[catcher22]

A few weeks ago I'm on my way up to go snowboarding, about 40 miles out of town, thinking how great my car is running. I'm an original owner (any others left out there?), my car turns 10 years old this month (purchase date, build date was 11/07), and it just turned 90,000 miles (not bad).

I do a 3rd gear pull and WHAM! Check engine light, rough driving, done. Pull over and get it towed to my Indy. Indy does a bunch of tests and determines the DME is toast. Received the 30BA code. Indy says that they can fix the DME, however they're not used to doing those and they recommend taking the car to the dealership and getting a new MSD81 DME installed. They say they can do the MOSFET fix, however they still recommend simply getting a new DME.

I tow it to the dealership. Now, I was actually totally prepared to pay a few thousand to have a new MSD81 DME installed. I actually was prepared to see a bill up to $4,000 (dealership expectations I guess). They call back and recommend that I replace a weak battery and all 6 spark plugs and coils, to the tune of $2,000.

At this point I'm confused. What about the 30BA code? What about the DME?

I say no thanks and tell them to do the battery and let me know if it still runs rough after that. The next day the customer service rep calls me and says the battery is done and my car is ready to be picked up and runs fine.

I get into the car and nothing is different. Still runs like crap and codes galore. At this point I haven't had my car for almost two weeks, I'm frustrated, and just want to get home. So I leave.

I limped 10 miles home, getting the half engine light at pretty much every block. It took almost 30 minutes, but I made it going ~5mph with my hazards on the entire time. Barely made it up a few hills. Incredible experience...

Got the car into my garage, ran the codes. 30BA, misfires on 1,2,3. Take out the DME, schedule a repair online, and will likely send it out to him tomorrow.


Why are dealerships so shitty? All I wanted was a new MDS81 DME installed. Are they really going to make me go through the battery, plugs, coils, and injectors first? WTH? How could they really let me drive off limping like that? To be honest, I'm not even sure how they got it back in the damn service bay. They wanted me gone, and I sure as hell am never going back. There's a reason I hadn't gone to the dealership in over 6 years.


I will be buying a new car after graduate school ends next year, and it most likely won't be a BMW. Sorry folks.

[RocketSurgeon]

Dealers suck. I suspect they wanted to change plugs and coils just to be certain they didn't sell you a DME you didn't need.
Are you sure you want to send off the DME for repair? You could save some money doing it locally. I helped a local girl with mosfets, she bought the parts for $16 and had a local phone repair shop solder them for $70. Shop did beautiful work and she had the car running for $86. I prefer to handle things locally so I can verify the work.
Alternately, you could grab up a used MSD81 off ebay for under $100 and have somebody with autohex sync it up for $250. Shoot me a PM if you want the number for someone with autohex.

If you want a sweet reliable car, Infiniti is great btw.

[TemjinX2]

its weird the sa would take less money and not do the dme.

i dont get how some of these dealerships dont do what customers ask even when they can make a lot off of it

[TemjinX2]

Originally Posted by RocketSurgeon

Dealers suck. I suspect they wanted to change plugs and coils just to be certain they didn't sell you a DME you didn't need.
Are you sure you want to send off the DME for repair? You could save some money doing it locally. I helped a local girl with mosfets, she bought the parts for $16 and had a local phone repair shop solder them for $70. Shop did beautiful work and she had the car running for $86. I prefer to handle things locally so I can verify the work.
Alternately, you could grab up a used MSD81 off ebay for under $100 and have somebody with autohex sync it up for $250. Shoot me a PM if you want the number for someone with autohex.

If you want a sweet reliable car, Infiniti is great btw.

i have one more yr left on my warranty 335i

im thinking of a 2018 q60 redsport or sport.


there already guys make 440whp on a down pipe and tune.


also i read you can get discounts up to 20% off on these cars new

[catcher22]

Originally Posted by RocketSurgeon

Are you sure you want to send off the DME for repair? You could save some money doing it locally. I helped a local girl with mosfets, she bought the parts for $16 and had a local phone repair shop solder them for $70. Shop did beautiful work and she had the car running for $86. I prefer to handle things locally so I can verify the work.
Alternately, you could grab up a used MSD81 off ebay for under $100 and have somebody with autohex sync it up for $250. Shoot me a PM if you want the number for someone with autohex.

Yeah, I thought of those options. I don't have the time/luxury to be ordering MOSFETS and running around trying to find a TV Repair shop to install them (they're far and few nowadays, closest one is like 15 miles from me). Also don't have the time or patience to get someone to code a new MSD81 DME, that would take even longer.

The online option was relatively expensive, considering that the parts are cheap and the labor is pretty quick. But I have the DME out, just need to box it up, ship it, get it back, and cross my fingers after plugging it all in. I'll be changing all the plugs and coils myself before starting anything up too.

[robthewrench]

I think part of the challenge here is whether you request the dealer to either 1) Do something very specific but not fix a problem or 2) ask them to diagnose and fix a problem.

Dealers typically work under scenario #2, which I think is better for most non-mechanic owners. If you have a problem, ask the dealer to diagnose it and quote a repair to fix it. If the issue is not fixed by the work the dealer performs, you don't pay them.

I think between the SA and the mechanic, your request to replace the DME got turned into scenario #2, but not sure why. Probably a lousy mechanic who doesn't read the SA's work order.

[MysticRob]

Techs and SAs likely don't spend a lot of time on forums either, where much of the info like "how to diagnose a crapped out DME" gets distributed. It all comes down to who exactly at the dealership knows what, and who actually works on your vehicle. Some very obvious things will get glossed right over. Same goes for economists, one of my other favorite hobbies. How is that nobody sees we're in the biggest debt bubble of all time and "everything is rosy"?

My Dad was a good tech and would troubleshoot logically, always explaining why he did something. Likely helped that he isn't an emotional type by nature. Unfortunately other techs are like many forum posters here, they just start replacing things ad nauseum because they're just not that smart or logical enough to troubleshoot correctly.

OP, read up on doing the DME yourself, or getting someone dependable like RS mentioned.

[BeastMode335i]

Should have hit up Ercan for ur DME, you'd already be back on the road with a lot less headaches..

[BravoJohny33]

Originally Posted by MysticRob

Techs and SAs likely don't spend a lot of time on forums either, where much of the info like "how to diagnose a crapped out DME" gets distributed. It all comes down to who exactly at the dealership knows what, and who actually works on your vehicle. Some very obvious things will get glossed right over. Same goes for economists, one of my other favorite hobbies. How is that nobody sees we're in the biggest debt bubble of all time and "everything is rosy"?

My Dad was a good tech and would troubleshoot logically, always explaining why he did something. Likely helped that he isn't an emotional type by nature. Unfortunately other techs are like many forum posters here, they just start replacing things ad nauseum because they're just not that smart or logical enough to troubleshoot correctly.

OP, read up on doing the DME yourself, or getting someone dependable like RS mentioned.

This.. When I had a shimmy this Indy wanted to replace all 4 tires, that only had 5k miles on them. All my pads and all my rotors and do an alignment. With zero promise of fixing the shimmy. Just wanted to throw parts at it.

[AWSB328iM]

Why did you even drive out of their parking lot?

[feuer]

Originally Posted by TemjinX2

its weird the sa would take less money and not do the dme.
i dont get how some of these dealerships dont do what customers ask even when they can make a lot off of it

Why? Because most customers will say no to that repair so the dealer went for what they could have get which was the battery in this case. Happens all the time.

[TemjinX2]

Originally Posted by feuer

Why? Because most customers will say no to that repair so the dealer went for what they could have get which was the battery in this case. Happens all the time.

didnt the op go to the dealer and ask to have a new dme installed and not diagnosis it?

my dealer is more then happy to install and charge me for what i ask to have installed for my out warranty car lol.

[catcher22]

So thanks for all the replies everyone. I sent the DME out for repair, got it back, plugged it in, and everything has been running great.

Things happen for a reason I guess. My car was relatively stable with only minor issues for over two years, so I can't be too pissed. Still, dealing with a failed part that was originally incorrectly designed by BMW, and subsequently recalled, is never any fun. I'm out of warranty and never was part of the recall population to begin with (my build date was just outside of the DME recall, the car is older than 8 years and has more than 80k miles.) No freebies for me.

Anyway, my total cost for everything, including my Lyft rides (dont take Uber anymore, they blow), was about $1500. This includes a new battery+oil change from the dealer, a $250 dme repair, 6 new spark plugs, 6 new coils, and Lyft rides during the 3 week downtime.

The DME fix was a gamble, but worked. I used

https://n54dmerepair.com

After I plugged in the repaired DME and the car booted right up, I shut er down and changed all the plugs and coils. My plugs were the worst I had ever seen, and my first bank of injectors are definitely leaking. I'll be updating those to Index 12 this spring.

So for those who have their DME crap out, skip going to the dealer and getting a new one. Just get the old one repaired and keep it moving.

[TemjinX2]

good to hear the cars up and running