Quote:
Originally Posted by joe98020
Yes when I press on the gas to bring the rpm's to 1500. I originally thought the "hunting" problem was the transmission. I would not consider myself mechanically inclined but would like to have some idea about what is going wrong prior to taking it into the shop.
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I fully understand where you are coming from. It would be nice to know the problem in advance. The problem is, that is a totally unrealistic expectation.
There are two classifications of individuals on here and other boards, those who fix it themselves and those who take it to a shop. Of the first group, a subset are sometimes able to diagnose the correct problem from the symptoms, and the rest tend to replace components to see if they hit the right one (shotgun approach). Of the latter group, many like working on their vehicles and after replacing multiple components feel good about having completed the work, whether or not it was an efficient way to resolve the original problem.
If you aren't going to fix it yourself, you actually shouldn't take your own diagnosis to your mechanic. It will usually cost you more. I've been on both sides of that equation, as a customer and in the shop and as a service manager (not at a BMW dealer).
Trying to diagnose it yourself is an acknowledgement that you don't trust the repair facility. That is the real issue. Spend your effort determining which shop to take it to, check references, and establish a relationship with them. Your job as a customer is to fully document and describe the symptoms so that the trained diagnostician can zero in on the actual problem. You need to hold them accountable, and describe your expectations (ie quote before repair), but it is not your role to provide a list of possible causes. It was always painful when customers came in with that sort of a list. We would listen patiently, and often advise that we could replace all those things, but it would actually be cheaper if they let us figure out what was wrong first. Some customers just didn't like hearing that speech.
There are some good people on this board, but diagnosing over the internet is fraught with risk. When someone says "I had the same problem, it is xxxx" what they often mean is that they had similar symptoms, and in that case it was xxxx. Don't fall into the trap.
By all means educate yourself. Education is good. But the best education is around the symptoms, and being able to describe them succintly and accurately, and not around postulating potential causes for them. Just my $0.02.