More on new 3 series overheating

[Railgunner]

http://www.modsearch.com/articles/bm...erheating.html

"Overheated doing 120mph down the highway, completely shut off..Bmw replaced it with a brand new one".

http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/dir...w/.f0abb7e/196

"As for the oil temperature, the car does run hot. Even in street driving the temp is around 240 degrees. I called the shop foreman at the dealer and he told me that if the temperature reaches 260, I should slow down and take it easy. Why a new car should overheat like that is the big question. How a company like BMW can put out a new product that does this is unbelievable. It shows that they have no clue about turbos, or about you and me, the customers who buy their products. The car heats up to 240 degress if i drive it on the freeway for 40 miles. What will it do if i drive it from Phoenix to LA, almost 400 miles? So, the car is fast, it looks good, the interior is impecable, but it overheats and has problems."

http://forums.evolutionm.net/showthr...&page=11&pp=15

"The manual does have a oil cooler, but the automatic does not i hear since it wont be revved as high as with a manual". (Can this really be true?)

And other problems...

http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/dir...w/.f0abb7e/196

More inputs: these brand new BMW's already had broken parts with several of the "worn out" belt extenders end parts broken off. The drivers told us that it was "user error" since people hit them when they reached back for the belt".

I can see this. That thing would drive me nuts.

[gspotter]

LOL!

This was an excellent and very truthful post that I copied from the third link you gave:

For what it's worth, I was at the DFW "Intro" for the 335i coupes, as presented by our local dealers and BMW NA in late August of 2006. In two words, NOT GOOD.

They had a "high speed" run around the inner track at TMS, a full two laps driven by professional drivers. I was embarrassed for BMW. The windows were down (safety) and the AC was off for these runs, yet in the car I was riding in the oil temp was at 290+ C, with the gauge maxing out at 300 C . . . there is no "red line" or red zone on the gauge. It wasn't abnormally hot in Texas that day, perhaps just under 100 F. (Note that the engine water temps were unknown since BMW can't be bothered to give us a water temp gauge any more.)

Another killer for BMW. The G35 coupes they had for comparison actually made the new 335i look bad! For $10k less cash, they handled almost as well and had a hell of a lot better AC (i.e., it actually worked!) (See Car and Driver's Death Valley comparison test for their thought on BMW AC.)

More inputs: these brand new BMW's already had broken parts with several of the "worn out" belt extenders end parts broken off. The drivers told us that it was "user error" since people hit them when they reached back for the belt. Yep, they got that from the "Blame Your Customer!" chapter in the "How to Get Repeat Business" book . . . . Gotta love it. You'd think they'd design these cars a little better?

BMW has a reputation for bringing things to market while still in "beta" test. Too bad they can't learn from the Bremi ignition coil fiasco they put my mom through (4 tow-ins back to the dealer in the first 8k miles on her '03 325i, followed by the "lemon law buy back from hell" as they blamed her for the problem?!$%#!; the '03-'05+ 7-Series "software" disasters; the '00-'05 3-Series Coupe trim-won't-stay-attached-to-the-door-frame fiascoes (I saw multiple brand new/unsold 2005's with the trim melted, sitting in my dealer's lot!); the '99-'03+ 3-series electrical socket corrosion issues; the side air bag premature/excessive sensitivity issues in '99 and '00; the E90 Run Flat Tire fiasco (as we speak) . . . the list goes on and on and on.

Let this be a warning--unless you want to know your service writer's life story and the waiting area of your local dealership very, very well--avoid a first-year BMW of _any_ kind. It's even better to wait for a full two years since BMW's customer service is so terrible that it takes at least a year to acknowledge a problem (they can't accept they make mistakes, honest!), then another year to begin to fix it.

Love/Hate BMW
TX

[Gaaaar]

Originally Posted by Railgunner

http://www.modsearch.com/articles/bm...erheating.html

"Overheated doing 120mph down the highway, completely shut off..Bmw replaced it with a brand new one".

http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/dir...w/.f0abb7e/196

"As for the oil temperature, the car does run hot. Even in street driving the temp is around 240 degrees. I called the shop foreman at the dealer and he told me that if the temperature reaches 260, I should slow down and take it easy. Why a new car should overheat like that is the big question. How a company like BMW can put out a new product that does this is unbelievable. It shows that they have no clue about turbos, or about you and me, the customers who buy their products. The car heats up to 240 degress if i drive it on the freeway for 40 miles. What will it do if i drive it from Phoenix to LA, almost 400 miles? So, the car is fast, it looks good, the interior is impecable, but it overheats and has problems."

http://forums.evolutionm.net/showthr...&page=11&pp=15

"The manual does have a oil cooler, but the automatic does not i hear since it wont be revved as high as with a manual". (Can this really be true?)

And other problems...

http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/dir...w/.f0abb7e/196

More inputs: these brand new BMW's already had broken parts with several of the "worn out" belt extenders end parts broken off. The drivers told us that it was "user error" since people hit them when they reached back for the belt".

I can see this. That thing would drive me nuts.

Ok first off i frequent in bmw forums. As for the first link you provided, that has been a isolated incident that happend and nobody in the forums has ever duplicated the problem, and there have been a few guys that have taken their new 335i to the track and ran hot laps already. Also Shiv has tuned his 335i to 332 whp and 270 wtq and has run his car hard without it ever passing 240 degrees. Also guys at e90post has actually called up the guys that claimed the 335i were overheating and it was confirmed it was only one car, not all the cars. So until more ppl have this problem, we have to hold our judgement and wait.

240 degress by the way is the standard operating temperature for the 335i, it says so on the manual, so if that seems high to you, well it might be high on other cars but for the 335i this is actually normal.

Also for the oil cooler part about how the manual gets it and the automatic doesn't, thats completely insane. lol look it up, they both have it.


People love to hate on Bmw and their reliability is definitely not the best, but its not the worst either. They have average reliability. You guys make it seem like bmw cant even build cars. Lets not blow every mistake bmw makes out of proportions here. This was a isolated incident and hasn't been proven otherwise. If one single incident of something thats wrong with a g35 motor, would it be fair to say infiniti did a bad job on the g35?

[kubr1ck]

this is why you never buy the first year of any redesign. BMW will work out the kinks in a couple of years. but by that time, the Audi A5 coupe, the Lexus IS coupe, and the new G coupe will be out for blood. should be good times.

i love those goddamn LED daytime running lights on the new Audis.

[Picus]

I remember when the first G35 had an oil build up problem, people all over the internet were freaking out. Remember what happened with that? Of course you don't, because it was an isolated incident. No more than 3 or 4 first year Gs ever had the problem. All these unsubstantiated over-heating reports from random anonymous internet guys, how about one from me.

I just got back from Europe where I picked up my 335i. I put 2974km on it in 15 days, including 5 "laps" around the Ring under constant load, and one 6 hour drive from Sienna to Mittenwald, non-stop with an average speed of 181km/h. The average temperature during the trip was 22.5C, or ~74F; the only time my oil temp gauge (which goes to 340f, fwiw) ever went over 240f was at Nurburgring where it flirted with 260F.

FWIW, that Audi report was refuted by another driver who said one of the 9 cars hit 300F and THEY decided to shut it off, so no, all 9 didn't shut down and refuse to start.

So what am I getting at? People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Check how many TSBs and major recalls there have been on G35s, then compare than to any current model BMW. You can find problems with any car; until this becomes a confirmed issue then it's just a bunch of rumors and bandwagon jumping.

[Z06ified]

If you're running full synthetic engine oil, 310F is the generally accepted redline for oil temps by most race engine mechanics. On regular dino oil, I would say 260-270 is the redline.

Synthetic oil can take much higher than 310F without breaking down, however the various seals and gaskets in an engine begin to break down from the heat first, plus the frictional forces from metal heat expansion get to be too much for most engines over 310F.

I've seen 300F oil temps on my Z06 at the track after 30 minutes of hard runs in 110F heat (no oil cooler - a stupid GMism). Running Mobil 1, and never had a problem. I would have shut it down if it got to 305F though.