[KesS1000rr]

Long story short, BMW is trying to deny warranty claim on my motor repair. Car has 16,000 miles. They're saying I over revved and that is not covered. Does anyone have an attorney who handles these cases in the NYC/NJ area? Not going to get into details, but I will keep you guys up to date.


UPDATE: I took the combined advice from a few of you. The dealership where I took my car got in contact with BMWNA who sent an engineer to take a look at the car. He collected some information from the DME and my engine warranty was immediately voided. I got in touch with an attorney who basically said this was a hit or miss case, and that he couldn't guarantee BMWNA would pay for an over revved engine. The only thing he could guarantee was me paying him regardless of the outcome, lol. I then spent the next couple of weeks in contact with BMWNA who wouldn't budge on their decision, so in the mean time I purchased the motor posted by @bmwgenius and began my search for an indy shop to swap the motor. A few of these indy shops urged me not give up so easily, but BMWNA was adamant about not paying for a new engine and labor. After going back and forth with them, I ended up towing my car to Eurotech Motorsports in Mahwah, NJ and had them swap the motor (chose them because they're the ones who service my S4 and they do great work!). I'm still in the process of breaking in the engine, as it had less than 100 miles when I purchased it, so I haven't done any WOT pulls to know if she's happy with her new engine.

For the ones who care to know how engine over revved, I changed gears WAY too quickly while gearing down and possibly went into the wrong gear. I'm not too certain...

Thanks to everyone for the advice.

[overcoil]

Contact/Google Steve Lehto on the Jalopnik web site.

[Cyberdemon]

Without recommending a lawyer, just for background the car ECU tracks the max rev's and if it is a manual transmission that was possibly money shifted at some point (even if it wasn't you, and even if it wasn't when the engine finally gave out) the ECU will show that information which is more than likely the reason they will deny the claim.

Legally, that data effectively screws you out of any say so you would have in court. A lawyer is simply going to cost you time, money, and not only that the dealer (and possibly BMW) will have no desire to ever deal with you again.

As my wife says "You get more bees with honey". Consider explaining the circumstances to BMWUSA if you feel you are in the right and see what they can do.

Beyond that, you may be able to locate an engine from a salvage vehicle and pay an independent shop to do the replacement. Would likely be cheaper than tearing the motor down and rebuilding it part by part.

Sucks to hear, my friend Moneyshifted in college and it was not fun...

[KesS1000rr]

Originally Posted by ScottSinger

Contact/Google Steve Lehto on the Jalopnik web site.

Thanks, Scott!

[delvec03]

how does one over rev? I thought there was a fuel cut off to protect the engine?

[Pparana]

You can't over rev a automatic, yes there is a feel cutoff. You over rev when you miss a downshift or downshift too fast on a road course. I.e. You mean to shift from 3rd to 4th but end up in second causing the engine to spin via the energy from the drivetrain past it's designed rpm. Or on a road course you may shift into gear after braking at too high a speed, causing the engine rpm to spike.

In my 911 days you could pull the over rev report with a tool, they had it split into 6 zones and would record over revs in ignitions, zones 1,2,3 were minor a few hundred rpm, past that they would care for warranty. So if you have zone 4 and 5 and the engine grenades within 50 operating hours well sorry that's your bill.

Really there is no way to warranty an overrev, it's basically operater error or an accident, your running the engine out of spec. You would not expect bmw to align your car and replace the bumper after you drove it over curbs. Same principle. It sucks but accidents happen.

If I were the op I would go used or new engine, would not bother rebuilding an overreved engine

[BEM-S4]

Could be worse, or at least more expensive. Had a friend do this to a GT2 at the track, with under 2k miles on it.

[Pparana]

Originally Posted by BEM-S4

Could be worse, or at least more expensive. Had a friend do this to a GT2 at the track, with under 2k miles on it.

Nothing like the sound of 40-50k vaporizing. Seriously there is this one guy who came out and blew the motor on a 911 rsr, 3 months later after having a new engine put in, full track support team and the engine builder at the track, he blew it up again at the exact same spot. Some people should consider automatics.

[MrBucket]

Originally Posted by Pparana

Nothing like the sound of 40-50k vaporizing. Seriously there is this one guy who came out and blew the motor on a 911 rsr, 3 months later after having a new engine put in, full track support team and the engine builder at the track, he blew it up again at the exact same spot. Some people should consider automatics.

Could be an oiling problem if it happened at the same spot on the track. Could also be the driver just not being able to shift well at that particular spot, but it doesn't have to be any kind of driver error.

[doccyber]

Pardon my ignorance, but what actually happens to an over revved engine?

[MrBucket]

Originally Posted by doccyber

Pardon my ignorance, but what actually happens to an over revved engine?

Couple of different things, but one bad one would be the valve cant close in time and the piston comes up and hits it. Now that could just kiss the piston and not really do too much, or it could break the valve and drop it into the cylinder and destroy it.

[tbonez3858]

I feel like I read a post daily on and auto forum that BMW is failing to cover a major repair...It seems BMWs reply is always users fault.

Outside of a blown downshift I dont know how you "over rev" an engine.

[shark715]

Originally Posted by tbonez3858

I feel like I read a post daily on and auto forum that BMW is failing to cover a major repair...It seems BMWs reply is always users fault.

Outside of a blown downshift I dont know how you "over rev" an engine.

I can tell you that when BMW first came out with the Mini Countryman in 2010 lots of owners of the AWD model needed clutch replacements within a short period of time. Rather than acknowledge the design problem, many owners were told that the repairs were not covered under the warranty as it was "user error", and many of those owners were incensed by their response given that they had been driving manual shift cars for decades with no problems. Two years later BMW quietly replaced the clutch with a new design.

[Cyberdemon]

Originally Posted by doccyber

Pardon my ignorance, but what actually happens to an over revved engine?

When the engine gets over-revved the entire mechanical assembly is subject to forces beyond it's design. Usually this results primarily from valve damage (valves are pushed back into place by a spring, when they are moving so fast they "float" because the spring can't push them back fast enough they will hit the piston damaging the piston head, valves, and cam), but the inertial forces will also usually trash or stress the connecting rods, bearings, and in extreme cases a snapped rod will explode and shoot straight out of the engine block.

With the invention of computers, it became very easy to track when an engine over-revved, so that when a customer comes in with an inexplicable ticking noise they can tell that the engine has been over revved. Sometimes this can be blamed on a poorly designed shift linkage which makes it hard to tell certain gear locations and it becomes more common in certain designs of MT.

At the end of the day you have to decide if people who repair cars for a living are actually in the wrong in their assessment, or if it was a costly mistake that you have to live with - because the legal fight to try and prove the "Experts" wrong will likely cost more time and money than the replacement of an engine.

[BEM-S4]

Completely unrelated to anything we are discussing here, but most insurance companies consider a car a total loss if it's submerged in water a la Joel playing u-boat commander in Risky Business

[shark715]

Originally Posted by Cyberdemon

At the end of the day you have to decide if people who repair cars for a living are actually in the wrong in their assessment, or if it was a costly mistake that you have to live with - because the legal fight to try and prove the "Experts" wrong will likely cost more time and money than the replacement of an engine.

There's also another possibility...that the dealer is claiming they have evidence, when they really don't. The dealer is going to make far more profit making the repair at your expense versus what they would making the repair under warranty, and that fact could be introduced as evidence in court, thereby creating doubt. You never know what might happen if you have a sympathetic judge, including the possibility of the judge ordering BMW to pay your legal fees.

As others have pointed out, there's substantial risk that you could be throwing away needless legal fees. No doubt part of your decision is whether or not you believe you abused the engine. My guess is you likely have some idea of the answer to that.

And don't forget that BMW has the same situation with legal fees, and their potential costs are almost certainly much higher than yours. If they see you are not going to back down, the case might have "settlement value" to them.

[Zooks527]

Everyone is sitting here assuming the OP has a manual transmission, which I don't think has been confirmed.

If, yes, it is a manual, sure, the engine could have been overreved easily.

However, if the OP has an automatic, I don't believe there's any way to overrev it short of a failure in the ECU. In that case, I would be screaming BS to the dealership and escalating to BMWNA fairly quickly.

[Squddie]

More information is needed. I can't tell whether BMW failed to give it to you and you fail to give it to us.

Did BMW say that they found the overrevs in the ECU (or do they just say "it's broken so it must be overrev")?

What is the damage, specifically?

Is your car a manual in the first place?

[Cyberdemon]

If it is an automatic, then I would not worry about suing, I would worry about finding a mentally competent dealer. Over-rev's on an automatic are not a thing.

BMW USA should be deciding whether or not it is reimbursable under warranty, not the dealer. If the dealer presented them with evidence (like an over-rev code) then it's a fairly easy one.

If the OP wants to share more details that's fine, but judging by the "long story short" synopsis, he doesn't (and probably shouldn't if he's considering making a case out of this). Based on that I have to go by the general assumption that more than likely his car was over-rev'ed at some point, and whether or not it was his fault, a valets, the dealers, etc - that one is going to be tricky to disprove.

If it's possible that the dealer took your car out for a joyride/lunch run and missed a shift, blew your engine and then tried to blame you when you brought it in for an oil change - then by all means sue away.

[Cyberdemon]

Originally Posted by shark715

There's also another possibility...that the dealer is claiming they have evidence, when they really don't. The dealer is going to make far more profit making the repair at your expense versus what they would making the repair under warranty, and that fact could be introduced as evidence in court, thereby creating doubt. You never know what might happen if you have a sympathetic judge, including the possibility of the judge ordering BMW to pay your legal fees.

As others have pointed out, there's substantial risk that you could be throwing away needless legal fees. No doubt part of your decision is whether or not you believe you abused the engine. My guess is you likely have some idea of the answer to that.

And don't forget that BMW has the same situation with legal fees, and their potential costs are almost certainly much higher than yours. If they see you are not going to back down, the case might have "settlement value" to them.

That episode seems less likely - if dealers want to make money, they'll convince you to get a Nitrogen fill, alignment, or replace your air filter. Opening themselves up to replacing an entire engine based on pure lies is not terribly logical even from a scumbags perspective.

If the OP legitimately thought that was the case, he should be able to pull the engine code with a scanner, or take the car to an independent shop or second dealer for another opinion. My assumption is that those logical steps were or would have been taken if they were options.

Again, without the proper information this is just spitting assumptions at a wall. I know many people (including folks on the forums) who have damaged their cars due to their own fault, negligence, modifications, then tried to clear the codes, remove the mods, and take it in for a warranty claim, then get all pissy when the dealer says it's been denied based on their evidence (of fixing cars every day). So with that in mind I enter all of these conversations with a fair deal of empathy for the dealers side.

[aerostar]

So did you over rev?

[mike@x-ph.com]

Originally Posted by aerostar

So did you over rev?

Thats exactly what im thinking, everyone assumed that he overreved although he never gave any details on what he think caused the failure