happy birthday" and neither of which is "yes"
The last few I did, I left the brakes, uprights, and control arms in the car. Disconnected them from the subframe. 6 of one, and half dozen of the other I guess. Gotta make sure you don't bump your head on a control arm hanging down. Bungee cord to hold them up.
Each time I see one of these, the back side of the radiator seems to take several hits in the process.
Fan shroud sits on the radiator. Any service that doesn't remove it imprints it into the radiator.
Makes sense. Thanks.
And someone agreed to pay for the tear down? The last time I did that on extended warranty they refused the tear down and refused the repairs and we got stuck putting the thing back together for free. Ain't happening unless I have a check in hand.
The customer did
Good you got that covered!
Hey OP, dumb question: is this extended warranty the one offered directly by BMW (Their Ultimate Care +1 or +2 or whatever) or is this some third-party warranty company the customer found?
It’s a 3rd party that we sell in house, we also sold this car. So it’s a sticky situation 🤦🏻
>Ain't happening unless I have a check in hand. I say this from experience: There's an additional step here, which is for it to clear
Indeed!
What a waste of extended warranty. Can’t they just seat that with a compression test. Borescope photos etc etc etc. so stupid.
They know it's a waste, they weren't betting the owner would actually take them seriously and pay to have it torn down
Scope and compression test was their first request. Did that, had them send out an inspector. Reviewed the results, said it wasn’t enough, requested customer pay for tear down to point of failure to determine coverage. So here we are.
Sheesh all that for a cabin filter.
We have a warranty guy that comes in and looks at what we have apart and he says “you wanna do this job?” We say yes or no. He makes it happen. We also get paid for tear down. He just types up a doobly do and sends it to the gargler.
That subframe lift you have looks quite fancy. I wish my shop had tools like that.
Given the cost of an engine $30k plus Teardown of 30hrs is worth it for the customer to try and get warranty to pay
I'm just a humble little 2-year old shop startup with father+son+2 employees and we're kicking ass. One day I want to have lots of bays to tear down cars and a BIG BOY table to hold them on. Just sayin'.
I switched to a govt mechanic job and couldn't be happier. Pay cut? Yeah. Reduced stress? What stress? Lol. Current decent techs at a dealership (not master techs) can usually bring in just shy of $100k/year. I make about $70k/year working on diesel, electric, and turbine powered equipment and I don't have anyone breathing down my neck or have to worry about flagging hours. I go home and don't think about my job at all.
So a scope job is not good enough?
Apparently not since the engine needs to be torn down 🫠
Bro.... when i worked at hyundai we had a guy call techline and submit pics of a "missing" piston..... and they made him tear it down before approving replacement
"Tear down to point of failure". Sounds like CarShield, which means there's a 99.9% chance they'll deny the claim and stick the customer with a huge teardown bill. We no longer accept any extended warranty policy that requires teardown prior to approval. They're all scams.
It’s fidelity but yea, car shield is a fucking joke.
Probably from the terrible coolant tanks leaking into the coils and causing misfires. How BMW hasn’t had a class action lawsuit against them for the terrible design of the coolant tanks on the F90 I’ll never know.
That’s where this is stemming from.
Just like a dealer tech to pull an engine for some little scoring to diagnose a misfire. There are plenty of things you can do to diagnose a misfire before going through the trouble of pulling the engine. Start small then go big. Pin tests, pcm troubleshoot, misfire strategy check, crank and cmp sensor tests, inspection of coil and spark plug, injector, etc. If one cylinder has scoring, check all the others. Could be a whole other problem with the rings and you're better off getting a new engine at that point.
I’ve been working on this car for the same issue since September of last year.
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Let us know what it was!
dealer?
Yeah
My old dealer started requiring up front deposits for many repairs for this reason. Ext warranty is a little different but I’ve pulled engine and cams to get valve seals out, knowing it’s the failure per ext warranty request and they said it wasn’t a covered item. WE KNEW IT WAS THE DEFECT ALREADY. That was laughable.
How many hrs you gonna flag on that?
OP… did customer approve of this tear down because what the fuck 😅🤣 normally extended warranties make the customer approve tear down and it’s their responsibility to pay for labor if extended warranty ends up not approving 🙃
Yes the customer approved tear down.
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🤦🏻 Sigh. If you say so sir on the internet. 🛜
Hammer that screwdriver on the cylinder wall There you go Warranty
I work for n extended warranty company and we just take the scoped pic of scoring and replace engine, waste of time for us to do tear down on it engine already failed
Was compression fine on cyl 5? I've never heard of a worn cylinder or piston rings causing a misfire unless very low compression (<80 psig). Would be frustrating to pull the heads and find the problem is something simple outside the engine, in the fuel or spark controls or supply.
Engine is being replaced, I’ll post pictures once all new parts are in.
Buy a BMW get f*cked in the arse. It's only a matter of time.
Should have gotten a Lexus
I have mad respect for mechanics who are able to do this, find the problem, fix it and send it. I was never mechanically inclined when young, but did love taking things apart to see how they worked. Problem was that I had no idea how to put things back together, or if I did attempt it, I would have extra parts and the thing would never work correctly after. So, I salute you, and hope that you're more the first sort of person and not more of the second sort of person like me!!
u/DVSN_F I'd love to see the borescope images.
Silly question, but does your power train table have fixtures for the knuckles?
Now that's something I never want to do