BMW shop said no?

[zohaibrose]

I have taken my 98 m52 e36 to three different shops, one being a BMW shop and the BMW shop I just got my car back from last night said I need 5k worth of work. They said cats are bad, secondary air system isn't working imeven though it turns on at cold starts, and the rest of the codes they said they would send me a pic of, they said they found 9 trouble codes with the deep level BMW scanner and 1 with just a generic scan tool.

And after I go to see the tech he says the car is too old and says he doesn't want to work on it because "too many problems" I took it to them because it idles bad and accelerated poorly. Then he tells me I took it on a 15 mile drive and didn't experience any of that he says the car runs and drives fine but is in poor mechanical shape even though I take alot of preventative maintenance on it. I think he means emmissions failures because cats and the air system are more for emmissions then normal driving.

Do any shops tell you guys they don't want to work on it because it's "too old"? Because I had one of the shops tell me to go to a shop that specializes in BMWs so I did and they tell me the same thing, if these guys are saying we work on all cars then lie to my face wtf is that false advertising for? Car is not even that old I'd consider a e30 to be not allowed to be refused to worked on but a e36? It's a 1998 alot of cars are still that old

[Pyropete82]

It sounds silly that a BMW mechanic would say "no". I think there is more to this story. The reality is if you haven't been properly maintaining it, the simple cost to bring back might exceed the value of the car. In this case I can agree with the shops, their actually doing you a favor. Tires, oil and brake pads don't count toward maintenance. Consider things like fuel filter, suspension bits, motor mounts, transmission and differential fluids, and the entire cooling system. All this could be easily $5k of work


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[zohaibrose]

It sounds silly that a BMW mechanic would say "no". I think there is more to this story. The reality is if you haven't been properly maintaining it, the simple cost to bring back might exceed the value of the car. In this case I can agree with the shops, their actually doing you a favor. Tires, oil and brake pads don't count toward maintenance. Consider things like fuel filter, suspension bits, motor mounts, transmission and differential fluids, and the entire cooling system. All this could be easily $5k of work


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More like their isn't more to the story as I have done nearly alot torward maintence like tie rods, ball joints, strut,shocks, all fluids including tranny fluid, synthetic oils. Water pump n thermostat. Everything has been taken care of seems like I had bad experience with them when they said take your keys and go in rude tone when I asked them what was up, not saying all shops are like this but the one I went to just didn't want to tell me what was up

[MIKYZZ4]

Find a better BMW specialist shop,
you might try and have better results here:https://www.bimmershops.com/

[shadowpuck]

gotta be more to the story here - just in the short time you've been around this forum you've been all over the place so its hard to get a feel for how well maintained the car is, etc.

but, none of that matters - shops are not obligated to work on any car - they can choose to say no.

btw - normal everyday driving is what emissions are for - they are there to control the pollutants put in the air. just because the secondary air system comes on at cold start (and by cold start we mean 40 degrees or colder ambient) doesn't mean its working properly, or that the cats are functioning properly, etc.

at any rate - yes, you may need to find another shop....

[bmwdirtracer]

In answer to your PM, as well as this thread:

In my experience, a shop hands the owner the keys, and tells him to go away, when they perceive that the owner is unpleasant and unrealistic, and likely to cause more problems than they're being paid to deal with. This is very rare, and I'm not saying that it applies to you -- I don't know you -- but that's truly the only reason I've ever known a shop to send a customer away. The "rude tone" kind of points to that, too.

Cars are just cars. Any BMW specialist shop can make a multi-thousand dollar list on almost any E36 in existence.

[zohaibrose]

gotta be more to the story here - just in the short time you've been around this forum you've been all over the place so its hard to get a feel for how well maintained the car is, etc.

but, none of that matters - shops are not obligated to work on any car - they can choose to say no.

btw - normal everyday driving is what emissions are for - they are there to control the pollutants put in the air. just because the secondary air system comes on at cold start (and by cold start we mean 40 degrees or colder ambient) doesn't mean its working properly, or that the cats are functioning properly, etc.

at any rate - yes, you may need to find another shop....

i did check the im monitors and it says the 2nd air system isnt ready so it will be fun getting that taken care of but aye if you got a diy for that e36 auto to manual swap id take it, the son of the owner of the bmw shop said he had a 93 325is and he would redline it everyday with 250k miles and his car came standard with a lsd so i wonder why the 325i cars last longer then the 328s they both have cast iron blocks and only diffrence is m52 have alloy heads.

[bmwdirtracer]

I've never met a BMW that did not have an aluminum head. I'm sure there are some, in the history files, but even I'm not that old.

Any reliability difference between a single vanos 325 and a single vanos 328 will be purely coincidental.

To do a manual swap, start by buying a manual trans parts car, because you need everything that makes it a manual.....which is a lot.