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Have you ever experienced long term BMW ownership?We've had 6 of them and would never own them again out of warranty. Our E46/E90's treated us pretty well into six figure mileage, but our G30 540i and our G05 X5 have been pretty bad outside warranty. I would gladly trade a sagging bumper for any of our recent maladies.
540i : AC Evaporator repair $7000+. whole dash has to be removed, Oil Filter housing leak $2000 - intake manifold that has the water intercooler removed so it's a crap ton of hoses and wires. I DIY a bit but those 2 were too much. Wife's X5 oil pump went out over $2000 to fix. Now BMW put out a TSB that they put the wrong transfer case oil in their 2019 xDrive G series vehicles, normally it's easy to drain/refill the transfer case to prevent another $5000+ repair, but BMW decided to put a transmission supporting crossmember in the way of the fill bolt so you either pay the dealership $500 to change the oil OR you have to buy a $300+ jack adapter so you can hold the transmission up without breaking its plastic oil pan. If you're going to lease and dump I would recommend BMW wholeheartedly, but I'm an old school 48 year old that wants to drive an ICE for the next 10+ years (don't want a hybrid - pretty sure the next IS is going to be hybrid only for the high performance models, look what they did to the RX and LS, can't stand appliance boring electrics and you can't hide that they weigh over 1000lbs more than other cars, also seeing how BMW has absolutely ruined the 5 series with the G60 and the 3 series is next on the chopping block) and after being burned heavily by BMW recently, the IS500 fits the bill.
I've never owned a BMW but I hear you (always been a Lexus/Toyota guy). I know they are notorious for expensive repairs out of warranty. For some reason though the car community says BMW has changed, reliability is good again. Idk how much of that is the B58 alone, but I'm curious as to what they actually mean.
I've never owned a BMW but I hear you (always been a Lexus/Toyota guy). I know they are notorious for expensive repairs out of warranty. For some reason though the car community says BMW has changed, reliability is good again. Idk how much of that is the B58 alone, but I'm curious as to what they actually mean.
The B58 block and turbo along with timing chain has been really good compared to the N55/N54 engines. The bad oil pumps was mostly a 2019 issue as BMW has since switched to the M3 style all metal pump (Not sure why they went plastic in the first place) They also don't get carbon buildup, I've yet to hear any walnut blasting being done on them. There's also a few that have lost their engines due to bad injectors (the injector will stay stuck open and flood the cylinder and cause hydrolock), but it's mostly with people that tuned their cars.
BUT it's the rest of the car which is still a crapshoot like the cooling system, A/C and xDrive system (especially with staggered setup where you can't rotate the tires, xdrive requires that the tires are all within a few mm of wear!)
I've never owned a BMW but I hear you (always been a Lexus/Toyota guy). I know they are notorious for expensive repairs out of warranty. For some reason though the car community says BMW has changed, reliability is good again. Idk how much of that is the B58 alone, but I'm curious as to what they actually mean.
That's what the guy who got banned 3 times from /r/lexus keeps telling us
I got a hold of a drivers side bumper mounting bracket and have a prototype of the bumper support block.
I'll do my best to explain what I think the problem and solution is.
The bumper cover itself has a tab that engages with a clip in the bumper bracket. For whatever reason there is an excess amount of tension on the tab/clip on the IS500 and it keeps pulling itself out of the clip on the bracket.
The TSB attempts to increase the amount of "grab" by bending the bumper support bracket clip closer to the bumper cover tab to "squeeze" it more. The problem is the bumper cover has no support underneath it and since its flexible plastic it just bends out of the way and releases (hence the TSB not working). In my opinion it might actually make it worse since its bending the tab on the bumper cover more which would cause the clip to be less engaged. You can even see in the photo from the TSB how the tab is bent down as if it bent into the unsupported area.
I've designed a small plastic block that slides into the bumper support bracket and will act as a support under the bumper cover tab. This in theory will keep the tab from being able to bend out of the way and release as easily. The upper bumper bracket clip is semi/flexible so it should just be a firmer "snap" to get the bumper in.
The block:
- Snaps in place, no modification needed to bumper or bracket
- Easily removable with no damage to the car
- Bumper is still removable just will take more force to pop it loose (which is a good thing)
- Made from 3D printed ASA which is basically the same material the bracket itself is made of (ABS) so it is temperature resistant and strong.
The question is who wants to give it a try because theory is just theory and it means nothing if it doesn't work. And I don't have an IS500 to test it on
while I just picked up my new IS500 on Thursday, I would pay you for the 3d printed diagram and have it on standby if my car had the problem. But don’t obviously want to mess with it until I do. Nice work! I hope this is a promising solution.
Originally Posted by cyfi66
I got a hold of a drivers side bumper mounting bracket and have a prototype of the bumper support block.
...
The question is who wants to give it a try because theory is just theory and it means nothing if it doesn't work. And I don't have an IS500 to test it on
Last edited by arentz07; 03-30-24 at 06:07 AM.
Reason: editing large quote for ease of scrolling
I got a hold of a drivers side bumper mounting bracket and have a prototype of the bumper support block.
I'll do my best to explain what I think the problem and solution is.
The bumper cover itself has a tab that engages with a clip in the bumper bracket. For whatever reason there is an excess amount of tension on the tab/clip on the IS500 and it keeps pulling itself out of the clip on the bracket.
The TSB attempts to increase the amount of "grab" by bending the bumper support bracket clip closer to the bumper cover tab to "squeeze" it more. The problem is the bumper cover has no support underneath it and since its flexible plastic it just bends out of the way and releases (hence the TSB not working). In my opinion it might actually make it worse since its bending the tab on the bumper cover more which would cause the clip to be less engaged. You can even see in the photo from the TSB how the tab is bent down as if it bent into the unsupported area.
I've designed a small plastic block that slides into the bumper support bracket and will act as a support under the bumper cover tab. This in theory will keep the tab from being able to bend out of the way and release as easily. The upper bumper bracket clip is semi/flexible so it should just be a firmer "snap" to get the bumper in.
The block:
- Snaps in place, no modification needed to bumper or bracket
- Easily removable with no damage to the car
- Bumper is still removable just will take more force to pop it loose (which is a good thing)
- Made from 3D printed ASA which is basically the same material the bracket itself is made of (ABS) so it is temperature resistant and strong.
The question is who wants to give it a try because theory is just theory and it means nothing if it doesn't work. And I don't have an IS500 to test it on
I swear, if a random dude with a 3D printer who doesn’t even have a IS500 manages to fix the problem after Lexus spent months and utterly failed, I really hope they offer you a job position in QC or Engineering and that everyone who worked on this TSB gets fired. I’m not a rocket scientist or an engineer, but the pictures (amazing btw) and explanation all make total sense. Thank you immensely for your contribution. Now to get someone to try it on their car!
Last edited by arentz07; 03-29-24 at 07:42 PM.
Reason: Removed images for better scrolling
Cyfi66...I hope someone will take you up on the offer as like Tipsy said, this seems a lot more well thought out and developed over a few zip tirle, that now we know dont work! You have earned my respect and deserve a major kudos!
Great work Cyfi66! I do not need them, and hope I never do. Just the same, I would by a pair from you for a few reasons. Out of appreciation and respect for your time, research, offering them for free to whom might need them, and in case I did need them down the road.
Cyfi66...same here! I would buy a set from you with no issues just to help support you and recover the time you put into this. You can pm me if willing to do so...
Got someone willing to test it! I'm not making any assumptions I definitely need to see it actually work before I'd offer it to anyone to use. But if it doesn't I can go back to the drawing board until we figure out a fix. Fingers crossed it does because it would be a really cheap and easy fix.
^^ i speak on all of us that we will be eternally grateful if it works and make it available for us to purchase from you. When it comes to getting a fix, i am willing to pay whatever to put this saga behind us
^^ i speak on all of us that we will be eternally grateful if it works and make it available for us to purchase from you. When it comes to getting a fix, i am willing to pay whatever to put this saga behind us
Got someone willing to test it! I'm not making any assumptions I definitely need to see it actually work before I'd offer it to anyone to use. But if it doesn't I can go back to the drawing board until we figure out a fix. Fingers crossed it does because it would be a really cheap and easy fix.