Recently had my cooling fan go into overdrive every time I turned on my car. Wasn't sure why, but I knew I had to drive to work. Also noticed my climate control would push cool air, but not any hot air. In fact it pushed cool air even when it was set to heat. After a few days I got an engine temp hot warning (yellow: drive slowly to your BMW service station), then a red engine temp warning (engine hot, pull over when safe), and finally a red warning reading "engine overheating, pull over and stop immediately or engine will be damaged".
Had a mechanic friend plug in his snap-on tools diagnostic computer and it pulled up two errors:
2E82 electric water pump, switch off
2E81 Electric water pump, speed difference
He said although he's done a little work on BMW's he won't be able to help due to it being from Germany (I thought all were made in Germany but apparently some are made in the States? I know this one shipped from Germany because I wanted some additional optional upgrades and had to wait 6 months for it to be built and sent over). His shop also deals primarily with domestics and they don't have manuals for BMW's.
He suggested I have another friend who's a mechanic work on it, and he may know some people that can work on it.
Question: Are there really going to be differences in parts between american and german made BMW's? What part number is the water pump if that's the problem and I need to replace it?
Also, he said it might just be the fuse having blown. Is that possible? I have about 90k kilometers on this vehicle.
Thanks for all your help!
Find a better mechanic and stop driving that car immediately. Your electric water pump is likely dead. If you keep on overheating the engine like this it will cost you the whole engine, if not already too late.
It has nothing to do with the car being made in Germany or not... it's all about how much skill this mechanic has.
-Abel
- E36 328is ~210-220whp: Lots of Mods.
- 2000 Z3: Many Mods.
- 2003 VW Jetta TDI Manual 47-50mpg
- 1999 S52 Estoril M Coupe
- 2014 328d Wagon, self-tuned, 270hp/430ft-lbs
- 2019 M2 Competition, self-tuned, 504whp
- 2016 Mini Cooper S
To put it bluntly:
You're a fool to have kept on starting that engine and driving that vehicle,
practically daring the engine to destroy itself,
while you are simultaneously letting the warnings escalate!!
Sorry, but any mechanic worth his $#!+ should have told you that!
Now that my rant is over, let's begin helping to answer your questions:
- The diagnosis Abel posted above is most probably correct.
- Enter the first 7 digits of the VIN# here:https://www.realoem.com/bmw/select.do
- this will help you to lookup vehicle part #'s specific to your vehicle.
- If the fuse to protect the waterpump was blown-how could the waterpump be in overdrive? Find another mechanic!
- Search for a BMW specialist shop in your area, maybe contact a BMW or European Car Club for more options.
I agree with Abel, the symptoms describe a waterpump failure, I would replace.
I guess it wasn't clear in my post; I stopped driving the car once I got the engine overheat warnings. It's just that the first yellow one said "Drive slowly to allow engine to cool down and proceed to your BMW service station" that doesn't sound dire. A km later I got the other warnings so I stopped driving in order to not harm the engine. My friend who is the mechanic didn't say "keep driving," he wasn't even there. He came and looked later and felt the hoses for the water pump and said "there's nothing in them" meaning it wasn't circulating and the errors confirmed his suspicions. You're wrong in the assumption that he's unskilled, but he's not very familiar with BMW's and european cars because as I stated he works on domestics and more common cars.
The waterpump was never in overdrive, the cooling fan was. And that's a surefire sign that the waterpump isn't functioning because nothing is cooling down the engine so the fan tries to. So the fuse for the waterpump may still be an issue, but I was looking for input on that. Replacing a waterpump is hundreds of dollars, thousands if you include labour, but a fuse is a lot less. Just wondered if anyone knew a blown fuse could be the root problem based on those errors.
There's no BMW specialist shop near me. I live 500 km north of Edmonton, AB where there are two BMW shops (one from which I bought the car and have most service done), but it's over $1000 to tow the car or bring it on a truck from where I live, maybe even $2000 because people are extortionists. And there's likely no BMW club up here because most people are into lifted trucks...
Thanks for the input and for the website.
You may have saved that engine, in that case.
By all means check the fuse (even if wishful thinking), but most likely scenario is that the pump is dead. It happens with age, and is common. They're not horribly expensive in good aftermarket form, but yes, labor may get you. If you have the time and tools, do it yourself. Lots of guides out there.
If not, it's still worth fixing it, even paying labor.
-Abel
- E36 328is ~210-220whp: Lots of Mods.
- 2000 Z3: Many Mods.
- 2003 VW Jetta TDI Manual 47-50mpg
- 1999 S52 Estoril M Coupe
- 2014 328d Wagon, self-tuned, 270hp/430ft-lbs
- 2019 M2 Competition, self-tuned, 504whp
- 2016 Mini Cooper S
Put the water pump and thermostat in it, done.
Sounds good, thanks guys. I had the radiator flushed a year ago, but yes, after changing this part the cooling system will definitely need to be primed properly so there's no air.
YouTube has numerous how-to videos on this, and Pelican Parts has their tech article on the procedure here:
https://www.pelicanparts.com/BMW/tec...eplacement.htm
The fuse for the electric water pump varies depending on production date. Here’s a link where you can choose the correct diagram/fuse to check.
https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/e...ngine-cooling/
The part number is 11-51-7-586-925. Confirm by VIN number on https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/select
Go to Group 11, Subgroup 11 35.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Last edited by bms5; 10-12-2018 at 11:26 PM.
Bookmarks