ENA ignition coils, aka amazon aftermarket with warranty...too cheap?

[joekitch]

I had a coil go bad recently, and after identifying which one it was, I was skimping on money and instead of getting a whole new set, I only bought one new "Bremi" (OEM) coil.
The new coil looked exactly like the one it was replacing, but I was surprised to find it had a small issue the way it fit (or didn't fit). There seemed to be about one millimeter or so error with the hole offsets, which maybe could have been "corrected", but the coil

yup, lots of people are reporting issues with current bremi built coils, they're made in china now so for $50 a coil you get $10 coil quality.
seems like bosch is the only good one left

Yea actually it is for the e39. Not for the older cars or the m62 though. I misread and thought you had an m54

the plug design on that coil is exactly like the one in my 08 328, the n52 engine. I don't own any m54 cars so i didn't realize they kept the same design for so long even through generation changes

[ryunk]

Rockauto.com $41.79/per

BOSCH 00143 {#0221504004} (New); Includes Boot
Actual OE part; With spark plug connector included

[tptrsn]

Well, I pulled the trigger on these, I will report back. I don’t have any known bad coils right now, but I do have oil in the plug wells. Since I need to do VCG’s before giving the coils an honest test, it will be thanksgiving or Christmas before I get them in. I think my car is exactly the type of car you risk cheap parts on (while holding on to my originals).

I think it's worth trying them. Very interested to hear the results.

[philly98540]

I bought new coils early this year. I went Bosch (on sale) as the Bremi line got bought up by some group that changed production to some cheaper manufacturer.

I bet the cheap ones are the same as Bremi now. Worth a shot at that price, but peace of mind has its price I guess.

[Nyc Dito]

I bought new coils early this year. I went Bosch (on sale) as the Bremi line got bought up by some group that changed production to some cheaper manufacturer.

I bet the cheap ones are the same as Bremi now. Worth a shot at that price, but peace of mind has its price I guess.

I can post a pic of a new Bremi to compare the Amazon specials if you guys would like..

[douglawrence42]

Amazon coils arrive Wednesday, I’ll post pictures when I get them

Edit: checked amazon, I’ll have them tonight. I ordered yesterday, and free shipping. They really are going to take over the world, aren’t they?

[tptrsn]

I bought new coils early this year. I went Bosch (on sale) as the Bremi line got bought up by some group that changed production to some cheaper manufacturer.

I bet the cheap ones are the same as Bremi now. Worth a shot at that price, but peace of mind has its price I guess.

Indeed. My thing is that "peace of mind" is getting more and more difficult to identify as the china stuff gets better, and the name brands increasingly outsource to china manufacture (with better QC **WE HOPE**).

But since you have been subjecting your coils to 16psi and haven't had any misfires that you've noticed, I'd say your coils have proven themselves.

[philly98540]

^yes, the Bosch ones I got seem solid. No missfires. No data on the cheaper ones though, so who knows.

[tptrsn]

Only one way to find out!

And I'm not trying to say that just because one guy has luck with them they're perfect. People need to do what feels right to them. Some (probably many or most) on this forum will want to spend more money to feel that their chances are better to have better reliability. And that is cool!

[joekitch]

correct, going bosch will almost certainly makes things great, i just think it's worth trying the inexpensive alternatives as an experiment rather than just dismissing out of hand.
However, peace of mind is an expensive thing which is usually worth the cost

[douglawrence42]

Coils are here


Only marking on them



It doesn’t “feel” cheap, but what do I know? Time will tell




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tptrsn]

Well, they aren't pretty! Lol.. Time to run 'em and see what they do.

I see a set of 8 of them on eBay are about $65.

[vinyldude]

The first thing to see is if those will even fit right. But, I somehow agree on the sentiment that one should rather get these than the new Bremis.

[geargrinder]

The first thing to see is if those will even fit right. But, I somehow agree on the sentiment that one should rather get these than the new Bremis.

Seems like a rush to judgement there. If they turn actually out to be same-same, then absolutely sure don't even consider the Bremis. Like any time you discover that an off brand is actually identical as a known brand. But i'm not sure that's fully established yet.

For those who don't understand how this stuff works... With modern off-shore sourcing, the (typically Asian) factories may do one of several things that mean that the 'off brand' or unbranded isn't the same as the actual brand.

1. QC tests products coming off the actual branded companies line. Things that fail naturally get tossed in a different bin and don't get the 'real brand'. These might be sold under an off brand or no brand or get sold in dark of night out the back door where they end up on eBay or Alibaba or whatever. Sometimes there are multiple tiers of quality..."2nd quality" is used to refer to ones that are real close to spec but just don't pass the fancy OEM's requirements. Maybe this is as simple as cosmetics - they have some flaw or whatever. But maybe its a performance testing spec like inductance or something for a coil. Beyoind the '2nd's' there can be 3rd quality or true 'rejects' etc. Who knows where these different product end up. Often the agreement w/ the brand-holder is that these are supposed to be destroyed, but hey, its the wild west and they can't always track down every box of 2nd quality parts. Or the agreement might be that the 2nd qualities are allowed to be sold off to cover costs as long as the brand is removed. This is usually what you see when you find "genuine BMW" parts with the BMW logo ground off.

2. Different scenario - local factory owner runs the line to make OEM's parts... fills the order, then... Turns up the speed knob, turns off the QA/QC check 'BS', maybe even tosses a lot cheaper raw materials into the hopper up front, or turns down the proportion of something expensive used in the process, then cranks out a big pile of quick and dirty parts 'after hours', which he sells out the back door at midnight. This happens less with big-brands who police their suppliers tighter and the factory has more at risk with them, but for old spare parts for obsolete cars, those are gonna increasingly come from factories where this stuff easily happens maybe even in broad daylight if its a contract supplier that just does a run here or there and the OEM isn't around all the time.

In both cases the parts are made at same factories, will look nearly identical (granted they may turn off brand stamping or grind off logos) but there is a true difference in the parts.

Look - who knows, maybe these coils will be great.

I'm not anti generic at all and will be the first guy to jump on a good part swap bargain. Just sayin', there's reasons stuff cost more money, and it's not always just because of brands jacking up huge margins, sometimes there's a reason the cheaper parts are cheaper. Generally for E39 electronic parts, going OEM is really highly advised. But guess we'll see...

[tptrsn]

Very interesting write-up there double G! Thank you!

[philly98540]

+1.

All probable scenarios for sure. The melting pot of world suppliers is upon us. Everythings a crap shoot lol.

[Nyc Dito]

Agree with GG again. I actually work in wholesale and this has been the case for many years. Even when the E90 was being released, we received a letter or something from BMW educating the dealerships on how many countries went into producing parts for that particular car.

Here are the Bremi coils, Made in Germany (according to the box). The only marking is on the top of the coil, where it says Bremi.

20171114_083112.jpg
20171114_083057.jpg
20171114_083104.jpg

[geargrinder]

A parallel industry example, could be Southern Vietnam for footwear. When you go into the local markets, you'll find all kinds of stuff. Cheapest (and often most out-front at the local markets who are there to sell to foreign tourists as much as anybody) are true knock off fakes. Some look pretty good, but industry guys who know what goes into proper expensive branded shoes can spot them right away.

But if you look around and ask around, you'll find tucked into the back, the 'good' shops that have the real OEM 2nds. These are the real deal but maybe a glue line was off a smidge or a loose thread was hanging out, so it can't go to Footlocker in Omaha, but its still top quality / real brand.

Word on the street is that the manufacturing deals usually include an off the record allowance for how much of that 'funny business' the brand (lets say Nike or Puma or whoever) will put up with. Something like "OK we'll give you this land for your factory, help finance the building, guarantee workers, give you these tax breaks, you guarantee us X number of jobs, and by the way you let us take the 2nds as long as they don't exceed 3% of production and maybe if an extra production run happens now and then, you look the other way as long as it doesn't end up exported into foreign markets..."

From what I understand that funny business is much tighter in auto parts sector and would be less of 'nod and a wink as long as you don't get carried away' but indeed selling 2nds might be explicitly allowed in he exact same way. Like I say usually it's not supposed to end up exported but in this day and age thats kinda hard to control...

[djb2]

No modern production line has a significant percentage of flawed "second quality" parts. It takes repeatability and consistency to make reliable parts. If there is a single substandard part found in the middle of a production run, then all of the parts likely have the same flaw.

The first few parts when a machine is started might have flaws, but they are likely to be too significant to be usable. Even if they are put into an assembly, there aren't enough of them to create an alternate supply chain. No distributor is going to buy an odd box of half-working parts -- it's not even worth putting together a price list.

At a previous job almost all of the scrapped parts were production changes, where the old parts just didn't fit anymore, and off-color parts where there was switch to a different color of resin beads. (Some levers were bright yellow, which showed off-colors swirls readily.) There were no extras of the key stampings.

Shoes and clothing are different. There are many opportunities for cosmetic flaws, and fully functional second quality. But even there things have changed. Fabric is inspected by vision system, cut in stacks of 50 or 100 layers, and sewing is optimized for automation with only the finish work being done by hand.

The biggest opportunity for skimping on quality is the resins and fillers. Most plastics can be re-molded once with acceptable quality, if mixed with a larger volume of virgin beads of exactly the same resin. But it's easy and untraceable to cheat on that. Filled plastics (e.g. fibers added for strength) parts are slower to make and wear the molds out faster, so the factory might cut back on the filler.

[geargrinder]

No modern production line has a significant percentage of flawed "second quality" parts. It takes repeatability and consistency to make reliable parts. If there is a single substandard part found in the middle of a production run, then all of the parts likely have the same flaw.

Totally with you djb for the 'official production' but...

First of all, I'm sure you know how production sampling works... and if items in a run is bad, batches get tagged and they go in a box. Fair enough that the percentages go down but they still exist at some point. Hear you about the 'reliable supply chain' and quantities but we're talking batches of generic parts people are buying from on eBay. Maybe there's only a truckload of stuff every so often but nonetheless it contributes. That's not for the '3rd rate brands' I'll grant you - they need a reliable flow of supply still - but it accounts for some of the weird generic crap that shows up.

almost all of the scrapped parts were production changes, where the old parts just didn't fit anymore, and off-color parts where there was switch to a different color of resin beads. (Some levers were bright yellow, which showed off-colors swirls readily.)

Sure, 'change over' scrap is one source of QC losses. But again, some of those can end up as working parts and in the box with the stuff above..

The biggest opportunity for skimping on quality is the resins and fillers. Most plastics can be re-molded once with acceptable quality, if mixed with a larger volume of virgin beads of exactly the same resin. But it's easy and untraceable to cheat on that. Filled plastics (e.g. fibers added for strength) parts are slower to make and wear the molds out faster, so the factory might cut back on the filler.

Yep - as I said above... extra 'off the record' production runs with different QA/QC and materials decidedly happen. Its not just resin/polymer related materials - cheap copper/wire/metals can also be subbed vs the proper spec. As part of the QA/QC stretch, the machines get turned up a bit to get more out than proper QA would call for, and then again you get increased sloppy tolerances or other flaws on what otherwise be top notch output.

And this is definitely not just a 'soft goods' thing, I just gave that example because I was just in SVN last year in factories and markets seeing it all first hand. But I've also been exposed to plenty of hard parts with funny biz going on.

[tptrsn]

This is good stuff! I just ordered a set of these coils BTW. In the words of that criminal at the beginning of 'Dirty Harry,' "I gotzta know, I gotzta know!!" Lol

And besides that, all of my coils are at or around 20 years old...

[douglawrence42]

I have 4 extra. Totally willing to ship a loaner or sell to someone with the tools and expertise to bench test.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[vinyldude]

Seems like a rush to judgement there.

I appreciate your commentary and admit my complete subjectivity on the matter. My one coil sample size opinion is to try anything else but the same Bremis again.

[tptrsn]

Alright, I have been running these coils for a couple of days now. They have worked well with up to 17.4psi of boost, as far as I can tell with it being all rainy and nasty out (mostly sideways modulating the throttle, so I might not feel every little misfire possibly). That is the good part of the story.

The bad part of the story is that the fitment issues are SOOOO BAD, that I will remove them at my next opportunity and return them to Amazon for a refund. The fit of the bushings over the coil mounting studs is tighter than it should be for sure, but with a little bit of jeweler's file action in those bushings, I can deal with that. The bigger problem is that the retaining clips are so randomly cobbled and mangled, that most of them simply cannot be clipped down onto the wiring connector. The one or two that came near being clipped all the way on are pushed out to the sides, and are clearly not happy either.

As I always say, sometimes cheap China stuff is "good s#!t," and sometimes it's "just S#1T." These coils might fall somewhere in between, and if I wasn't someone who changes spark plugs every time I turn around, maybe I'd just leave them in there. As it is though, they are are going to aggravate the crap out of me, so they have to go back.

[joekitch]

The bad part of the story is that the fitment issues are SOOOO BAD, that I will remove them at my next opportunity and return them to Amazon for a refund. The fit of the bushings over the coil mounting studs is tighter than it should be for sure, but with a little bit of jeweler's file action in those bushings, I can deal with that. The bigger problem is that the retaining clips are so randomly cobbled and mangled, that most of them simply cannot be clipped down onto the wiring connector. The one or two that came near being clipped all the way on are pushed out to the sides, and are clearly not happy either.

were all of them equally bad in this regard or were some much worse than others? was it like 5 fit alright and 3 were horrible?