So, I have been trying to write this in a way that does not come off as a hit-piece for a while now.
I am being as charitable as I can, knowing HQ has a problem with dealer QC/QA, Service Advisors rely on the workshop to report accurately and dealers have a problem with Motorplan wanting to cut every corner possible while clients ask simply for a job to be done properly.
What I hope this does is get you to check and double check work yourself, especially motorplan work. You must also interrogate cars you are keen to buy thoroughly even if they have full dealership histories.
A few weeks ago, I began picking up some 'hesitation' under load. It became more noticeable until I decided to read the cylinder rough running values. While not knocking or throwing any error codes, the values were indeed out of kilter, pointing to an aging coil pack and/or plug. It was almost more frustrating
not having a drivetrain malfunction yet, but just knowing something wasn't right. Interestingly, ISTA+ showed nothing (other than the dumb LIN bus error for the B&W rear speaker LED), but MMS did find stored knock counts from his scan tool. Of course, it wasn't enough to trigger a drivetrain malfunction code, but it was enough that I could physically feel it.
BMW's software apparently tends to suppress minor anomalies to prevent unnecessary warranty claims. Make of this what you will. My ISTA+ was registering the rough running in the live data but with no errors in DME1 or 2. If the DME registers erratic behavior that it deems 'slight', it keeps it quiet in the background. Even you as an owner may not notice immediately or at low speeds and loads.
The ability to spot 'missing horses' or odd behaviour has been the reason (for ages now), that I have offered to look at these cars for fellow fanatics, because they make intoxicating amounts of power even when they are not at 100% and dealers/sellers know they can write off all sorts of noises and sounds as 'normal' because they don't sound quite like other V8s.
First Coil Packs
Just visually, the coil packs looked quite old from the top. During my time owning this car, BMW has changed plugs as a condition based service, as well as coil packs on a whole bank (at least one) late last year (This is what the advisor had claimed anyway). I remember reading the very neat handwriting stating what had been done.
This was one of the items I specifically asked about as well, because as you know (and because I have it all documented in this thread) the coolant bottle was a repeat job and BMWs guidance was fairly clear on what to do as part of the recall. I am fairly sure during all the shenanigans of injectors and coolant expansion bottles, that BMW did at some point indeed claim to change a bank of coils.
Next plugs:
However, even if I had mis-remembered this, BMW did DEFINITELY do plugs. Whether it was 5 or 10 or 20000km ago, the plugs should simply (IMHO) not look like these pictures... You be the judge from the pics.
Whatever the case, it is clear that they essentially just cleaned the old coils up after the coolant bottles, swapped them around and didn't end up changing them. This was despite me asking a very specific question about it at the time as well (and by now everyone surely knows I'd have been willing to pay cash to have them changed while they were in there if motorplan was not wanting to do so). I feel that they knew they could just brush aside this bit to shut up an armchair/youtube-mechanic customer.
This remains a flaw in the motorplan process in that you do not get to see the parts removed from your vehicle let alone having them returned to you. I already had one prior experience where my F10 M5 had a spark plug change at a different dealer, that only happened on paper (again at a dealer that I thought I had quite a good relationship with!). I would imagine they hope for the best if the car has no misfires at the time and just claim from motorplan down the line if it develops misfires?
Fixing this
Anyway that's life, so apart from second guessing my sanity, trying to find reasons for what might have gone wrong and dealing with the loss of the last bit of trust I had in BMW workshops... onwards I went to a safe pair of hands to get what is ultimately a relatively simple job done.
So just over R13K later we have:
Dinan Coils from VAG Motorsport
The Deago special price on the plugs
Clint's magic touch
I did price the coils and plugs at BMW and while they were not badly priced at around R1200/unit, the challenge is that it is a lucky packet in terms of what brand of coil you get for the S63/N63 platform (Bremi, Bosch or Delphi). Not wanting to waste my time I just bought 8 Dinan coil packs and 8 brand new plugs from Deago.
The Dinan packs are very well made, come with pre-applied dielectric grease at the tips and are available (apparently usually in stock) at VAG Motorsport in Kya Sands. Being BMW approved in the US (though not in SA) also gave me peace of mind to go this route.
I had initially wanted to (still) use BMW to fit the coil packs and plugs but they (wait for it) won't fit non-OE parts in case something 'goes wrong'
. They will also not fit parts that you source yourself from Goldwagen that are made by Bosch/Delphi etc (the reason I considered this was being able to control what brand was going into the car). Ultimately, it made the Dinans an easy choice.
I honestly don't know how much more 'wrong' things can go compared to hunting for ghost parts that the service advisor claimed were installed and getting roasted plugs and rusty coils back, but anyway... I DO get it. Even if they are technically BMW approved parts in the first-world.
In pics below, you will notice corrosion on the original coils as well as the condition of the plug tips.
This is even worse on Bank 2 which should have been the bank that looked the newest and cleanest! Note that we also pressure tested the car just in case (Metal bottle is loading soon...) and there is no leak on either cooling circuit. For me this makes it worse since these are coils the BMW technician saw pretty much in the condition you see them above, decided not to even suggest changing and then popped back into the car, also knowing the car was coming off plan.
On that note, a pressure test is a must on these cars even after the metal bottle is done. Clint and I were lamenting the design of the cooling system with all the tubes over the hottest bits of the motor. That said, they look to be in generally good condition at the moment. In this case I just didn't want my shiny new Dinan things messed up before I could get the bottle sorted so made double-sure LOL.
The car was back within a few hours, all buttoned up, squeaky clean and working 100% again.
Clint also thoroughly cleaned the bits of the engine that are often hidden away (after the pics above)
As to why things turned out this way? Who knows why? It actually makes no sense to me. I can't even say it's laziness. It's just a situation I've had to now deal with. Ultimately BMW Motorplan (of today) or any warranty for that matter will never maintain a car the way YOU would personally maintain it... Similarly dealership workshops are a sausage factory just getting cars out as quickly as possible so the extra TLC goes out the window.
There've been a few of you that heard this and suggested cabals of folks within a dealership colluding to defraud motorplan of plugs and coils, with a secondary market out there ready and waiting to snap them up. Who would be stupid enough to lose a job in Cyrils economy for this small money? I don't know!
Others have suggested laziness, and I tend to think that this IS a factor, but in this case, by the time you're in there doing the other work that definitely WAS done, this is really a non issue). Of course as mentioned, the sausage factory wants cars to move out ASAP, but these dealers are not short on space and often have dozens of customer cars parked all over the campus awaiting things.
Unfortunately quite a few have shared their own similar types of experiences though... The turnover at dealerships recently (techs and service advisors especially) also doesn't help.
Ultimately I am reminded of Hanlon's Razor:
Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity. There is a great abundance of stupidity by many parties above... probably most notably by BMW HQ who offers this kind of experience while trying to get you to part with an extra R2M to buy a worse car than the one you currently have... or perhaps I am just very unreasonable in my expectations?
