Ohhh... boy MY 2008 M3 has the bad valve spring issue

[SHADY1]

Well its been a little while since I been on the post so, I am going to try and keep this on going issue I am having short . My 2008 M3 has 41,000 + miles on it, ahhh... its all Highway miles trust me I get around. I made a few round trips from Central Texas to SoCal, a trip up to NoCal oh and a round trip to Vegas for MFest 4 I get all around Texas as well, until I finally realize I needed another car for a daily driver 40,000 miles later . The M3 is only used for car shows now on the weekends. Ok on with the story, On 16 June I drove my M3 to my job on a military base to pick up something. I was just driving my M3 normal and I stop at a red light, then the light turned green I started driving then all a sudden my M3 started to idle ruff like it wanted shut off and it went into Limp Mode oh $h*t .... WTF.... I pulled into a gas station near by on the base and look for any damage to the engine and what not. All I could picture was a tow truck coming to pick up my M3 and F-up the front of my M3 and Hamann body kit so needless to say, I called up a few friends for advice and I limp my Poor M3 back home it sounded like crap the whole way and it was really loud I have Gintani Race exhaust. The timing for this to happen was really bad because the following week I had to go to Virginia for a Month long military school on 22 June til 23 July. I called up my service rep the following day to set up a appointment to bring the car in and he ask if I wanted to tow it or drive it there.... hmmmm well looks like I will be driving and that drive sucked. I drop the car off on Sat. 19 June and got a loaner to drive back home. I drove my daily driver to Virginia for school. The service rep called me up during the week around 23 June and said my whole right side of my engine stop firing and they are trying to figure out what was wrong. A few days later my service calls me up and says he has some good news and some bad news oohhh boy. The good news is they found out what was wrong the bad news is we are not going to cover it under warranty because they can see I had a few over revs on the vehicle history . The problem we found is that your number 7 cylinder stop firing do you want us to fix it, your looking at $3500.00 right now and we don't know what else we will find when we tear it down. The only thing I could say was Ohhh boy so much for getting a extended warranty I told them to fix it. Few days later I get a call again and my service rep tells me when they tore the engine down they notice the valve spring came off and I was lucky it did no damage to the engine . Because if it did do damage I would have needed a new engine. Later on that day my service rep called me and said he has some good news for me...... they are going to fix my M3 under warranty . On 30 June I get a call from my service rep that my car is done but don't send your wife to pick up the car yet.....!!!! Ahhh... we are Sorry but your passenger side door got damaged it slip off the lift. we can send it to our body shop and have it fixed .... WTF so I called my wife told her, but she was not able to go check out the damage. We live about 70 miles away from the Stealership and my wife works during the week. So I told them to fix it . On Friday 9 July the door is repaired the car is fixed and ready for pick-up, so my wife gets off work early to go pick up my M3. She checks out the door it looks okay. No sooner she drives my M3 off the Stealerships lot ....... onto the street the car goes back into limp mode again . So my wife takes the car back and gets the loaner again. Stay tuned we will see how this all plays out. I am still at a military school in Virginia until 23 July my poor M3 . I also did some research on this post site under: valve springs and I am not the only person that has had a valve spring issue. For you guys out there that have the 2008 model M3 you better keep a eye on it when you get up there in the miles. I just found out the hard way that I have the same exact issue This guy had the same problem like mine:

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthr...=valve+springs

[kaskade22]

Wow, I'm sincerely sorry that this happened.

[CarForHire]

Sorry to hear that. What school are you going for?

Best of luck.

[skierman64]

At least they are covering it under warranty. That's huge IMHO. What was your month of manufacture?

What's the story on the over-rev?

Holy cow you've spent $20K+ on mods. That's a Dinan stroker motor.

[ploo]

James,

Sorry to hear your baby is in for repairs, glad that they decided to fix under warranty though. With all that you've put into the car, I'm sure it's torture knowing it's at the dealership having who knows what done to it. I get seriously anxious whenever my car is parked anywhere other than my own garage, and I'm still fully stock! I'd be so pissed about my door, did they have to repaint at all?

You've always been a nice guy so hope that karma comes around and your M is good as new by the time you get back. Hope to see you at a C&C soon (if I can ever get off work). Keep us updated!

[JCtx]

Sorry to hear that man. The good news is you're the 2nd case in thousands of cars sold, so the rest of us shouldn't get alarmed, right?

But the more important question is if your car was really mechanically overrevved (you said 'a few' times). Was it? If it was, we can't really blame the engine IMO. But the other guy you linked didn't do it. Finally, if a spring broke without clear evidence of an overrev, isn't that an indication ALL of them could be defective, and BMW should change them all as a precaution? Good luck man; hopefully your car is whole again. Take care.

[SHADY1]

Originally Posted by ploo

James,

Sorry to hear your baby is in for repairs, glad that they decided to fix under warranty though. With all that you've put into the car, I'm sure it's torture knowing it's at the dealership having who knows what done to it. I get seriously anxious whenever my car is parked anywhere other than my own garage, and I'm still fully stock! I'd be so pissed about my door, did they have to repaint at all?

You've always been a nice guy so hope that karma comes around and your M is good as new by the time you get back. Hope to see you at a C&C soon (if I can ever get off work). Keep us updated!

They repainted the door, the service rep said the damage cracked the paint

[SHADY1]

Originally Posted by skierman64

At least they are covering it under warranty. That's huge IMHO. What was your month of manufacture?

What's the story on the over-rev?

Holy cow you've spent $20K+ on mods. That's a Dinan stroker motor.

My M3 was built 18 June 2008

[SHADY1]

Originally Posted by CarForHire

Sorry to hear that. What school are you going for?

Best of luck.

SLC (Senior Leaders Course) at Ft Lee, Va. its about 20 minutes from Richmond, I am in the Army.

[FStop7]

IMO everything the dealer has said and done sounds shady (no pun intended) to me.

[SHADY1]

Originally Posted by elp_jc

Sorry to hear that man. The good news is you're the 2nd case in thousands of cars sold, so the rest of us shouldn't get alarmed, right?

But the more important question is if your car was really mechanically overrevved (you said 'a few' times). Was it? If it was, we can't really blame the engine IMO. But the other guy you linked didn't do it. Finally, if a spring broke without clear evidence of an overrev, isn't that an indication ALL of them could be defective, and BMW should change them all as a precaution? Good luck man; hopefully your car is whole again. Take care.

This also happen to Sticky and he wrote BMW sent out a bad batch of springs for 2008 models and BMW knows this . This also could be the change of heart on the warranty issue .

[Kenyon]

Wow what a roller coaster ride your car went through. Good luck with everything. BTW thats a lot of "smiles" faces on your first post

[SHADY1]

Originally Posted by Kenyon

Wow what a roller coaster ride your car went through. Good luck with everything. BTW thats a lot of "smiles" faces on your first post

The smiles and stuff are my way of getting my point accross plus it makes other people smile as well like yourself

[SHADY1]

Originally Posted by Laszlo

Over rev is one thing, money shift is another. They can't revoke the warranty for rev limiting. But if an over-rev is caused by downshifting, valves bending, then it's out of pocket.

All they said was I had a few over revs, when I told them to fix the car my service rep said they tore down the engine and took it to a machine shop and the only thing they found wrong was the #7 valve spring had come off and it did no damage to the engine . oh and no money shifts for me I know better than that but thanks

[positiveions]

they can't deny warranty claim unless they can pinpoint that the over-revving is the culprit.
I would have taken the car somewhere else; however, granted that you live far, it is impossible to be leaving work, having the car towed to another stealer.
In all honesty, stealership will find methods to "rip" people off; knowing that the warranty will cover it.
Since you did your homework, and found out that other members have had similar issues, you can bring it to the stealership attention.
Good luck bud.

[SHADY1]

Originally Posted by eatrach73

they can't deny warranty claim unless they can pinpoint that the over-revving is the culprit.
I would have taken the car somewhere else; however, granted that you live far, it is impossible to be leaving work, having the car towed to another stealer.
In all honesty, stealership will find methods to "rip" people off; knowing that the warranty will cover it.
Since you did your homework, and found out that other members have had similar issues, you can bring it to the stealership attention.
Good luck bud.

That's exactly what I did when I found out my M3 is still broke. I did some research because I was getting worried about all this stuff being done to my M3 making me not want to depend on this car again. I told my service rep about other people having this same exact problem with the 2008 model . Thanks and good looking out

[drvai]

What did they called over-rev? Did you modified the rev limiter?

[nusevad]

damn that sucks, keep us posted on the issue.

[DevJ]

DAMN James. Hope your M3 is back to its perfect condition soon

[SHADY1]

Originally Posted by drvai

What did they called over-rev? Did you modified the rev limiter?

No I did not modify the rev limiter.

[SHADY1]

Originally Posted by DevJ

DAMN James. Hope your M3 is back to its perfect condition soon

Thanks Dev, I hope its fixed by the next cars and coffee

[Ajax-Prime]

That blows Shady. Hope you get it all fixed up.