After several years now of being promised a replacement EGR cooler under a safety recall but parts not being available, my G30 530d recently spent a day at the local dealership having the part replaced. I think. Maybe. Or perhaps not. Read on... I did a little research on realoem.com to identify the relevant parts. It seems the EGR cooler is the chunky part in the middle of the pic below. The EGR valve is the smaller part number 4. I had (and still have) no idea which parts were to be replaced. The letter from BMW UK told me they’d need the car for a day; when booking it in, the dealer told me it was a 2-day job. I dropped the car off first thing, just after the dealer opened, and late that same morning I got a call saying the job was complete. I returned in the afternoon to pick up my car. Got the “invoice”, which was of course £0. On the invoice it says “Crried (sic) out EGR cooler tested all okay”. See pic below. I asked the service manager if the part had merely been inspected and given a clean bill of health or whether it had been replaced. I was told very clearly that it had definitely been replaced. All good I thought. Drove home, all good too, and I have since done a good few more miles in it and no problems so far. I had a look under the bonnet a few days later as I was refilling the screenwash. I took some photos of the EGR cooler, the EGR valve and another component sat on top of it. It seems there are dates on various components. The EGR valve appears to have a date of February 2021 on it. The EGR cooler has March 2018 on it. EGR valve... EGR cooler: EGR cooler close up: That raises 3 questions in my mind for this car, which has a build date of August 2018 (I bought it new as a factory order in September 2018 ). 1. Am I interpreting what's written on the parts correctly as manufacturing dates? 2. If the EGR cooler has indeed been replaced, why replace it with one older than the car? 3. If the EGR valve has been replaced, why use one made in 2021 – and why was this part not available for my car since 2021? I probably should have marked everything with a permanent marker before going to the dealer (as I do with the oil filter casing and air filter casing before each service…). The good news is that the car works just as it did before the “EGR cooler recall replacement” but I am not convinced any work was done at all, which would explain why. I have read of some horror stories for this recall where the cars afterwards are undrivable. But I wonder how all this stacks up from a warranty point of view? And if the car spontaneously bursts into flames because of a faulty EGR cooler, where do I stand with BMW? And as a final (unrelated) remark…while the car was at the dealer, you will notice from the invoice that it had no less than percisely 2.00 complimentary electronic vehicle safety checks. Part of these checks was to measure the tyre tread depths, which were 5.0, 4.8,4.7 and 4.6mm. Whilst the 5.0 tyre got a green light, the others were amber with “advisory: recommend immediate replacement”. Really? Call me old fashioned but AFAIK the legal limit is 1.6mm and I usually change at somewhere around 3mm for summers. Even that’s a bit cautious according to Michelin who now recommend not wasting unused tread and running them to the legal limit – see https://www.michelin.co.uk/auto/advice/tyre-basics/tyre-tread-depth#:~:text=The minimum tread depth is,safety and breaking the law. . I don’t think even Kwik Fit or Halfrauds try to sell you new tyres when there’s the thick end of 5mm tread left… Needless to say, with a service due in about 3,000 miles from now, and not being able to renew the BMW Assured Warranty economically for another year due to the mileage being too high, I think I might start looking for a good local Indy and a fire extinguisher…
BMW service manager telling "untruths" to customers - who would have thought it. Im still awaiting a reply from a service manager whose staff claimed my tyres were at 50 % worn They had all been replaced 2 days previously and done less than 75 miles and i provided a copy of the tyre invoice and asked what was wrong with my car it could wear a set of tyres down by 50% in 75 miles
That does a little suspect. Surely the “new” cooler would have been a recent build, not some old/new stock. I thought the same after the OS headlight was “replaced” under warranty. The date/badge on the new one is the same as the NS light. Maybe due to the age of the car and stock being the same age. Can’t prove or disprove it myself.
Not BMW but another premium brand - I find what the service adviser tells me has been done to the bears no relation to what actually has been done. I don't know if they lie or if they genuinely are confused. Anyway in your case I'd be pretty certain the EGR was only inspected (which is what the paperwork seems to say). Regarding the tyres, the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres on my car only start with 6mm tread depth...
Hmm, I bought an AUC F10 520d from a main dealer last year and just before I picked it up, they also 'did' the EGR recall on it. I also asked the question at the time as to whether it was just inspected or was it replaced and I was told it was replaced, now I think I need to look under the bonnet and see if I can determine if new parts were actually added and were they similarly dated... might be a bit hard to tell now a year later butt I'll have a look, it's still really clean under the bonnet... On the tyre thread depth subject, as part of the purchase the sales guy was saying that as part of the AUC prep, if any tyre is under 4mm then they put new ones on. As a result when I picked up the car it had 4 new priellis and new pads and discs front and rear, rear bumper respray and all 4 wheels refurbed... But that could be where the 4mm advisory threshold is coming from... ~S.
I would think it is unlikely that there is any old stock of EGR coolers floating around considering they have been on back order for ages due to recall work. Something doesn't add up...not a fan of main dealers, find them condescending and arrogant.
I was under the impression that the delay in fitting new EGR's was down to a shortage in supply of the new redesigned cooler. Mine was certainly replaced on both my current and previous 640d's as I marked the old ones before the cars went in.
