It's fallen to page 16 of the Latest Questions. The list is sorted by last post date and the last post was on 8/20/14 at 13:05pm.
Closed question "Answer" disappeared
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This is funny.
It was on the first page of the latest fixes and now it's on page 16 of latest questions.... LOL
Thanks for finding it Nick.
I knew it wasn't the beer and I definitely didn't light up something...LOLComment
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Somehow that thread "lost" the post I made an hour or two ago.
It seemed kind of strange that it was at the top of the first page in latest FIXES....
Probably due to the roll back....
No harm, no foul....
Thanks Nick
Bob, I'd be interested to find out if you actually came to some sort of conclusion or resolution to the cold start code set.Comment
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One thing thing that amazes me is the fact that this vehicle had gone this long (2001 - 2014) without being re-programmed. There was indeed a TSB, but no re-call. I imagine that a customer could have got it fixed under the 8yr-80,000 federal emissions mandated warranty, but without a recall, how many BMW dealers actually did that for thier customers under warranty?
I'll bet a lot of customers brought thier cars back for the false code and got a lot of parts put on that were not under warranty ? I think most techs look at that code and throw an O2 sensor on, customer pay, and when that doesn't fix it, charge them for the re-programming? Who knows. Not all dealers would do that and I'll bet those customers that aren't so passive argue and get the repair for free.
But having said all that, I wonder why, or if, that code is only allowed to mature, after a certain amount of miles due to faulty programming software?
Did the light come on early in the vehicles life? Did the customer trade it in due to a high estimate and get new BMW JUNK? Was the vehicle sent to auction? Did some wanna be BMW "elite" second owner buy it and ignore the MIL, like they usually do in these parts?
I can tell you this, many a shop put parts on this car and sent it away unfixed, the evidence was everywhere. The customer couldn't tell me much because he couldn't speak English, but through an interpretor, told me he bought it from his boss because he couldn't get it through WEPA emissions testing.
Who knows? Thank goodness his car is gone!
Bob
Last edited by Bob's Garage; 09-10-2014, 08:43 PM.Comment
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Well, YES, thank goodness the car is gone-!! LOL
Faulty Software-?? Naaaaaw....COULDN'T be..... those vehicles are SO SUPERIOR that they need CONSTANT reprogramming.....which can only be done thru their proprietary scan tool which after all is also so superior.....pulling the information from the website that undoubtedly only passes along ALL the information they have IF you have THEIR scan tool.....
The other shops probably ran up against some brick walls, got frustrated and then lost their pride of workmanship. I can understand that but I can't condone it.
As for ignoring the MIL light, it's not just in your neck of the woods-!! That's not exclusive to any make of vehicle either.
As Masterwrench pointed out, he hopes the vehicle purchasers become aware of their "tactics" which are questionable for ethical and moral reasons. Much the same as Mr Toyota getting caught hiding known issues.
Ya, they ALL do it, just how much do they do it.
Some companies practice voluntary recalls for known issues without the NHTSA having to force the manufacturer to perform a recall.
Known errors and omissions shouldn't be released in the first place and the companies should fix their known errors without prompting or anyone having to force the company to make it right. (I hope SO gets the hint)
In this particular forum it looks like poor Nick is working his tail off to fix things-!!!
Thanks Nick.
Thanks for the reply Bob.Comment
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BMW Broke My Wallet
By the time the new car warranty is over and the free maintanence expires, the beginning of the end is near. The BMW dealers will take these cars in, make a laundry list of what it needs and use that as a sales tool. More new BMWs are sold by the service departments than by salesmen.
And, they have in my experience overpriced the repairs to keep the techs and parts departments happy. I know of a local shop owner who has a lot of German car customers. They are from eastern Europe mostly. Rather than do any legwork, he instructs his customers to go to the big local "most Euro cars" dealer and has them bring thier cars in for check engine lights and such. They get the estimate, tell the dealer they'll think about it. As planned, this shop owner underbids them and makes great money on the repairs. He tells me it's almost foolproof, but I have some doubts...
Sorry about the rant.
Unfortunately the 2nd and 3rd owners of these cars are the ones who "pay the price". The first owners? Prestige at any cost... By the time the car needs its first set of tires, its time for a trade in. Thats the way they train thier customers.
By the way, it's not the customers that are the problem here, they could care less that indepenent shops fear thier cars due to lack of information. That's the way BMW wants it !
I digress, I went way farther with this than I wanted to. Plus, I know some BMW owners, good people. One jokes with me, "BMW"means: Bring Money With, Broke My Wallet, damn Bavarian Manure Wagon...
Nick, if your reading this, sorry to take up your space here, we started going off a bit.
Last edited by Bob's Garage; 09-14-2014, 05:12 AM.Comment
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I think it will come full circle to the point that everyone knows that a BMW is a bic-lighter car "by the time it needs a new set of tires" and is worthless due to the fact that it needs more in repairs and underperformed maintenance than the vehicle is worth.
When they get the reputation that the second owner will have to re-mortgage the house, how many will they sell then-??
When they get the reputation that any shop other than the dealers tells them to go away because the vehicles aren't worth the headache, how many will they sell then-??
There isn't any reason to "fear" them. Just pass on them. There aren't that many of them on the road to affect anyone's bottom line except the specialty shops that cater to the small demographic of used BMW owners.
Once that happens the trade-in value is nothing. Even the dealers will have to adjust that trade-in value because they won't be able to GIVE them away at auction. Now the 80-K and 100-K vehicle that depreciates that much that quickly and even the new car buyers won't play because they won't take that kind of bath.Comment
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open question
Sorry about the rant, I sure hope you don't own a Beamer!
Anyhow, is is safe to "re-close" the question? Is the closing post somewhere in your servers?
As you may know I also have another open question on a Jag, one that I had closed about a year ago, in fact, I thought I tried a second timeafter I got a reminder and just gave up when it didn't show up.
Thanks, BobComment
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Yes, you should now be able to close the question normally. Unfortunately, the "What fixed the car" part you typed in previously is lost.
They applied a patch last week to fix the closing problem but I wanted to wait a couple days to make sure it was working before asking people to try it again. I didn't want to waste your time any more than we already have.
I will give you a warning and ask for feedback. When you close your question, it may bring you back to the screen showing the Close Question button again. If you wait about 30 seconds and then refresh/reload the page, it should show it closed with your solution shown.
Please let me know if you have a situation where it just isn't doing it. If you need to write a long fix, you may want to type it in Notepad or something and then cut and paste it into the box. This way if it fails, you won't have to type it over again. I'm pretty confident that it's working properly now just by observing people closing their questions on their own.
Thanks, Nick.SureTrack Community Administrator, Diagnostics forum Administrator.Comment
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