[DaleHeinz]

I'm curious to hear from M240i owners who have had issues/problems thus far under warranty.

Most recently, my 17' M240Xi threw a CEL. (Purchased Feb 17, currently have 20K miles). Contacted the dealer, set an appointment, obtained a loaner, and was called a few hours after dropping it off. Charge temperature sensor, pressure sensor, and a drive train malfunction. They stated the car may have gone into limp mode had I continued to drive it much more. Parts were ordered, from Germany. They said it would take two weeks to get the parts, and then maybe a day or two more to service and repair. All in all, I'm looking at 14-16 days out of service, and will miss taking my new pride and joy on a thanksgiving road trip next week. Second road trip thwarted by needed repairs.

Previously, at around 3K miles, the A/C unit broke. Same deal, appointment, loaner, call back, parts ordered, "fixed", and picked the car up 5 days later. 5 days was because the service tech broke the water pump removing and reinstalling while putting in a new compressor. On the drive home from the dealer, the car was still blowing out warm/hot air under all A/C settings. Called the dealer, voiced my concern, returned the car, picked up another loaner, and called BMWNA. Long story short, they spent another 5 days fixing with the car, all the while working with engineers from BMW in Germany to locate and repair the problem. Issue was resolved with a new A/C coolant pump. A/C was back to ice cold and great ever since.

At around 19K miles, a distracted driver tapped my bumper in slow traffic, scratching the bumper and rear diffuser. His insurance company paid for all repairs and a rental at the BMW dealer/collision center. Upon picking up my car 9 days later (painter scuffed the newly painted bumper and had to respray, denib, and buff again), I noticed condensation in the rear left tail light. Currently working on getting that replaced under warranty as well. I was also informed, part of the delay was that they couldn't get all of the fault codes to clear and reset. There was a laundry list of them (15-20).

Other issues I've noted, but they can't replicate in the shop are the car weirdly making unprompted phone calls to my cell phone that is connected to the Bluetooth (must then delete the phone from memory and re-pair as a new phone), and when closing the trunk, the dash board still shows trunk open, even though I've closed firmly and it's fully latched.

All in all, I'm still a fan of this car. Very fun to drive, comfortable for a little two door, quick, responsive, and is just damn nice to look at when I'm not driving it. However, after this latest issue is resolved, it will have been out of service for around 30 days in the 9 months I've owned it since picking it up with 7 miles on it (most from my test drive). Taking a quick look at Maryland's lemon law, it looks like 30 days out of service in the first two years, and/or 18K miles would qualify it as a lemon. I'm only a few thousand miles over that, but well within the two years that one should have somewhat trouble free ownership of a new car.

Needless to say, with the growing frustration of owing this car, I'm strongly considering what the future may hold with other issues and whether or not I may have gotten one of the bad apples. It's to the point that the girl at the loaner desk knows me by name. Ugh. Anyone had similar problems, or had their car out of service for anything close to this amount of time?

I will be contacting BMWNA again with this latest string of issues, and hope they are receptive to my concerns.

[p912guy]

Sorry to hear about your luck. You can't really count the time out of service due to the bumper tap in your "lemon law" calculation. You've had two warranty issues which took a bit longer to resolve than the typical issue, but the first was successfully resolved and hopefully the second will be too. Most "lemon law" complaints require much more than what you've been through, such as the same issue multiple times with several attempts to fix. Your only actionable items might be the few weird issues you mention which haven't been resolved or are difficult to reproduce. I'd ask the dealer to work on them while they have your car waiting on parts for the CEL issue(s). I've been lucky with only two mild warranty issues neither of which impaired function or both of which took less than a day to fix. Good luck with your issues and in the meantime enjoy your loaner car - on the bright side, you're racking up miles on the loaner instead of your car, and at the rate of 20K miles in less than 9 months, that's not a bad thing.

[DaleHeinz]

Originally Posted by p912guy

Sorry to hear about your luck. You can't really count the time out of service due to the bumper tap in your "lemon law" calculation. You've had two warranty issues which took a bit longer to resolve than the typical issue, but the first was successfully resolved and hopefully the second will be too. Most "lemon law" complaints require much more than what you've been through, such as the same issue multiple times with several attempts to fix. Your only actionable items might be the few weird issues you mention which haven't been resolved or are difficult to reproduce. I'd ask the dealer to work on them while they have your car waiting on parts for the CEL issue(s). I've been lucky with only two mild warranty issues neither of which impaired function or both of which took less than a day to fix. Good luck with your issues and in the meantime enjoy your loaner car - on the bright side, you're racking up miles on the loaner instead of your car, and at the rate of 20K miles in less than 9 months, that's not a bad thing.

Thanks for the response. I'm hoping these issues are not an indicator of looming problems with more parts down the line of long term ownership, but it's a hard feeling to shake. I've never had a car that didn't have some sort of issue/s but this is by far the most and in such short time frame.

I wasn't including the 9 days from the bumper repair, just the two day delay in clearing fault codes that were unrelated to the repair. I am curious though, if the tail light/seal was damaged during the bumper repair process. In my haste to leave the dealership and make it home for dinner, I forgot to keep the list of fault codes that all popped. Hopefully they still have it on record.

There were more than two warranty issues. Maybe "two" instances, but more than two parts, which is how I was looking at it.

1.) A/C compressor (which didn't fully fix the problem, but they tested and said it was faulty)
2.) A/C coolant pump
3.) Trunk Latch (unresolved)
4.) Bluetooth connectivity gremlin (unresolved)
5.) Charge pressure sensor
6.) Pressure sensor
7.) Faulty seal on tail light

Counting weekends that the car was/will be out of service, it tallies up to about 30 days. I know some states lemon laws require it to be failed repairs and multiple attempts to repair the same parts, but Marylands lemon law also had this phrase, which is what prompted my query.

"Any number of problems that substantially impair the use and market value of the vehicle that have caused it to be out of service for a cumulative total of 30 or more days."

I am no lawyer, so my interpretation may be a bit off, but it seems to roughly include my situation in the verbiage. Being over their 18K threshold by 2K miles, I know I don't have a level leg to stand on, but being so close is quite disheartening at the moment. Hoping that no other members/owners have had similar troubles in their first year of ownership and I'll just chalk it up to a few extra bad parts on mine.

[DaleHeinz]

Talked to my service rep today when picking up my new loaner. He advised that they're thinking the last few issues (charge pressure sensor, temperature sensory, and drivetrain malfunction) may be related and/or caused by my Dinan Stage 1 tune. Looks like it's going to be a Dinan warranty vs. BMW warranty issue, which will cause further delay while they evaluate what happened.

They have been pretty accommodating through this whole process, which is reassuring. They even gave me a new '17 X6 35Xi to take on my thanksgiving road trip to Ohio. As nice and plush as the X6 is, I still really miss my M240. Such a pleasure to drive everyday.

[Rockstar1487]

Sorry to hear all this man. Good luck with the repairs and the warranty sort out. Ive had mine since mid july and have around 5k miles and haven't had any issues yet that required me to go into the dealer for warranty.

[USA-RET]

Honestly sounds like your car has the earmarks of a "Lemon". May not meet the legal definition of "lemon", but rather the colloquial term we used "way back when". Don't know why or how come, but some cars seem to have a series of problems, related or unrelated, while others are completely trouble free.

I would let the car be repaired and use their loaner for the time yours is in the shop. If you continue to have issues, I would seriously consider trading it.

In the meantime, no harm in contacting a "lemon law" attorney" and see if you have a case. Most will do a free (or low cost) consult and go forward if they think they can win.

Just be thankful you are under warranty.

[DaleHeinz]

Originally Posted by USA-RET

Honestly sounds like your car has the earmarks of a "Lemon". May not meet the legal definition of "lemon", but rather the colloquial term we used "way back when". Don't know why or how come, but some cars seem to have a series of problems, related or unrelated, while others are completely trouble free.

I would let the car be repaired and use their loaner for the time yours is in the shop. If you continue to have issues, I would seriously consider trading it.

In the meantime, no harm in contacting a "lemon law" attorney" and see if you have a case. Most will do a free (or low cost) consult and go forward if they think they can win.

Just be thankful you are under warranty.

Sound advice. After the last few weeks, I'm going to be making a few calls.

Parts were replaced and Dealer gave her back to me this past Saturday when I returned from
My thanksgiving road trip (in their X6). Car felt great. Over the past few days I ran her around town in all modes, nothing too crazy, but had some fun. Then, last night, I fired her up to head out to dinner with friends and she popped another CEL. Had to disable Dinan and reset the car with a battery disconnect. Eventually the CEL went off. Today, she seemed ok even when I switched the Dinan back on, but had to give her back to the Dealer to figure this out again. Ugh. Hoping the Dinan isn't the main issue, but if it is, I'm sure they'll do their part to make it right.

This is going to enter month 2 of loaner car time. If it does prove to be Dinan, it would ease my lemon argument, which would be a bit more comforting on that front.

[Maynard]

I'd count yourself lucky that they aren't just punting this into Dinan's lap and leaving you in true limbo. Does sound like a potential 'lemon' but probably not one you'll litigate out of - If you have more problems I'd try to work on dealer sympathy and get a REAL good price on a quick trade in. I'd repeatedly mention the number of days it's been down, w/o saying 'lemon law' - they'll know about the 30-day clause as well as you do. They will likely want this to go away quietly, but once you suggest litigation they will probably have to clam up and hand it to their legal dept (and then you are screwed, unless you are a retired lawyer looking for a nice long project).

[Ron Jeffries]

Have you backed out the Dinan changes and had it happen? If not, I'd apply the old "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy.

[EEBreh]

I think it might be difficult to have it replaced as a lemon due to the Dinan tune. I could be wrong, though. Regardless, best of luck!

[stevenvillatoro]

Lemon laws sound great on paper, but fall way short in practice. Unless there is an established precedent for a well-known defect, good luck trying to sell any worthy attorney on a private (not class action) lemon law case. The "discovery" phase/process is very costly for a Plaintiff, and the highly-prepared OEM attorneys will make the challenge exorbitantly costly and complex to fight.

The more polished the OEM marque, the more wily their attorneys.

[DaleHeinz]

Originally Posted by Ron Jeffries

Have you backed out the Dinan changes and had it happen? If not, I'd apply the old "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy.

Haven't had the balls to keep driving it much after the CEL. Battery reset and turning the Dinan off cleared the CEL before, but still resulted in needing a new charge pressure sensor and temp sensor. Being this is my daily, I didn't want to risk another drivetrain malfunction and possible limp mode.

As far as the lemon law argument, I'm over the mileage limit for Maryland's law, so I know I can't pursue that route, but in all reality, it starting to feel like a lemon. My best bet is to figure out the cause of the issue (Dinan or BMW faulty parts) and work the dealer or BMWNA towards a good faith buy back.

Even after all of this, I'm still in love with the brand, but every time I have to pick up , drive and detail a cruddy loaner car (I'm OCD) I really consider going back to my Japanese commuter cars.

I shouldn't have the slightest reservation about taking a new car on a road trip, but just prior to both times this year, she's had debilitating issues. With the threat of limp mode and another drive train malfunction, I'm just glad it didn't happen on the snowy mountain roads going through PA over thanksgiving.

If they would pay off my loan and set me back up with a 2018 240, I'd say yes in a heart beat. It's still the car for me, just not this particular example I guess.

[USA-RET]

So you didn't say whether you have the Sport or Elite Dinan. I'm guessing you have the Sport.

There have been reports of the Sport throwing CEL on the M240i. Elite doens't seem to have any issues (thankfully since I have the Stage 1 Elite).

I'd contact Dinan as they will stand by their products and likely ask you to send yours in for testing and replacement.

In the interim, Run the car w/o the tuner and see if you have any issues.

Granted, the Dinan isn't the cause of all your problems, but could be the CEL culprit.

As a side note, your car is still relatively new. If you are OCD (as I am), you should consider a trade. I traded my low mileage C7 because I didn't like the way the automatic transmission operated. I just didn't enjoy driving the car anymore because of it. I got a fair trade for it as it was like new and am glad to be rid of it. To someone else, they would probably think the C7 automatic was fine and love the car. So Win-Win.

[DaleHeinz]

Originally Posted by USA-RET

So you didn't say whether you have the Sport or Elite Dinan. I'm guessing you have the Sport.

There have been reports of the Sport throwing CEL on the M240i. Elite doens't seem to have any issues (thankfully since I have the Stage 1 Elite).

I'd contact Dinan as they will stand by their products and likely ask you to send yours in for testing and replacement.

In the interim, Run the car w/o the tuner and see if you have any issues.

Granted, the Dinan isn't the cause of all your problems, but could be the CEL culprit.

As a side note, your car is still relatively new. If you are OCD (as I am), you should consider a trade. I traded my low mileage C7 because I didn't like the way the automatic transmission operated. I just didn't enjoy driving the car anymore because of it. I got a fair trade for it as it was like new and am glad to be rid of it. To someone else, they would probably think the C7 automatic was fine and love the car. So Win-Win.

I have the Stage 1 Elite.

Just got the car back today. Long story short, BMW techs found the stage 1 elite to be faulty and causing the CEL and malfunction of the temp sensor and charge pressure sensor. All 3 things have been replaced and dealer is working with Dinan over the warranty issue for me.

It definitely calms my fears over the "lemon" issue knowing the Dinan was the issue and not that I got a bad apple off the line. Time will tell I guess.

I don't track the car, run it insanely hard, or even run it "hard." Most I've done so far is rip down a few short empty roads and give her the beans on some freeway on ramps. That was enough to bring out the issue in my particular Stage 1 Elite. I still think it's a great product, but looks like the one I got wasn't operating as it was designed.

Hopefully the problem is solved from here on.

[Dylan86]

OP, glad to hear things moving along. These stories always hit home, for me. I've been through it, and it sucks!

[DaleHeinz]

Well, last night the CEL came back. This is after a new set of sensors and a new Dinan Stage 1 Elite.

Haven't even had the car back for much more than a week. Think it's time to start thinking about getting a different one. Hopefully dealer or BMWNA is sympathetic.

[Dylan86]

Originally Posted by DaleHeinz

Well, last night the CEL came back. This is after a new set of sensors and a new Dinan Stage 1 Elite.

Haven't even had the car back for much more than a week. Think it's time to start thinking about getting a different one. Hopefully dealer or BMWNA is sympathetic.

So at this point, is your car "flagged" as being tuned, with BMW? Given the fact that the dealer has had your car, plugged in for diagnostics.. Either way, I'd ditch the tuner box for now, maybe flash tune it down the road once things are ironed out with the future B58/flash tuning? Just seems like a lot of headache for a slight bump in power. These cars are plenty powerful, stock. I drove the crap out of my car for a full year, stock, before doing any engine mods. Really helped my gain an idea of the strengths and weaknesses with the chassis/brakes, ones that I'll be addressing in the near future now

[DaleHeinz]

Originally Posted by Dylan86

So at this point, is your car "flagged" as being tuned, with BMW? Given the fact that the dealer has had your car, plugged in for diagnostics.. Either way, I'd ditch the tuner box for now, maybe flash tune it down the road once things are ironed out with the future B58/flash tuning? Just seems like a lot of headache for a slight bump in power. These cars are plenty powerful, stock. I drove the crap out of my car for a full year, stock, before doing any engine mods. Really helped my gain an idea of the strengths and weaknesses with the chassis/brakes, ones that I'll be addressing in the near future now

"Flagged?" Not sure what you mean by this. Bmw dealer recommended and installed the tuner, so they are well aware of it.

[Dylan86]

Originally Posted by DaleHeinz

"Flagged?" Not sure what you mean by this. Bmw dealer recommended and installed the tuner, so they are well aware of it.

"Flagged", yes. The Dealer has no control of this, they can only decide to support you, themselves, in the event of something happening as a result of a tuner/flash. BMW, from a corporate level, can flag your VIN and void your powertrain warranty. They can refuse to repair issues that are directly related to increasing the factory boost levels, etc. While it is a rare event, people have thrown connecting rods, dropped valves, etc. And have had to pay for their repairs out of pocket, due to the modifications they made to the vehicle.

In most cases, like yours, if you're dealing with a mod-friendly dealership, you should have very little to be worried about.

[pikcachu]

Originally Posted by Dylan86

"Flagged", yes. The Dealer has no control of this, they can only decide to support you, themselves, in the event of something happening as a result of a tuner/flash. BMW, from a corporate level, can flag your VIN and void your powertrain warranty. They can refuse to repair issues that are directly related to increasing the factory boost levels, etc. While it is a rare event, people have thrown connecting rods, dropped valves, etc. And have had to pay for their repairs out of pocket, due to the modifications they made to the vehicle.

In most cases, like yours, if you're dealing with a mod-friendly dealership, you should have very little to be worried about.

I think he means the BMW dealer is also a Dinan dealer... so either way they are paying no matter what...

[morphomeman]

I don't understand. The car is not stock. It has a Dinan tune. Why blame BMW for something that is as likely as not due to the tune.
I see this cropping up time and again. Someone has a problem with a tuned car and immediately jumps on the manufacturer of the car.
There is a reason for calling these things mods. They are modifications to to original. BMW spends billions designing and testing these cars, as do all manufacturers. Dinan does not have billions. Which company is likely the culprit?

[USA-RET]

I'd go back to the dealership and have them run the codes being thrown. Spit-ballin' here, but it is either something w/ the car's ECU or sensors, or the Dinan. Either way it will be resolved at no expense to you.

Couple of things to consider:

You were unlucky to get two defective Dinan modules, or you have other issues going on w/ your car that are unrelated to the Dinan Tune.

There is a third possibility also:

Odd cases where a specific car may never work properly w/ a tuner that works well on every other car. It is rare, but it does happen. A car is assembled w/ various parts and electronics that operate just within the range of functionality when assembled and tested, but upon delivery and real world operation odd things start to occur for no apparent reason.

Meaning any slight deviation in what's being reported to the car's ECU one way or the other causes issues to pop up (CEL's and the like).

The term most used w/ cars like this are "Lemons". One thing is fixed and something else pops up. I had a vehicle like this and issues never got resolved.

I would first see what the dealer discovers. If it is something obvious, get it fixed and drive on. If it's a "phantom", then I would suggest having the dealer remove the Dinan and drive the car as stock for a period to see if something else pops up. If the car runs and functions as advertised (no faults/codes or CEL's)...then decide if you want to keep the car stock and drive it, try the Dinan tune again and see if it throws codes again, or trade it for one that will operate w/ the Dinan Elite tune.

Being OCD myself, I know I could not live with and be happy w/ a car that didn't meet my expectations.