Re: 1991 318is overheating

1) Nice car :-)

2) Join www.bmwcca.org, your local chapter will tell you about a good
independant specialiast and you'll get the best car magazine your ever
likely to read!

3) M42s have a timing case profile gasket between the front of the head
and block. You need to remove the head to replace it. On your car it was
made from a poor material and can fail. Normally it goes BIG time, if
you were able to top up the coolant and drive again this may not be the
problem.

4) If it only overheats in traffic it's maybe just a bad fan clutch.

5) Failing the above it could be the head gasket or a sticking
thermostat.

> I noticed this when steam started to come out of the heater ducts while in
> traffic. The needle was near the red. On opening the hood I saw signs of
> leakage on the oil pan flange area on the left side.
>
> I got the car to a dealer in Glendale (Pacific BMW) and signed up for an
> estimate. That was $115. What ever happened to the days of *free*
> estimates?
>
> I got a call from the dealer a couple of days later. They told me that they
> couldn't see where the leak was and if I wanted them to investigate further
> it would co$t me another $575 to pull the intake manifold. Mind you, that
> was on _top_ of the $115, and would still be part of the estimate! Actually
> _fixing_ the problem was not included.



--
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Email: john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, John G.Burns B.Eng, Bonny Scotland
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