BMW Problem

w1lliam · 25 Apr 2010 at 18:53

So, thought i'd get my car checked for suspensions problems and minor issues with the car. This from a local garage who know what the **** they are doing.

Anyway got a call yesterday from the receptionist saying the car had a problem going into reverse, 330ci auto, anyway i told her you have to put your foot on the brake before you can change into reverse, and she said thats not the problem, the problem is the car's not going into reverse.

Now i reverse the car out of my drive everyday, and reverse park in the car park all the time.

So im confused. I hitch a ride down to the garage and he says this is a minor problem and a common problem on 'these auto gearboxes'. He gets this information from Bill Carver Ltd, a company specializing in repairing auto gearboxes.

Now he doesnt accept responsibilty for ****ing it up but he doesnt deny it either. But he does mention that gearbox itself could have been the culprit to my performance woes and not the Vanos seals.

So do these gearboxes fail like this or what? Any thoughts?

Wicksta · 25 Apr 2010 at 18:56

A very common problem yes, it even has it's own website:

www. noreverse. org (warning site might have been hacked but the info is there - see below, visit at your own risk by typing in the url manually)

Not the local garage's fault I'm afraid, it was just unlucky it happened while it was there. The same thing had happened to my 325i touring before I bought it from a BMW technician who replaced the gearbox.

Some more info:

http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=706809

A google search will also bring up loads of pages about it.

DB_SamX · 25 Apr 2010 at 19:00

Wicksta said:
A very common problem yes, it even has it's own website:

http://www.noreverse.org/

Not the local garage's fault I'm afraid, it was just unlucky it happened while it was there. The same thing had happened to my 325i touring before I bought it from a BMW technician who replaced the gearbox.

Unless I'm being naive here, this link takes me to a page that is being blocked by Firefox - reported attacks?

Wicksta · 25 Apr 2010 at 19:02

DB_SamX said:
Unless I'm being naive here, this link takes me to a page that is being blocked by Firefox - reported attacks?

Strange, yes I got a warning from Safari as well. The site is legit though, but maybe some code has been injected onto it. I'll make the link unclickable.

w1lliam · 25 Apr 2010 at 19:04

DB_SamX said:
Unless I'm being naive here, this link takes me to a page that is being blocked by Firefox - reported attacks?

same here but i got to http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=706809 eventually

Moeks · 25 Apr 2010 at 19:04

Problems! ...BMW don't have PROBLEMS! ...they are 100% reliable and dependable forever and ever

I have heard of this issue before actually, I don't know very much about it but it sounds expensive anyway.

How many miles has the car done and have you ever had the gearbox serviced ? BMW say they are sealed for life I know, but you can have them serviced and it seems to be a good idea at around 100k miles for gearbox longevity and smoothness.

w1lliam · 25 Apr 2010 at 19:05

Its done 88k but the i had no problems while driving it, smooth all the way

Wicksta · 25 Apr 2010 at 19:07

Moeks said:
Problems! ...BMW don't have PROBLEMS! ...they are 100% reliable and dependable forever and ever

I have heard of this issue before actually, I don't know very much about it but it sounds expensive anyway.

How many miles has the car done and have you ever had the gearbox serviced ? BMW say they are sealed for life I know, but you can have them serviced and it seems to be a good idea at around 100k miles for gearbox longevity and smoothness.

Actually if you read some of the e46fanatic threads that's really the thing NOT to do - apparently a lot of people have lost reverse soon after replacing the oil.

Moeks · 25 Apr 2010 at 22:28

Wicksta said:
Actually if you read some of the e46fanatic threads that's really the thing NOT to do - apparently a lot of people have lost reverse soon after replacing the oil.

There is a lot of divided opinion on this one, but they are mechanical devices, they aren't going to run forever with the same oil and filter, failure will occur if they aren't serviced eventually. i think a lot of the times failure happens because people either don't change the filter for the correct OEM replacement or they under-fil the box ...at least from what I have read. If you follow the procedure to the letter ...it shouldn't happen. If it does, I think really you just spend up the inevitable.

At least on the E39s failure after an oil and filter change is extremely rare unless you have one with a GM box, you need to do those way before the 100k mile stage and more regularly it seems. If you just do a change at 100k+ miles they are much more prone to failure than the ZF boxes.