Quote:
Originally Posted by Crowz
Ive had one go bad in a bmw ever.
Wifes died at 250k miles. Wouldnt have died then if she wouldnt run it low on gas all the time.
The other bmw's never see less than 1/4 tank.
The 323i has over 400k on the original pump and still working great.
The rest of them all have the original pumps with over 200k on them except the 2013 which has 80somethingk on it.
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200/6=33.333 mph average. If you drive a lot of highway miles it will not be hard to achieve 250-300,000 miles.
On an X5 the "more than 1/4 tank" has no bearing whatsoever on fuel pump wear and actually greatly increases your chance of getting stranded due to the more likely failure of the siphon jet.
The X5 fuel tank sump holds about 5.0L of fuel that's it. Any more spills over to the left side of the tank once you are below about 27L ( well above 1/4).
On other cars even BMW models that have a design to encourage gas to stay near the pump do not have the actual sump like x5 tanks just a skirt around the pump to keep gas from sloshing to the sides during turns.
Pumps no matter how well treated have brushes that slowly wear out and will last 5-6000 hours on average. (with e-10 gas; 4-5000 hours with e-0 unpolluted gas).
I'm not against picking up a replacement pump in the 150-180,000 mile range but it's one of the easiest repairs to perform I would wait for failure or at least until you get over 5000 hours estimated on the pump before replacing.
Unless wife actually ran the pump dry, the whole 1/4 tank thing is a myth from the 50s and 60s.
250/5=50 250/6=41.667. if wife's average speed is between 41 and 50, 250k miles is the expected life of a fuel pump.
At 400k, 400/6=66.667 means almost exclusively highway miles: a pump that age is going to be almost out of brushes and bordering on miraculous. (unless you run e85); apparently more ethanol adds lifespan.
You don't live in an alternate reality where you can treat a pump nicer and get the brushes to not wear. The pump is running 100% of the time that the engine is on it doesn't matter the speed etc.
That said just like the E10 will improve lifespan, you might be using gas with another additive that will add even more lifespan but it will not double the life. I'm sure there are outlier that will last 8000 or even 9000 hours as a fluke that's why I don't recommend preemptive replacement