Was broken: coolant reservoir: hairkine split causing a drip about one per second. Symptom: heat was weak in the cabin. Put in some coolant it was 2L low. It was hot when I added (not much choice when you take said car to Walmart at 10pm to get the fluid). I checked when cold a few days later when I was able to start again (replaced fuel pump) and notice when cold it was low (not too surprised) but when I bought another bottle of coolant (wife had the first bottle in her car 70 miles away) that's when I noticed the leak.

Skip ahead a day: picked up a new reservoir, remove the old one and hear an unexpected thump.

The thump was the top of the AT Cooler thermostat flying a few feet across the engine compartment.

Is broken:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...a4ee12e6c5.jpg

Transmission cooler thermostat. Never knew it existed. About to order a replacement from Amazon for 1 day delivery so I can have BMWЯ running tomorrow.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...93dd344a50.jpg

Darn near impossible to remove as the plastic is so brittle it just disintegrates. I ended up drilling a hole and putting in a screw to use as a handle.

The place where the screw is placed is enclosed so there are no crumbs dropped into the engine. That sucker is held in tight by o-rings!

Another tip: there is one hose that doesn't need to be removed and doing so will spill a lot more coolant oops.

Ouch.

Hopefully they get the new one to you in time. Amazons shipping seems a bit slow these days to me.

I'm just glad to have found the thing.

Same day shipping is only guaranteed by 9pm. I may have to delay my Chicago trip another day but I'm betting I've just added 10s of 1000s of miles to my transmission by finding the broken thermostat.

You won't know the thermostat is broken until you need to replace the reservoir. Here's a great tip: remove fan and shroud and airbox to make room to work! Way easier and using a 1-1/4" wrench and a hammer takes off the fan so quickly it's well worth the effort!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Fired up the car to go to work yesterday morning. Bad misfire. SES light came on. Ran fine the night before. Put my scanner on it and got misfire in cylinders 1 and 5. Pulled the coils and plugs. Plugs looked OK. Put coils back in cleared codes and fired it up again. Still misfiring. Checked codes again. Only #5 misfiring. Swapped coils between #4 & #5 and misfire moved to #4. Drove to work. Ordered 6 new coils and picked them up on my way home. Swapped in all new coils when I got home. Runs like a champ. I checked the codes when I got home and it was throwing codes for #4 and #1 again. Replaced all six because the car has 203k miles on it and coils are original figured if two were bad the rest weren't far behind.

That's how I liked to do them. One coil is bad enough but with two the whole neighborhood is definitely toast. No sense in leaving it to come back to haunt you at the worse possible time.

I'd have done the same. I think one of my coils is going bad I twice have had a similar code that puts the car in limp home mode. Fortunately with WiFi dongle in the OBD I can reset on the fly it is completely bizarre to have the engine go from 40 to 225hp while driving after pressing a button on my iPhone ! Very smart coil swap diagnoses. Also very smart to use the one failure as a barometer for the rest. Kinda nice that with multiple coils at least you can get back home when one fails vs old school stranded and a tow.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Got to fix the broken/cracked driver inside door grip, perhaps a front wheel bearing or maybe axle / diff issues. Then gotta figure out whats left of the motor at 232K miles. Compression test. All else is great.

Good news to report. The reman'd valve body w/new solenoids fixed the X! It shifts like a new car, no more weirdness, clunking or bumping. Also shifts instantly from P to R or D. Also the driver's front window regulator was replaced. Very pleased.

Awesome. I installed my new coolant reservoir and transmission thermostat. Symptom of leak noticed before any drops hit the ground: took too long to warm up the cabin. Very happy was the reservoir since 2L missing if internal very very bad.

Absolutely a joy to work on coolant system on this car with the quick release fittings!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro