Adding coolant/anti-freeze (brand)

[bcredliner]

Trader4--One reason it is impossible to agree with you regarding your position that the tank is crap is that your post #23 states you have never had a problem with your tank. Your personal experience, is that the tank is fine after 175,000 miles. Since I haven't had one fail in 115,000 miles I have to say they aren't crap.

My guess is tank failure is related to heat cycles and wider range of temp change from cold to operating temp rather than miles. Not considering that one time overheating would be a near death experience that the tank would not reach full recovery.

[TiAgX5]

Joshdub, Classic BMW Plano, TX sells the coolant at the counter for that price!

[Joshdub]

I don't know what my closest dealer sells it for because all three are a half hour away and I'd rather just order stuff online unless I need it that day.

[crystalworks]

Originally Posted by bcredliner

Branding is very fragile and extremely costly to achieve and maintain. There is no automaker on the planet that designs a mainstream vehicle to fall apart at 100,000 miles, certainly not a high priced brand.

I didn't mean to imply BMW built the truck to fall apart at 100,000 miles. Woops. Just that if certain inexpensive parts, such as the tank or regulators, fails every 100,000 miles... BMW as a manufacturer is okay with that. As you said, a price point has to be hit... and about a million other factors go into designing each part of a vehicle.

I agree with all of your post's points and stated one or two of them in the post you quoted.

[bcredliner]

Originally Posted by crystalworks

I didn't mean to imply BMW built the truck to fall apart at 100,000 miles. Woops. Just that if certain inexpensive parts, such as the tank or regulators, fails every 100,000 miles... BMW as a manufacturer is okay with that. As you said, a price point has to be hit... and about a million other factors go into designing each part of a vehicle.

I agree with all of your post's points and stated one or two of them in the post you quoted.

Sorry I misunderstood. I see what you meant, I agree with you. If a $118 OE expansion tank fails every 100,000 I'm OK with that too.

[crystalworks]

^I'd rather my tank blew than my cylinder head gasket...

But early failures do happen with the tanks. As with just about every automotive part, there will be early failures in a limited number of cases. We very rarely saw 50,000 mile failures at the shop... but VERY commonly saw 100 - 130,000 mile failures. At their cost, that is an acceptable life span in most people's eyes.

Like I said, people aren't going to sign in to a forum to say how many miles their original tank (or other parts) have on them. Only when something fails. Forums can give the illusion that there are an unacceptable amount of failures happening.

Now, as with most auto manufacturers, BMW has dropped the ball in the past. If an unacceptable failure rate is reached they redesign/re-engineer parts. That's the reason for the "ended" part numbers in realoem.

[Joshdub]

Originally Posted by trader4

They sure haven't done that with their window regulators, which are crap.
How about the CV joint boots? Aux fans?

[crystalworks]

Originally Posted by trader4

They sure haven't done that with their window regulators, which are crap.
How about the CV joint boots? Aux fans?

None of these parts mentioned had an unacceptable failure rate to BMW (or most owners). Probably a very minimal failure rate during the warranty period.

Again, window regulators fail on all types of vehicles. My buddy has done 2 on his C5 vette after a couple of years of ownership. At the shop we'd see them fail as early as 60,000 miles but usually 80,000 or so. Again, a part that can be replaced fairly easily/cheaply.

CV boots, I don't really have much experience with. Don't recall seeing any e53's come in for that. And I haven't had a problem with either of mine @ 120,000 miles and 95,000 miles respectively. So... they seem okay to me. Texas weather seems to be a little easier on boots though than northern country.

Aux fans... again didn't see one at the shop on an e53. Maybe one or two on e46's with highish mileage. And I've never replaced one in 16 years of BMW ownership over 10+ vehicles.

It sounds like you've just been unlucky with your e53 and are holding BMW responsible for your 10+ year old vehicle needing servicing? If you find these things so frustrating and unacceptable why put up with them? Serious question.

[jfoj]

[bcredliner]

Originally Posted by trader4

Must be one fine tank if one overheating episode is a "near death experience". Is that what you call good engineering and specification
of components? And I based my opinion on the many failures reported
here, including as I said ones that fail at 50K, vehicles that have
gone through more than one, etc. None that I recall reported overheating
as the cause, BTW.

You ignore the point-you couldn't keep yourself from latching on to what others were reporting because you wanted to be able to say the tank is crap when your personal experience was your tank was fine after 175,000 miles. The appropriate post would have been to post that has not been your experience.

You also took what I said out of context. I said near death and not complete recovery which means the integrity of the tank is likely compromised by the excessive heat not that it will fail but that such circumstances shorten the life---overheating does that quickly, that is not a design or mfg. shortcoming. There are dash lights and temp gauge and other pre damage warnings that should be immediately heeded.