"Breakdown maintenance" (BM) sucks!

[Gene in NC]

Breakdown maintenance (BM) sucks! Many, myself included on occasion, have been guilty of BM. BM is a s..... way to operate, especially if the car is planned for long term ownership, as youre34 may be. Even worse if one of the women in your life is the or a driver (mother, sister, daughter, gf, wife, whatever).

Been pushing BMWs since 1968, and they do break. There are patterns to the failures and some very useful "What goes wrong" lists. What I haven't seen is expected life of critical components that can leave you sitting by the side of the road. Service 1,2 and other service recommendations don't cover some of the deadliest problems.

I'm fired up about this by current fuel pump trouble. Fuel pumps are tricky. They don't always quit cleanly. They "heal thyself" to fail another time. Apparently a common failure mode is seizing up from over heat. When is that most likely to happen? When it's hot as Hell outside.

I've been making a lot of posts here about fuel pumps. Have two '89 525s. Will I replace FP in both? You're darn tootin.

Had a twin engine inboard boat with 307 GM engines. Did I finally catch on that if one engine had a problem, fix both. Yes but not as quickly as I should have.

It's OK and even great to own a "mature" car, but take it from a fellow traveler, "You may love that e34 well and true, but you better fix it before if f.... you." Avoid BM, it's a s..... way to go.

[Binjammin]

I don't understand. Are you complaining about having to fix things that have broken? That's not maintenance, it's repair. Maintenance is what you do to keep from breaking down in the first place. So far as fuel pumps go, they're designed to work in environments from -38 degrees to about +125 give or take a few degrees, so I don't see how you can be having fuel pump failure issues, nor do I see changing out a working pump as good maintenance. Why not change your crank bearings? Your sunroof motor? Your headlights may go out in the dark, should you change those as well? If you want to keep your fuel pump working longer, keep your fuel tank full, the fuel acts to draw heat away from the pump.

[Gene in NC]

Binjammin, thanks for the advice, but none of your examples requires a tow. Second point is that aftermarket or generic parts with "how to' for adapting FP to e34 offer recovery from a helluva lot of locations w/o experienced BMW technicians and parts.

In addition, most longer, out of town trips are done on weekends. Do BMW dealers or independent shops offer "Star Trek beam down" remote service with "beam down" parts on weekends. Until that is available, I'll stick with replacing aged "breakdown" parts like fuel pumps and other critical parts as they approach end of expected life.

What is expected life, or meantime to failure (MTF). Haven't seen that info, but one my two basically identical cars failing is enough for me to replace both fuel pumps.

[TouringDan]

There's a HUGE difference between standard maintenance and preventative maintenance. In my opinion, your 'everyday owner' is usually the standard maintenance type, and the 'enthusiast' is more of the preventative maintenance type.

Standard - Fix things when they break.
Preventative - Fix things BEFORE they break.

The catch with preventative maintenance is that it takes a LOT of knowledge about the cars and their operation intricacies. It also takes a fair amount of up-front cash, and being pretty handy with a wrench.

Regarding your fuel-pump issues, I have never had an electric fuel pump go out that did not give me some sort of warning. They usually whine, chirp, stutter, or any combination therein at least once before they completely crap out. If I hear/notice anything fishy, I don my preventative maintenance hat and troubleshoot the problem.

As Benjamin stated above, I am not sure what your gripe is. If you're upset that your car seems to break down when you least expect it - welcome to the real world! How often does it break down on cue? That's a trick I'd love to master. Also - please tell me what marque offers full and immediate parts availability on nights, weekends, holidays and 24/7 as that will surely be the next car I purchase.

Simply put - a car is a machine, and machines break. There is nothing - NOTHING - you can do about it.

[Binjammin]

Binjammin, thanks for the advice, but none of your examples requires a tow. Second point is that aftermarket or generic parts with "how to' for adapting FP to e34 offer recovery from a helluva lot of locations w/o experienced BMW technicians and parts.

In addition, most longer, out of town trips are done on weekends. Do BMW dealers or independent shops offer "Star Trek beam down" remote service with "beam down" parts on weekends. Until that is available, I'll stick with replacing aged "breakdown" parts like fuel pumps and other critical parts as they approach end of expected life.

What is expected life, or meantime to failure (MTF). Haven't seen that info, but one my two basically identical cars failing is enough for me to replace both fuel pumps.

I think you're missing my point. All those failures I mentioned are completely random things to change. Ok, so you had one fuel pump fail. Great, you found an aftermarket pump. You think breaking down on the weekend while on a trip you'd be able to find a walbro pump any sooner than a bmw pump? Hey, good luck with that search. :rolleyes


And seriously, fuel pumps aren't what you're calling "breakdown" parts. It's just another part that can fail, like anything else in the car. Might as well change everything while you're at it, it's all getting old. I tell you what, tons of people here have heater valves fail, you should change those out. They're expensive, and when they fail you lose coolant. Same with the aux water pump. Have you changed your mechanical water pump too? (did you know these cars have two?) Have you changed all your belts? Alternators can fail, then you'd be screwed. You should buy a new one.


I really think I'm making a valid point here, fuel pumps aren't a maintenance item, replacing one because it failed is good. Replacing two because one failed is throwing money away.

[Goat128]

You own an old car. Get AAA for towing if you need it. Yes fuel pumps fail Ive had the same thing.

[BMWheadSpence]

You own an old car. Get AAA for towing if you need it. Yes fuel pumps fail Ive had the same thing.
point made, short, sweet and to the point.
Binjammin has an excellent point too, you can also run across nails that take out all 4 tires, get in a wreck. all things that require a tow, you should put new tires on and fix your pre-wreck car in case either situations occur. MY point is, something happens that causes your pump to fail, so changing it before it fails is pointless. but hey, we are just people on your computer, what do we know.:rolleyes

[Achtzylinder]

Generally the only time heat is an issue with your fuel pump is when it overworks to pump your gas, and about the only PM for this is the following:

One of the basic maintenance projects that you should perform on your BMW is the replacement of the fuel filter. I recommend that you replace your fuel filter about once a year, or ever 10,000 miles. It seems that with today's fuels, there always seems to be some gas station that has problems with dirt or grime in the gasoline that can clog your tank. I don't think quality control with gasoline stations is really what it used to be. Needless to say, I try to replace all the fuel filters at least once a year.

With $4 gas this is even more relevant, not to mention watered down gas and too much ethanol in the blend. Good luck to all.

[Binjammin]

Generally the only time heat is an issue with your fuel pump is when it overworks to pump your gas, and about the only PM for this is the following:

One of the basic maintenance projects that you should perform on your BMW is the replacement of the fuel filter. I recommend that you replace your fuel filter about once a year, or ever 10,000 miles. It seems that with today's fuels, there always seems to be some gas station that has problems with dirt or grime in the gasoline that can clog your tank. I don't think quality control with gasoline stations is really what it used to be. Needless to say, I try to replace all the fuel filters at least once a year.

With $4 gas this is even more relevant, not to mention watered down gas and too much ethanol in the blend. Good luck to all.

You can't water down gas. The two don't mix, and the water will settle to the bottom of the tank. If you suck that water, you will starve the engine for fuel and the car won't run. So far as crap in the fuel goes, the fueling stations have filters on the pumps. They're required as they filter wanter and particulates. If a gas station sells you gas with water or crap in it, it will cost them a fortune to rectify the situation. If they DID have ANY kind of water in the gas, the pump will hardly pump any fuel out, as the filtering material is made up of basically a powder that swells massively to absorb water.

So far as too much ethanol goes, it's not like you're likely to find fuel that has more than a one one-hundredth of a percent variance in ethanol content. It's all mixed in million gallon tanks. It would take an awful lot of things going wrong in order to have a failure of the size you're talking about.


Now so far as the fuel pump itself goes, unless you're talking about the absolute most modern of cars, like the current generation, you're not going to find variable speed electric fuel pumps. Pumps won't overwork to provide you fuel. Even if you deadhead the fuel like (like you're talking about with a clogged filter) the pump will still pump at the same rate. If the filter is that clogged, you'll likely know it before the pump fails.

[sfgearhead]

speaking of fuel pumps, the only time i have had one fail it was due to the previous owners never replacing the fuel filter, overworking the pump.

to follow the logic, had i known this a new fuel pump would have been good PM. unfortunately we only learned this was when our german dealer showed us that the fuel filter was not covered by any inspections or general maintenance on our 95 320i. purely idiotic.

is there a point to this? nah, just griping.