[dealer]

Hey everyone!

This is going to be a long post that takes you through the mental agony I faced over the past 6 months in getting my BMW F30 320i LCI repaired. Before getting into details, I would like to make it clear that my 320i ran a custom stage 2 tune and no attempts were made to hide the same from the dealer.

The Beginning - Jan 3, 2023
On a regular morning, I was taking my car out on a drive and noticed at it was violently misfiring at rpms slightly above idle. As I had driven the car the previous night and had no issues while driving it, I thought it was a simple issue and got it towed to my workshop.

My workshop personnel inspected the spark plugs and they were fouled badly. There was oily residue on the tips of the plugs and it smelled like fuel. I could not understand why the plugs were fouled so quickly especially since they were just replaced 1000kms ago since the old ones had covered 25000kms.

Condition of the Plugs and Diagnostic Codes

I thought that the tune might be causing the car to run rich and subsequently moved back to the stock tune. The plugs were cleaned and put back. The car ran fine for a few hundred kms but the issue came back.

As I was unaware of what could be causing this issue, I sent the car on a tow truck BMW Jaipur who said that the catless downpipe installed for stage 2 must be returned to stock and then the car should be sent back to them. I happily obliged, put the car back on a truck and reverted to the stock cat. When the car was sent back to BMW, they replied that the engine must be opened up to diagnose what the issue is. When I asked for supporting evidence to support the opening of the engine, they had no answer but they simply said that the tune has damaged the engine. As I understood from their tone that they were just trying to blame something without understanding the problem, I moved the car back to my shop and continued diagnosing on my own.

Purchasing Tools to Self Diagnose - Mid Jan 2023
The dealer in Jaipur was extremely unhelpful in talking about data to diagnose the problem. His diagnosis from the beginning was that the piston rings had lost the ability to seal the cylinder and subsequently causing oil fouling of the plugs. While I admit that a broken cylinder is quite possible on a tuned B48, plug fouling on 4 cylinders is highly unlikely since all 4 cylinders do not just fail together. Also, my B48 never ran anything less than 99RON fuel and there has been no case of failure with this engine running >98RON fuel.

As I did not believe in their diagnosis, I went ahead and purchased a compression tester and leakdown tester from toolbuy.com. Although this costed me Rs.15000, I thought it was better than whatever BMW would do blindly opening an engine.

A compression test was performed on all 4 cylinders that showed consistent 225 psi across all 4 cylinders. I also performed a leakdown test which showed less than 5% leakage on all cylinders.

Compression Testing the Engine

With this testing, I was convinced that the engine was in a healthy condition and spoke to the dealer again. The dealer did not have a response on my findings and insisted on opening the engine.

FORUMS and how they can turn a simple diagnosis into a big problem
As my agony continued with the 320i, I put up various threads and forums on websites like bimmerpost and babybmw to help me diagnose my issues. I narrowed my issues down to 4 possibilities -
Possible Causes -
1) Worn valve seals - No Smoke from tailpipe thus unlikely (Extremely unlikely)
2) Worn piston rings - Compression is good. Problem with all 4 cylinders not just 1 thus unlikely.
3) Faulty PCV in the valve cover causing fouling - Diagnosis difficult since no direct cause can be identified. (Known B58 issue)
4) Faulty Fuel Injectors - Known B48/B58 issue. Extremely difficult to diagnose and unlikely to affect all 4.

As I found the PCV problem to be the most likely (since It would affect all 4 cylinders) I asked the BMW dealer to change it but first, I asked them to test the fuel injectors while they're at it.

Few important threads where I found help with my problems -
Baby BMW - B48/B58 Injector Failure
B58 Valve Cover Replacement and other experiences

Where it went all wrong - 5th Feb 2023
I received an affirmative reply from my service advisor at BMW Jaipur that they had indeed checked the injectors and found nothing wrong post which they continued with the Valve cover replacement. Note that BMW Jaipur specifically said that they do not suspect its a valve cover issue but I insisted in trying out the same.

Few days passed and they Rs.52000 valve cover replacement did not help. It was an expensive lesson learnt. The plugs were getting fouled after a few kms and I had no idea what could be the problem. As I wasn't willing to open the engine at this stage, I decided to move the car back to my place for a few weeks to think what it could be.

As the car was practically just taking up garage space, I decided to finally give into BMW Jaipur's demands after a couple of weeks and approved engine disassembly for further diagnosis.

Engine Disassembly and Results - 5th March 2023
The Car was sent to the dealer, they opened the cylinder head and according to their diagnosis all cylinder bores are out of spec. They claimed that the 82mm bore of the B48 of all the 4 cylinders had somehow enlarged by a 0.02-0.03mm and that was resulting in the oil pooling. I did not believe their stories since bores do not just deform on such a well built engine. Note - The B48 block is extremely strong and has a plasma arc coating on the bores. It is built to the same standards as the widely renowned B58 and custom turbo engine setups are producing 500whp with a stock block B48. There are zero known issues with the B48/B58 block and they are only known to fail due to a significant injector failure causing detonation.

Among their many hypotheses, the technicians also suggested that the valves were damaged thus the whole engine needs to be replaced for around Rs.12,00,000. I was present at the dealership when the engine was fully dismantled and I noted that there are no visual signs of wear on any of the cylinder bores. Cylinder 2,3 and 4 are dry but cylinder 1 had oil pooling for unknown reasons. I spoke to my tuner who is a B48 specialist and he too could not find anything wrong in the pictures i shared. The oil pooling according to him was probably due to the disassembly process causing oil to spill out of places. I could not comment on the valves since I lack the experience but so many issues on a fine running engine were not possible.

Few Pictures of the Engine Disassembled

Note that cylinder 3 and 4 that had the misfires code had not even a speck of oil on them. The dealer did not have an answer for this and blamed the valves for the misfires.

Distraught by the diagnosis received, I turned to a bhpian mechanic in delhi @Viraat13 to help diagnose the issue.

[dealer]

Update - 9th March 2023
I got the car back from the dealer after paying an eye-watering sum of Rs.72000 with nothing to show for. I tried to approach the people at BMW India but their reply is that they trust their dealers and their mechanics in the diagnosis. The car was put on a tow truck and sent to Viraat's garage in Delhi for diagnosis.

Viraat's diagnosis
Viraat suggested that it was likely one of three issues that could be creating a problem -
1) Worn Valve seals - Only physical verification possible
2) Just the oil rings on the piston going bad - No way to test
3) Fuel Injector issue - He could not test due to lack of bench testing of such injectors

Since the engine had already been opened by BMW once and returned with the same old gaskets and loosely put together (As I requested), the engine was dismantled by Viraat again. He too did not find anything wrong with the engine per se and suggested that the piston rings and valve seals be changed just to make sure that the engine is fine. Although I was reluctant on changing either of the two parts due to the lack of any compression loss, I went ahead with his suggestion with a couple of caveats -

1. Absolutely no honing of the cylinders - The B48/B58 cylinder bores cannot be honed and since they were in mint condition, I asked specifically for no honing to take place.
2. The engine should be built to factory spec - I also provided Viraat with all the relevant technical literature from newtis.info for my personal satisfaction

Some Pictures from the Rebuild

The Long Parts Wait
From 9th March to Almost 18th April, my car awaited parts that were simply not available anywhere in India due to the 320i being a limited CBU import. Even though 99% of the parts were shared with the 330i, simple parts such as a head gasket took more than 12 days to source. Piston rings were imported using Ebay UK in a couple of weeks and valve seals were procured in India.

The Story Continues
On 19th April my car was put back together and on the road with Viraat in Delhi. It drove fine for 200 kms and the misfires came back as usual. Once again, the plugs were fouled.

At this stage, there was nothing except the fuel injectors that hadn't been replaced and they weren't being suspected since the BMW dealer categorically said that he had tested them. In hindsight, I should not have believed him and spent all this money at the dealership and the FNG.

The Final Fix
Running out of ideas, new injectors were ordered through Sushila Autotechnik for Rs.52000 and after a couple of weeks, they arrived. Low and behold, the car with it's new injectors was fixed.

No misfiring at all, the engine was as smooth as ever and the car was back to brand new. The plugs were not getting fouled, there were zero misfires and the engine felt just like it did from the factory.

Final takeaways and a couple of thoughts
On 7th May, I drove my car back from Delhi and this 5 month ordeal was finally at an end.

If I had to sum up my experience, this would be it -

1) The tech staff at BMW Jaipur is not qualified to diagnose any serious issue a BMW. They are here to rip off unaware customers of lakhs of rupees and cannot offer anything to an customer who knows even a little about cars. Their list of lies if put into bullet points would be -

• Engine needs a valve job and that the child parts aren't available for the same thus requiring an engine replacement.
• THEY TESTED THE INJECTORS
• The bore was out of spec causing oil fouling of spark plugs.
• The various theories of bore enlargement, bore damage and piston failure.

2) Had it not been for my own inclination towards the workings of an engine etc. I would have spent 12L rupees at the dealer for a new engine and the problem would have reappeared since the injectors wouldn't be changed!

3) BMW India was of no help during this ordeal. I get that they trust their dealer technicians but clearly not all of them are trained/skilled to handle the problems that BMW vehicles have. A faulty injector is one of the leading problems on a B48/B58 engine worldwide and dealers in the UK are well aware of such issues and do the diagnosis accordingly.

4) Not having basic tools such as a leakdown tester is truly a shame for a dealer. How can BMW expect a customer to pay lakhs in labor to diagnose a problem without any concrete data as to why? The dealer did not even have a simple borescope to check the cylinder condition
If all that the dealer is good for is using ISTA to diagnose issues and in the absence of which can't go through simple procedures such as injector testing, leakdown testing etc. I question why send the car to the dealer at all for diagnosis. Just get ISTA for free and tell any reliable FNG what to do.

5) Rare and CBU vehicles can be such a pain to deal with due to the parts availability. A more popular BMW such as a 320d/520d could have been fixed much sooner in my opinion.

6) Please have access to common diagnostic tools such as ISTA and websites such as newtis.info. These websites saved me from a ton of lies I received from the dealership.


Ending Note
These five months were extremely agonizing for me considering how much I like to drive and enjoy my car. It has left me with a bad taste for BMWs and especially it's after sales service in Jaipur. Although the recent offerings such as an M2/M340i are extremely compelling, I do not see the brand with the same fascination that I used to before. As a young enthusiast I hope BMW India takes steps to improve it's customer experience as the brand's attractive lineup of vehicles is being let down by such experiences and deterring others like myself from choosing this brand in the future.

On a cheerful note, this 5 month journey has taught me alot about BMWs and cars in general. The sheer lack of knowledge displayed by the techs at BMW has shown me the market potential for specialist garages and I hope to have one in the future to tackle all sorts of engine mods, rebuilds etc. From learning how to use a bore gauge, borescope, compression tester etc. and reading about ring clearances, honing etc. I have gathered immense amounts of tools and knowledge that has prepared me not just for this ongoing project but also other cars that will come in the future.

As to what the future is of the car, with a brand new Bilstein b12 suspension, I am back on the road. Waiting for the break in period to be complete. Hoping to put on thousands of more kms on this beast before I move onto something faster, preferably from Stuttgart

Special Thanks
Thanks to bhpian Viraat13 for helping me with this repair. Special thanks also to the folks at Mechanix Automotive, Pune for helping me with the diagnosis process.

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[Viraat13]

Hey,

First off, thanks for trusting me with the car. I'm glad it's back on the road.

If you recall our discussion from March when the car had just arrived, I'd mentioned that my gut feel was that the injectors were leaking and causing the plugs to foul. Of course we later confirmed this with the diagnostic tool, but the fact that the engine was not losing oil, pretty much confirmed the diagnosis.

Anyway, all's well that ends well. Wish you many happy miles.

[batish]

Originally Posted by dealer

Running out of ideas, new injectors were ordered through Sushila Autotechnik for Rs.52000 and after a couple of weeks, they arrived.

52k for four? Hyundai OEM for 1.6 CRDi costs almost 30k each.

The tech staff at BMW Jaipur is not qualified to diagnose any serious issue a BMW. They are here to rip off unaware customers of lakhs of rupees and cannot offer anything to an customer who knows even a little about cars.

I have not been to these high end german service centres but from my experience at usual workshops, tech staff or any service staff do not have much clue what they are doing. Most of them learn on the job. I have seen ones which are trained from company just loitering around.

IIRC, I had to search for the technical person to know tightening torque value of a replacement they had to do, in warranty.

You are right, the more unaware customer is, the more they tend to rip off.

Talk about incompetence? This reminds me back when I had to get my wheel lug nut as well as bolt hub nut changed because during previous service they themselves had over tightened with pneumatic impact gun which caused the nut to slip.

Not having basic tools such as a leakdown tester is truly a shame for a dealer. How can BMW expect a customer to pay lakhs in labor to diagnose a problem without any concrete data as to why? The dealer did not even have a simple borescope to check the cylinder condition.

You are talking about complex stuff here. I have been to authorised service centres and one of them did not even have torque wrench. I had to provide my own to tighten wheel lug nuts. Till date, in almost 200k kms have never seen any authorised service centre torquing bolts to spec.

If all that the dealer is good for is using ISTA to diagnose issues and in the absence of which can't go through simple procedures such as injector testing, leakdown testing etc. I question why send the car to the dealer at all for diagnosis.

I don't know why they did not check for injectors but all of the workshops I have been to, they do have injector testing machines. I don't know if that works or not but they do keep it to display.

Please have access to common diagnostic tools such as ISTA and websites such as newtis.info. These websites saved me from a ton of lies I received from the dealership.

I have service manual just for this purpose.

Nevermind, since it ended on a happy note! As Viraat13 said, "All's well that ends well." Wish you several hundred thousand kilometres with these injectors.

[Turbanator]

Originally Posted by dealer

I went ahead and purchased a compression tester and leakdown tester from toolbuy.com. Although this costed me Rs.15000, I thought it was better than whatever BMW would do blindly opening an engine.

If I am not mistaken, dealerships do have a compression tester. Its digital and measured readings are available/ shown to the customer. This is part of 360- check that dealerships do. I remember seeing some readings when I sold my M5.

The dealer did not have a response on my findings and insisted on opening the engine.

Did you think about sending it to another dealership, say Gurgaon?

Faulty Fuel Injectors - Known B48/B58 issue. Extremely difficult to diagnose and unlikely to affect all 4.

I received an affirmative reply from my service advisor at BMW Jaipur that they had indeed checked the injectors and found nothing wrong post which they continued with the Valve cover replacement.

The Car was sent to the dealer, they opened the cylinder head and according to their diagnosis all cylinder bores are out of spec. They claimed that the 82mm bore of the B48 of all the 4 cylinders had somehow enlarged by a 0.02-0.03mm and that was resulting in the oil pooling.

Did you check these readings? And do you have a communication where they have mentioned this?

He too did not find anything wrong with the engine per se and suggested that the piston rings and valve seals be changed just to make sure that the engine is fine.

Did he use standard-size rings or over?

The Final Fix
Running out of ideas, new injectors were ordered through Sushila Autotechnik for Rs.52000 and after a couple of weeks, they arrived. Low and behold, the car with it's new injectors was fixed.

So, per my understanding from whatever you have mentioned, had the BMW dealership done a proper compression check and had got the injectors checked, this ordeal of opening a perfect engine and everything could have been avoided?

If that's correct, then absolutely wrong on the dealership and also, the manufacturer should have helped the dealer with steps to find the exact issue step by step, instead of simply suggesting to go with dealership finding i.e a change of the engine.

I will share the link to this thread with someone and update you if I hear back.

[dealer]

Originally Posted by Viraat13

Hey,

First off, thanks for trusting me with the car. I'm glad it's back on the road.

If you recall our discussion from March when the car had just arrived, I'd mentioned that my gut feel was that the injectors were leaking and causing the plugs to foul. Of course we later confirmed this with the diagnostic tool, but the fact that the engine was not losing oil, pretty much confirmed the diagnosis.

Anyway, all's well that ends well. Wish you many happy miles.

Thanks Viraat for taking on this project. Yes, I agree that you mentioned the injectors initially. Would've saved us both a lot of time had the parts been procured together. But as you said, all's well that ends well.

Originally Posted by batish

52k for four? Hyundai OEM for 1.6 CRDi costs almost 30k each.

I don't know why they did not check for injectors but all of the workshops I have been to, they do have injector testing machines. I don't know if that works or not but they do keep it to display.

Nevermind, since it ended on a happy note! As Viraat13 said, "All's well that ends well." Wish you several hundred thousand kilometres with these injectors.

Hey batish, Thanks for the wishes. Had I procured the injectors from BMW, they would have been 38k per piece. Instead I went chose to buy using a dealer who sources from BOSCH directly. Saved me a lot of money. Regarding injector testing machines, these machines are widely available for testing diesel injectors but my specific injectors could not be tested on the commonly available machine. Any modern direct injection petrol BMW has injectors that can't be tested on the common machine found at FNGs and needs different machine. I don't know what exactly is the spec for the same.

Originally Posted by Turbanator

If I am not mistaken, dealerships do have a compression tester. Its digital and measured readings are available/ shown to the customer. This is part of 360- check that dealerships do. I remember seeing some readings when I sold my M5.

Hey Turbanator, Yes indeed they do have a compression tester. The same was performed on my multiple requests for a leakdown test on 24th January 2023 much later after I started talking to them.

Originally Posted by Turbanator

Did you think about sending it to another dealership, say Gurgaon?

No, since I did not want to deal with another dealer after my experience in Jaipur.

Originally Posted by Turbanator

Did you check these readings? And do you have a communication where they have mentioned this?

The whole incident surrounding the bore diameter was a long and painful one, let me share what happened in detail.

When I first visited the workshop post disassembly, the head technician took a bore gauge and started to measure all 4 bores. He chose 82.00mm as the standard size and started to measure the different cylinders. He communicated verbally that the bore was out of spec for all cylinders and in both angles of measurement but never took any of the readings in writing. After I returned from the dealership, I did some digging and found these specs on the workshop manuals for my car, and communicated the same to Viraat, my tuner and Mechanix automotive with pictures of the bore. There was no possible way for my bore to be out of spec with zero signs of wear.



The same communication was done verbally again with BMW India's representative. Here's the email after -



The injector test readings were never shared with me. Despite me specifically pointing out that the injectors need to be tested as I received an inconclusive injector test result from ISTA.

Originally Posted by Turbanator

Did he use standard-size rings or over

Standard rings as found in the B48B20A engine were used. There was no need to go oversized at all on a mint bore and piston. Here is the part used -

Originally Posted by Turbanator

So, per my understanding from whatever you have mentioned, had the BMW dealership done a proper compression check and had got the injectors checked, this ordeal of opening a perfect engine and everything could have been avoided?

If that's correct, then absolutely wrong on the dealership and also, the manufacturer should have helped the dealer with steps to find the exact issue step by step, instead of simply suggesting to go with dealership finding i.e a change of the engine.

I will share the link to this thread with someone and update you if I hear back.

Yes exactly, these are the compression test numbers given to me by BMW.



Note that the 12.5-14bar readings are well within spec. According to the service advisor, the compression readings were high thus requiring the engine to be opened Never have I ever heard the compression test readings being high as an issue. Tells you what I was dealing with in terms of technical knowledge. These absurd statements made me question every single statement by the dealership personnel during this entire endeavor. Some of their other blunders during this repair included -

1. Returning the car with the ignition coils not even hand tightened
2. Injectors being installed with the wrong screws

If the injectors were checked and the dealership understood what a compression test result means, I would not have to dismantle and uselessly rebuild a perfect engine. As someone who knowingly sent a tuned car to a dealership, I was never shy of spending money to solve the issue but on the condition that the repair be taken in a systematic process.

[norhog]

Dear Dealer,

Sorry to hear about your ordeal, but happy that you and all of us reading this have come out wiser.

I like to know, does the engine feel different in any way, (from the factory assembled one you were driving before), by way of sound, vibration, rev increase i.e responsiveness now that it was opened up and assembled back.

[prateekchanana]

My A4 went out of warranty this year and after reading all previous posts of @viraat13 and following his posts on instagram regularly was pretty sure will be sending my car to him for further service. Posts like these boost the confidence so much more. Job well done.

[dealer]

Originally Posted by norhog

Dear Dealer,

Sorry to hear about your ordeal, but happy that you and all of us reading this have come out wiser.

I like to know, does the engine feel different in any way, (from the factory assembled one you were driving before), by way of sound, vibration, rev increase i.e responsiveness now that it was opened up and assembled back.

Hey norhog,
I did not notice any difference from before but to be honest, I haven't been able drive the car around much. I will keep this thread updated as I drive this around more

Originally Posted by prateekchanana

My A4 went out of warranty this year and after reading all previous posts of @viraat13 and following his posts on instagram regularly was pretty sure will be sending my car to him for further service. Posts like these boost the confidence so much more. Job well done.

Yeah, Viraat was thoroughly cooperative and prompt during this repair. Even when I bugged him over small things that triggered my OCD with this car There were some delays due to parts availability but those were unavoidable. Overall, highly recommended for any work. Note - I am not commercially associated with him, just a happy customer.

[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by batish

52k for four? Hyundai OEM for 1.6 CRDi costs almost 30k each.

Petrol Injectors are usually cheaper than Diesel injectors. For comparison check the price of each injector of a 320d

[mystiikmonk]

Such a wonderful diagnosis, and I am quite impressed by the technical knowledge. I am a new BMW owner, and I am very curious to learn about the technical details of my car and engine. Could you please suggest some resources to read upon?

[ritedhawan]

First of all, credit goes to you who was scrupulous enough to dig deep into the issue to figure out the exact cause and combined with the expertise of fellow bhpian Viraat. Both in unison, were able to fix this issue and the icing on the cake is the 12 Lakhs saved.

Originally Posted by dealer

Update - 9th March 2023


1) The tech staff at BMW Jaipur is not qualified to diagnose any serious issue a BMW. They are here to rip off unaware customers of lakhs of rupees and cannot offer anything to an customer who knows even a little about cars.

Whether its BMW or for that matter any other ASS. The people they have in thier service centers, from Service advisor down to the actual mechanic working on the car are all on parts replacement spree. They dont have the mental discernment, or the time to spend to figure out root cause.

One wonders, had there been someone else in your place who knows next to nothing about whats goes under the hood of his car. Listening to 12 lakhs, he would immediately start thinking about disposing off the car itself.

[vattyboy]

Never Take your car to LUXURY ASS IN JAIPUR

As I live in Udaipur, Rajasthan and I own A Mercedes Benz CLA. There is only one ASS of Mercedes in Rajasthan i.e. In Jaipur, also present in Jodhpur but it is of a very small scale.
During my initial days of ownership for my 1st service, I came to Jaipur to get my car serviced at MERCEDES T and T Motors Jaipur.

1. Very high price for Routine Service approx 10k high than other dealers. ( They take advantage that they are only 1 dealer in the whole of Rajasthan).

2. In the service center they were also washing their cars like Alto and wagon R which gives a very cheap image to the customer.

3. Inexperienced staff, they did something to my sunroof that it was making noise after service.

4. When their MERCEDES MOBILIO comes to Udaipur for service of some cars, also for some small checks they directly say they charge Rs 10k minimum. I called them for just an obd scan as my car showed some error on MID so they said they will charge 10k oh god!

5. From your experience also it is clear that all LUXURY ASS in Jaipur are sitting with inexperienced staff to make money, nothing else.

6. Now I take my car to Surat Mercedes Ass, where there are 2 dealers of Mercedes and prices are cheap and workmanship is high. I suggest you always take your car to Delhi.

[nareshtrao]

Originally Posted by Turbanator

If that's correct, then absolutely wrong on the dealership and also, the manufacturer should have helped the dealer with steps to find the exact issue step by step, instead of simply suggesting to go with dealership finding i.e a change of the engine.

I will share the link to this thread with someone and update you if I hear back.

Originally Posted by dealer

Update - 9th March 2023
Thanks to bhpian Viraat13 for helping me with this repair. Special thanks also to the folks at Mechanix Automotive, Pune for helping me with the diagnosis process.

Based on the detailed read of the mishap and subsequent happenings you have provided here, there is a strong case to haul both the dealer and manufacturer to the courts and claim damages to compensate for both material and emotional/psychological "loss" apart from investment of time you had to make.

I am hoping you have maintained all the records and the documents in order. If yes, now that you have had this much time invested, please go ahead and muster strength for the last stretch and get on with the legal case. I assure you this will give handsome returns and make up to some extent for the agony you have gone through.

Note / Disclaimer: This is solely and purely my personal opinion and does not reflect the views of any of our members or the TeamBHp portal.