Lost a coil yesterday...in an 04!

[Krafty04]

I'll try to keep this short....

04 325i, 11,000 miles.

Don't know how, but blew a coil yesterday... car started shuttering, vibrating, running like crap. Got home, turned off, then restarted... no problems.. hmmm..
Went for a test drive, drove okay, got on it... bam. engine was vibrating like crazy and engine light came on..

Off to the dealer this a.m., blew a coil, replaced and ops check good. The reason I'm posting is to let everyone know.. per the service rep.. dealerships have been getting a LOT of coils going bad. They are ordering Bosh instead of whatever brand is in there (might say BMW, don't mean much on the outside). I guess Bosch just got the contract, so everything is backordered. He put me down for new coils all the way around when they come in.

Very nice upgrade, can't wait, cross one more thing off the list.

OH BY THE WAY...

don't buy any used Volvo S60ts, they wouldn't give me a bimmer cause my license was out of state, so I got to test drive a S60 for a day, with no one in the car.. he he he.

 

[gizzy]

Just had this happen to me last week in my '04 at 20,000 miles. Unfortunatly, they only replaced the bad coil.

 

[jstiebe]

Had to replace one of my coils with about 15,000 on the odo. 2003 325i............

 

[MsB2001]

Same Coil Problem

A couple of days ago, I had the same rattling, and then service engine light come on. The dealer replaced two coils and 6 spark plugs. This is the second time its happened since I purchased the car in 2001. The last time they only replaced the bad ones (I believe was a year ago). Why not replace all of them? I would love to hear more comments or suggestions on this issue.

 

[jrt67ss350]

I want to know why these coils are failing so regularly. Wasn't one of the "advantages" that manufacturers promoted for distributorless electronic individual coils for each cylinder supposed to be increased reliability? Neither I nor my family has ever had a car that had a coil fail on us, electronic or mechanical. I can understand problems like this that span a single production year - engineering and part production/quality problems will pop up here and there and are understandable. However, this problem has been going on for years - why hasn't BMW taken care of it?

 

[codex57]

However, this problem has been going on for years - why hasn't BMW taken care of it?

The same can be said of the E46's window regulators, moonroof clips, etc. BMW doesn't fix any of their problems. They expect us to live with it.

Then you have the E36's water pumps, etc. I'm not that old so my knowledge of bad BMW parts only goes so far, but it seems to me that it's always been that way.

 

[jrt67ss350]

The same can be said of the E46's window regulators, moonroof clips, etc. BMW doesn't fix any of their problems. They expect us to live with it.

Then you have the E36's water pumps, etc. I'm not that old so my knowledge of bad BMW parts only goes so far, but it seems to me that it's always been that way.

At least they fixed the E36 water pump problem with a new, more reliable part. I just think it's interesting that these more recent vehicles have recurrent design-related failures that BMW isn't correcting with updated/redesigned parts. Most other car companies have the decency to correct the reliability problems that develop with their cars during their production cycle - hence the widely held belief that the later years in a car's production cycle are the more reliable ones "since all the bugs have been worked out." I don't think that line of thinking applies to BMW anymore.

 

[MrElussive]

A couple of days ago, I had the same rattling, and then service engine light come on. The dealer replaced two coils and 6 spark plugs. This is the second time its happened since I purchased the car in 2001. The last time they only replaced the bad ones (I believe was a year ago). Why not replace all of them? I would love to hear more comments or suggestions on this issue.

As stupid as it seems not to replace all the coils, it is common. VW was having this problem also and they would replace only the bad coil(s) and the owners of their cars basically had to wait for the other coils to fail, one or more at a time and get them replaced. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do because once it's fixed, it's fixed. Replacing the rest of the coils would be more work and more parts, which = more costs that are potentially not necessary.

 

[bmwrocks]

A couple of days ago, I had the same rattling, and then service engine light come on. The dealer replaced two coils and 6 spark plugs. This is the second time its happened since I purchased the car in 2001. The last time they only replaced the bad ones (I believe was a year ago). Why not replace all of them? I would love to hear more comments or suggestions on this issue.

Similarly, my X5 had a problem with the wiring harnesses leading to the front marker lights (turn signals). It would look like the lamps were blown but they weren't; the harness was bad.

Under warranty, when they replaced the left one which failed first, the dealer said "you'll be back soon for the other, but we can't replace it till it goes bad".