Quote:
Originally Posted by CptnSuave
I dealt with all of the vanos bolts shearing off on the exhaust side just a few months ago which caused the engine to not run at all. The whole situation turned into a major headache for me.
I contacted dealerships and BMW North America seeing if they would possibly still cover it under the "extended warranty" campaign that they had for the N52 and in the end found out it wasn't covered.
Although, I made the mistake of calling a dealership first and spoke to them about the issue, asking if my car would be covered under the warranty. After providing them with the VIN they told me to bring it in. I told them I would have to tow it in and asked if the tow cost would be covered by the warranty, they told me no, but I didn't mind covering the cost of a tow if the cost of replacing the bolts was covered by BMW. Once my car got there I spoke with an advisor only to find out the car was not covered, even though that's what the employee on the phone led me to believe. They covered the tow back to my house with no compensation for my initial tow which sucked lol. They offered to use the cost of the initial tow as credit towards the repair if I would do it at their dealership, which I thought was inappropriate since they had me tow the car to their dealership under false pretenses and then are trying to sell me on the service, but I guess that's the dealership for ya.
I ended up going to a few junkyards and finding the correct vanos exhaust gear (since that side had all the bolts shear off) which cost me $50 and bought the updated bolts for a few dollars from a BMW dealer. I also had to buy the timing tool which was another $120. I doubt they would reimburse me for the tool or the parts I bought from the junkyard.
My question is, since I have replaced the bolts with the updated ones and there are still fragments of the bolts in my oil pan, if they would take off the oil pan to retrieve the broken fragments free of charge even with the updated bolts already having been installed. Another user mentioned that they claim that it wouldn't be covered since they didn't "witness" the bolts being broken off, however if they took off the oil pan they would see the broken pieces. Also in my situation the car was initially diagnosed with this issue by a dealer from the previous owner (I bought the car with this issue) and they actually removed the valve cover and saw the missing bolts which is probably stated on the R.O they made. My thinking is that now since this will be covered by BMW under the recall, every dealership might respond differently, since it's seemingly in their best interest to take advantage of this covered repair.
Until we receive an update letter for this recall, I doubt any BMW dealer can give us any more information than what was already provided to us in this initial letter we received.
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Nobody has any clue what they will do.