sawda said:
Cant beleive they are dragging this out, terrible, but I would say you have got them by the balls. The photgraphic evidence supports your claim and theor failure to diagnose. This is david vs goliath and were all rooting for david
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That's what it feels like and looks like to me. The Independent suggested that it was BMW's failure to diagnose which caused the final failure. If it had been caught earlier none of this would have happened.
Kerr said:
Not a good situation at all.
When BMW accuse you of modifying the car, they aren't suggesting a JB4(Or similar) just the things listed?
Sounds like all your hopes are with the financial ombudsmen with the way BMW and BMW finance are digging their heels in.
The first accusation was via a phone call where a BMW Representative mentioned coding and engine parameters and kept talking about the stop-start system. I thought she meant re-map. She wasn't very technical so I don't think she actually understood herself.
Then I received that report which listed the four specific items.
This is literally all the information I have, BMW have ignored my request for clarification.
BMW for some reason have really faought this complaint.
NISFAN said:
Do you have the O ring?
Reason I ask is because toroid shaped mouldings often have an inherent weakness in the form of a 'weld line'. A split on the weld line could look like a clean 'cut' to a casual examination by a non expert. An advanced examination would reveal whether the o ring was really cut as they suggest vs a poorly fitted or badly formed o ring.
Even in the case of weld line less forming process, a microscope examination will be able to tell the difference between a cut vs a propagated tear.
Im sure a judge would find it far fetched that someone would deliberately sabotage their own car in such a manner.
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I don't have the o-ring and I've never seen it, only via that report which was originally a PDF and quality wasn't great anyway.
But, if you look really really closely at the cross-section, it's not actually a clean cut at all. about 1/3 from the left there is a clear 'ridge' vertically through the section. And the whole cross section looks curved. It appears to me it was a tear which partway through changes direction. This matches with a slow leak which got worse until it drastically failed. I.e. a small tear, got worse and became a full split.
However, BMW and the Independent both said that with this failure the oil loss and subsequent breakdown would have been instantaneous. I was a good 10-15 miles away from home, in a poor lit country road.
Do BMW imply that the pipe was tampered with, at dusk, with no tools; at the side of the road?
OneTwenty said:
Those coding options are nothing to do with the gearbox failure, but I guess BMW are just trying to imply that if you've made those mods then you could have made mechanical mods also - a very low trick to pull by BMW.
Why do they think somebody would deliberately cut an o ring and damage their own car! 🙁
Within the Finance Agreement there is a clause, which clearly states that if the vehicle is modified, BMW can submit a Default Notice which ends the contract. I.e BMW take the car back, prep it, sell it and charge the difference between the sale price and balance owed (plus costs). I believe BMW are threatening this.
It's thier get out of jail free card I believe.
CynicalRobot said:
Seems pretty clear to me... car leaked after 2 weeks of ownership. Running a brand new gearbox on low oil is going to damage it (well, any gearbox for that matter imo) and BMW's failure to spot the root cause in the first instance has over time carried on and damaged the box. Even if its ever so slightly.
Cant believe they are fighting you over it
That noise in your original post sounds just like my last car after it lost gearbox oil after a pipe burst, i didnt notice and carried on driving the car till eventually a warning came up. Ever since having it fixed there is now always a massive whine in 4th and 5th gear. I dont have that car anymore though and it was a Ford.
Yep, that's my current argument.
BMW say that as the car performs fine now, there is no fault. I'm saying that the gearbox has been compromised (weakened) and it could fail at any given moment; making the car unsafe. I don't want to be on a motorway when a bush decides to **** its pants and the gearbox seizes. Yes, that's dramatic; but possible - and that responsibility is on me.
ZF state the gerabox wll have been damaged by low oil loss. The independent states the same. BMW refuses to comment and repeats the rhetoric that it performs normally (via a 8-mile test drive).
My car has a clear history of leaks from the same area, other gearbox from the same family have a history of leaking from the same area according to other owners. My gearbox whined when the oil was low and whined less when the fluid was topped up (allegedly it no longer whines). It's all obviously related. BMW's failure to identify and rectify has caused this position.