2010 BMW engine failure

tom_e · 20 Oct 2016 at 12:30

TacticalFish said:
Would Quack Foot have some kind of certificate for the disposal of the oil?

I wouldn't have thought so, it'll just go into a big tub that'll get emptied once a week or whatever. They may get some paperwork for that, but I doubt they would for every car.

Jamesyboyjim · 20 Oct 2016 at 12:41

A friend of mine overfilled the oil on his BMW, just poured the whole bottle in without checking the dipstick. Wrecked the engine beyond what he could afford to spend on repairs so I'd definitely agree far too much oil is a death sentence for an engine!

If BMW can provide proof the car was massively overfilled I'd be taking my complaint as far as I could!

Lashout_UK · 20 Oct 2016 at 14:23

Was it just oil BMW drained out, though, or oil and coolant?

Clarkey · 20 Oct 2016 at 14:33

Just me that finds it unusual that BMW would have measured the amount of oil drained?

tom_e · 20 Oct 2016 at 14:41

Clarkey said:
Just me that finds it unusual that BMW would have measured the amount of oil drained?

Seems sensible if he took it in with a popped engine and said the only recent work was Kwik fit replacing the oil.

Illusion · 20 Oct 2016 at 15:02

wedrum said:
10k new engine... blimey

Rilot said:
I wouldn't be paying £10k for a new engine. He can buy another example of the exact same car for around £12k so this seem a little silly to do.

I spoke to him again today and he said BMW have offered to swallow half that cost themselves so maybe it was more of a bargaining tactic to make him think he was getting a good deal. 5k is still a big chunk of money but I guess if the car is worth 10-12k and he intends to keep it a while it may be worth it.

Lashout_UK said:
Was it just oil BMW drained out, though, or oil and coolant?

They said they drained 9 litres of oil and it looked old/dirty and not like it should if it was changed two days ago. No mention of coolant

Tute · 20 Oct 2016 at 15:04

He needs to get some kind of written proof off BMW about the high oil level and then take it up with KF.

Rids · 20 Oct 2016 at 15:06

Clarkey said:
Just me that finds it unusual that BMW would have measured the amount of oil drained?

Could also be that they noticed much more drained than they expected, so decided to measure?

I imagine after a while doing the job you know what 5 litres of oil looks like, when you see considerably more than that it could prompt you to investigate further.

Illusion · 20 Oct 2016 at 15:07

Clarkey said:
Just me that finds it unusual that BMW would have measured the amount of oil drained?

I must admit I thought this at first but as the poster above mentioned if he told them he had an oil change a couple of days before they might have paid a bit more attention, or maybe the amount of time it took to drain raised suspicions or something

Jokester · 20 Oct 2016 at 15:18

They would have presumably stuck a pan underneath to drain into so it would have been obvious that there was almost twice as much oil as there should have been.

Gaygle · 20 Oct 2016 at 15:26

Jokester said:
They would have presumably stuck a pan underneath to drain into so it would have been obvious that there was almost twice as much oil as there should have been.

This.

I doubt they've got the measuring jugs out. They spend all day every day draining oil out of 2litre engines and probably know by looking in the pan roughly how much oil is there. Realistically, there was probably 7-9litres in the pan.

I wonder whether Kwik Fit have put 6.5l in the engine, which the 3litre engines need. 6.5 + a residual litre of oil = 7.5l so it's plausible?

manic_man · 20 Oct 2016 at 16:52

Gaygle said:
This.

I doubt they've got the measuring jugs out. They spend all day every day draining oil out of 2litre engines and probably know by looking in the pan roughly how much oil is there. Realistically, there was probably 7-9litres in the pan.

I wonder whether Kwik Fit have put 6.5l in the engine, which the 3litre engines need. 6.5 + a residual litre of oil = 7.5l so it's plausible?

i think they actually do measure the volume of fluid removed, perhaps not always but in certain cases.

My old E60 520D used to have a habit of spitting diesel back into the sump if I cut the engine when it was part way through a DPF regen cycle (common design flaw in that era of diesel engines), the first time it happened was about 3 months after they did an oil service on it, so I took it back when the digital oil level reading said I was over (but not by how much), as a courtesy they drained it all and re-filled to check it wasn't a symptom of full DPF failure (i.e. if it happened again soon then bad news), they were able to tell me that they had removed just over 5.6l (car had just over a 5l capacity).

Either they were eyeballing it or they have a pan with measurements on it!

Jamesyboyjim · 21 Oct 2016 at 09:05

So if BMW said the oil looked dirty, what the hell did they pour the new oil into?

Or did they just reuse an old jug they had lying around? Scary really!

IAmATeaf · 21 Oct 2016 at 11:23

You need to get your FIL to pursue this all the way, that's the only way that KwikFit will learn. hopefully the financial costs will encourage head office to issue more checks for what is after all a simple task.

Don't do anything and KF are none the wiser and will carry on as they are.