silvershadow

Where to start. I'll start with the truck

I bought an OBD bluetooth reader and an app for my smartphone that allows me to read the OBD data. It took me a month or so to get it all sorted out, primarily where I could believe the data I was getting. Anyway, I travel for work, and took the truck to northern AZ (Page) for a week. I paid attention to the oil temps and coolant temps. The truck has an oil/coolant oil cooler. I was seeing very high oil temps, and high differences between the oil and coolant temps. So, I took the truck in to the Ford dealer, and told them what I was seeing.

They looked into it, and sure enough, a ruptured EGR cooler and a plugged oil cooler. I picked the truck up today and the SA said that truck was a hairs breadth away from grenading. The EGR rupture was leaking exhaust gas into the coolant. The ultimate end to that is blown head gaskets.

I could just see the truck stopping between Flagstaff and Page - 120 miles of no cities and almost no cell phone reception. Anyway, he said drive it like you stole it for awhile to see if the head gaskets are going to hold. Their tests showed they were fine, BUT!!!!

Fortunately, I bought an extended warranty on the truck - the $2700 repair cost me $100.

Now the AC. I was in the White Mountains of northeastern AZ and got a call from my wife - the AC blower motor had gone out. It is one of those motors that is programmed - it starts slowly and ramps up to speed, and does the same when slowing down. Anyway, when we bought the AC units, we negotiated a 10 year warranty - parts and labor. The normal warranty is 5 years. Anyway, we are at year 9, so the tech comes out to look at it - motors gone - write me a check for $1400. Hold on - we have a 10 yr warranty - blank look on the tech's face. My wife pulled the paperwork and sure enough there it is in black and white. So, the motor was replaced at no cost.

Second bullet dodged.

The third and final chapter to this sage is that because the truck was in the shop all week, I took my BMW on my trip last week. Imagine for a second, a BMW diesel in some very rural parts of AZ. I got some very strange comments when I would pull up to the diesel pump. Good Ol' boys sniggering to each other. He's gonna ruin the engine in that thing - putting diesel in that thing - stupid yuppy - that kind of thing.

Anyway, out in the middle of nowhere, the dreaded "service engine soon" light comes on. So I drove around gingerly all week and took it in to the dealer on Saturday morning. They had to replace #4 fuel injector. Now it makes me wonder when the other 5 are going to go belly up.

As I have said before, the BMW is the best all around driving car I have ever owned, power, brakes, handling, fuel economy, it has it all. However, they left reliability out of the equation. It has been in the shop ever 2-3 months for a non-standard repair for the last two years. I don't call it a Bimmer anymore, I call it a Bimbo - because it is high-maintenance.

Yes this all happened last week. I need to go buy a lottery ticket now.

MsPerky

I hope this week is uneventful!

valentine

I agree. Best wishes to you. for having the foresightedness to buy the extended warranty. I had one on my S2k that got creamed and the folks at Honda refunded almost the entire purchase price to me when the car was totaled because I never had to use it. IMHO an extended warranty is not a bad investment if you plan to the keep the vehicle a loooong time.

Lovetodrive2000

Sounds like the extended warrenties saved you a bundle this week!

Maybe I should look into one for the Genesis?

Maybe see about a powertrain one up to 200,000k miles!

Lainey

Glad to hear all the aggravation didn't cost you a bundle of $$$$$$$$$.

dlq04

I've only bought extended warranty on two vehicles. The S2000 in '01 because I just could not imagine a 9k engine lasting as long as I planned to keep the car. And, my Audi A6 because of the cost of repairs if needed. In the end, I never used either one - which I guess was a good thing.

Sorry to hear of your disappointment with Bimbo. In your corner of the world reliability has to rank priority #1.

boltonblue

I bought the warranty on my S's, the S2000 and the S430.

I never got a dime out of the S2000. I too was rather concerned about the longevity of that 9K motor but it has shown to have been well done indeed.
The S430 4-matic was easily worth the investment. It's a very complex machine and NONE of the parts are cheap.
The center diff replacement by itself made the warranty worthwhile.

RedY2KS2k

Break My Wallet

paS2K

Funny to read about the Bimmer, b/c I had the same feeling about my leased '93 325is: Great when it worked but too many shop visits...plus God-awful labor and part costs. Luckily all were covered by the warranty until I traded for an Acura in '97 (which was fun and reliable)

This is the reason that (in spite of German ancestry/heritage ), I am unlikely to buy another German car. If I ever do, dlq Dave will bust my ballz for yeeeeeeeeeeeeeears....

dlq04

Yep.