Updates to Engine Heating Problem + Other Work!!!

[0-60]

My Diff bushings are cracked and im just changing them out with the oem diff cover and front bush

[LSB_M3]

Many have asked for updates, I will post updates with pictures soon....

[0-60]

Cool! :D

[LSB_M3]

So as most of you know, my M3 was heating up, and after changing everything from radiator, thermostat, water pump, expansion tank, removing catalytic converter, bleeding the system….well nothing worked! I ended up opening the engine and doing a head gasket job, still didn’t work!

I was desperate and I happened to get an offer from member Mr.E36 (Ebrahim) to fix the car in Bahrain.

I was hesitant in the beginning cause I didn’t know Mr.E36, but it was an option, so I went for it.

For those who know me and have seen my car, u know that my M3 was very well taken care of and in excellent condition. I'm not the type that pushes the car at all. The heating problem was my only nightmare!

My car was delivered to Bahrain beg of Jan 2010. to fix the heating problem, and I happened to buy Samer's stage 2 SC kit, and thought might as well get it installed there too.

Here is a list of things to be done: (plus other stuff that were added along the way)

1. New E46 M3 55 degree (S54) Celsius thermostat
2. Active Autowerke E46 M3 (S54) Fan Clutch
3. Output radiator Temp sensor
4. Supercharger VF stage 2 ECU Remapping
5. E46 M3 Casteless converter installation (used ones)
6. Rear Chassis Reinforcement kit with TMS plates (Rear only) – a small crack was found in rear frame
7. Power flex bushing / lower arms + wishbone
8. Power flex full race bushing kit (front and rear)
9. Fuel pump (new OEM)
10. VF engineering check valves + Intake bracket (which were missing from kit, small parts)
11. VF spark plugs
12. Rear stabilizer linkage
13. ZF Transmission SMG oil
14. Installation of a gauge

My car was delivered to Kuwait in April 2010.

Results:

1) I started the car and drove it for half an hour to find the temp go between half and 3/4 mark.
2) Noises from the back (rear suspension and axle area), sounds of metal cracking.
3) Steering wheel was not straight. In order to drive straight I had to hold the steering slightly to the left as shown. Steering wheel was making noises when I move it from left to right, knocking noises. I still haven't checked on this, but mechanics say it could be a major problem, specially that my steering wheel is not aligned! They all ask me if I hit something major while driving. I tell them I still haven’t really driven the car yet after getting it back from Bahrain.
4) Broken plastic covers from underneath the car. Not one, almost all except one. The passenger side cover that goes around the tire (protection from water etc part) was completely broken and windshield wiper tank which is located close to that area was broken.
5) GTR hood has an obvious crack. Seems like a tool was forgotten there and the hood was closed on top of it.
6) Major oil leak from engine, there is oil all over!
7) My front and rear leather seats have marks from metal pieces including my OEM exhaust that was put on the perfect condition back seats while my car was on the tow truck from Bahrain to Kuwait.
8) Supercharger kit not giving the expected power. Its getting 388 rwhp when its suppose to bring out about 460 rwhp.

Comments regarding the points above:
1) I was asked by Mr.E36 to add coolant to system, which turned out to be somewhat empty. He then suspected that the NEW AA's clutch fan is not good and asked me to take it off and return it, meanwhile he will mail me an OEM (sport) fan. I took out the fan to find a normal clutch fan that didn’t say AA on it or anything. I asked Mr. E36 about it and he explained that AA take OEM fans and modify them. By coincidence, I was chatting with a guy on another forum, and he turned out to be working in AA, I complained about their AA fans! I mean it was terrible to have it break down after few week's of usage. He assured me that this has never happened before and asked me to show him a picture of the fan. I did! He confirmed to me that what Mr.E36 sold me as AA fan is not an AA clutch fan!!! That was the ultimate shock for me, because I paid and believed to have an AA clutch fan when it wasn't!!!
Installing the OEM clutch fan helped a lot while driving. However the car is still heating up (3/4) while stopped at traffic lights or in traffic jams. Once I drive the temp goes down to half.
The car was inspected again, to find out that the NEW thermostat is not working! The mechanic replaced it with a new OEM thermostat and thank God, the car has not heated up for 2 days now! It slightly went above half, just for few seconds, but the temp was around 53 degrees!
I don’t know what is happening here! How can NEW parts break down so quickly in such a short period of time??!!! Pic of the broken 55 degree thermostat.
2) According to 2 mechanics that saw the car, the rear axle and suspension were in terrible condition due to force / rough driving and bad install + many missing screws! Things were hanging in the air not tightened.

Both mechanics informed me that the following needs to be replaced: (costing about AED 2,600)
a. Rear bush complete with cover differential (sold together)
b. Axle Bolt
c. Front bush differential
d. Rear kit axle-inner side
e. Ball joint upper
These have been ordered.
This other part had to be replaced as well (which I got it done), not sure what it is (plus 2 screws were missing). Again, I get the comment, how rough were u driving your car?! Here it is....
3) The steering problem caused the SMG, tire pressure warning, and brake warning to light up. I took the car to a place which fixed the steering straight but informed me that now there is a problem with "mujama3 sikan". I still have to look into this.
4) I replaced the plastic part that covers the front passenger side wheel. It just looked horrible and I also replaced the windshield wiper tank. I just cant think of what caused the rest of the plastic covers to break!!! Still need to be ordered.
5) GTR hood was fixed, but the cracks still show
6) Oil leak was fixed. Oil was all over the place! We cleaned most components from the oil marks.
7) Took the car to the best place for interiors and leather, he said that he could fix but it will not go away, it will show for sure. I don’t care about the front seats cause they were somewhat worn out and I happened to have a plan to change my seats with racing ones (already done). But the back seats were in mint condition.
8) After doing few dyno runs, Mr.E36 contacted VF to solve the problem, and they suggested that I'm missing an intake temp sensor (oem part # 13621711371) and that new spark plugs would help + 2nd retune to ECU (1st retune already done at initial install stage). A friend of mine happened to personally know the guys at VF. He heard about my lack of power and decided to help out. He asked about my car to find out that the ECU was sent for tuning once, and that it was not sent again for a retune like I was told by Mr.E36. This retune story made me wait another week or more! They even told me that the intake temp sensor was not needed. I wonder what I waited for and why I paid for shipping the ECU express to USA when VF confirmed to me that my ECU was not sent to them twice.
This and the AA clutch fan stories caused me to think twice about my car. I asked Mr.E36 about these things and I still didn’t get any reply even though he promised to show me documents that show the retune being done and the AA clutch fan that was purchased for my car. The point of this is to see the transaction more than anything else. I believe that is the least right I have specially that I gave full trust to this shop and had my car with them for 4 long months! The fact that its been over 3 weeks now and I haven’t gotten anything reminds me of the other times during these months that I asked for tracking numbers and other stuff which was promised to be provided but never got to me!

Many other things requested were not done due to lack of time according to Mr.E36 like cleaning the engine, wrapping the naked wires, connecting the gauge and properly installing it (instead of that double sided tape that was used to get it to stand), my foot rest pedal was not in place (could have easily 3M tapped it instead of leaving it hanging like that), I have asked for my head light wiring to be redone since the warning lights were on (even though all lights were working fine) I was told it was done, but the second I turned on my car, the warning lights were on again! I guess there was not enough time…wires sticking out, rims paint cracks around the bolt area which didn’t exist before.

Many delays have happened because I was told that the shop will not deliver the car to me unless its 100% perfect! I wonder why I received the car like this when I was promised 100% perfect! The least I expect is to have my car returned to me in same condition or better! Unfortunately, that was not the case here! it wasn't at all! If it was, this update would have been different, hell it would have been updated by Mr.E36!

Current Status:
My car has been sitting in my friend's mechanic shop for a while, waiting for parts and more work to be done like fixing rear axle and suspension, checking the steering wheel problem, and engine heat if it continues. I need to get my car back to its previous shape! I haven't driven my car since Jan! It’s the end of June now!

I am being brief here, there are many other details, emails, BB messages available. but I guess many discussions could come up now after this update, so I left some for replies.

I wanted to be fair here so I listed everything with pictures. This has been a very tough period for me and this whole situation caused me to reached a point where I might be selling my car cause its no longer the LSB I used to own!

Thanks for reading and your attention.

Here are more pics....

[SewerSideUp]

DANG....I'm speechless bro!

[samer110]

wow I'm shocked, I didn't expect all this, how disappointing to see such butchering done on such a matriculate well taken care of car, I'm sorry to hear that Mohannad, quite frankly I didn't expect such a thing, assuming that the car was going to Bahrain for 2 goals, the over heating and the VF SC kit install and coming back with more like 20 issues. As for the parts going faulty fast is not possible, from my experience with aftermarket parts I came to realize that the aftermarket ones end up lasting longer than the OEM parts because when companies develop such parts they spend a lot of time on R&D to make sure they build a good quality part. All the parts mentioned are from reputed companies that care for their reputation more than anything else, and hence they spend a lot of time on detail and quality.
The VF kit performance is dependant on the coolant temp sensors (both) and on the O2 sensors, and it was known with the VF MAF'd tune the car loses major power when you end up removing the first catalytic converters, but if you have the new MAFless tune then in that case it would be different because it would be on an Alpha-N tune.
Don't sell your car because of such issues, you've worked hard on it and it would be sad so see it go. Try to resolve the issues by tackling them one by one and don't rush at doing so to make sure everything is done right now, I don't know much about Mr.E36 but his qualifications were obvious to me when I was contacted regarding the supercharger oil lines when it was known that the advantage the VF supercharger had over any other ones was that they used the self lubricated Si-trim blower from Vortech, anyone in the FI business would know such a thing especially if they are AA dealers.
If I can help with anything let me know, I can have a talk with Ejaz and all your issues will be resolved, but it's unfortunate that you had to wait soooooo long and spend sooooo much money and now having to spend even more to solve issues that weren't there in the first place...

[Haitham]

God this is infuriating! I hope they sort out your car's problems man, if not then I don't know what's next.

[0-60]

Thats very sad Brother. I hope everything gets resolved ASAP. After doing an HPF STG 2 car in Bahrain for Nawaf even with 730BHp the temp needles stayed directly in the center!

[Bruno]

Comments regarding the points above:
1) I was asked by Mr.E36 to add coolant to system, which turned out to be somewhat empty. He then suspected that the NEW AA's clutch fan is not good and asked me to take it off and return it, meanwhile he will mail me an OEM (sport) fan. I took out the fan to find a normal clutch fan that didn’t say AA on it or anything. I asked Mr. E36 about it and he explained that AA take OEM fans and modify them. By coincidence, I was chatting with a guy on another forum, and he turned out to be working in AA, I complained about their AA fans! I mean it was terrible to have it break down after few week's of usage. He assured me that this has never happened before and asked me to show him a picture of the fan. I did! He confirmed to me that what Mr.E36 sold me as AA fan is not an AA clutch fan!!! That was the ultimate shock for me, because I paid and believed to have an AA clutch fan when it wasn't!!!
Installing the OEM clutch fan helped a lot while driving. However the car is still heating up (3/4) while stopped at traffic lights or in traffic jams. Once I drive the temp goes down to half.
The car was inspected again, to find out that the NEW thermostat is not working! The mechanic replaced it with a new OEM thermostat and thank God, the car has not heated up for 2 days now! It slightly went above half, just for few seconds, but the temp was around 53 degrees!
I don’t know what is happening here! How can NEW parts break down so quickly in such a short period of time??!!! Pic of the broken 55 degree thermostat.

is it me or is the fan clutch an aftermarket Behr product for a non-M??? did you even check the part number? i don't think someone is dumb enough to claim that they are using an AA clutch and instead installed a non-M aftermarket clutch. did you mention it was a behr fan clutch, im sure AA doesnt sell these. there is some sort of misunderstanding there or some sort of un-known mix up. furthermore, i dont see where the thermostat is broken.

i want to stay away from this since my car is currenlty there.

[///M3]

OMG :eyes2:
dont sell the car bro inshallah everything will be ok dont worry & if u need anything let me know :)

[springz]

Im Sorry To hear That Bro And Good Luck For Getting her Fixed.

[MR.E36I]

Dear All

Every stories or problem should have two parties , and since ( MR LSB) took his time to post this issues from his side with all pics and stuff

I guess I have my rights to take my time to explain the problems from my side

I will not be able to replay now as I have something more important (Examination)


For your information
The problems start to pop up when we ask for our payments which
(we didn’t received any yet!!!) for both SPARE PARTS and BLABOURE charge

[LSB_M3]

is it me or is the fan clutch an aftermarket Behr product for a non-M??? did you even check the part number? i don't think someone is dumb enough to claim that they are using an AA clutch and instead installed a non-M aftermarket clutch. did you mention it was a behr fan clutch, im sure AA doesnt sell these. there is some sort of misunderstanding there or some sort of un-known mix up. furthermore, i dont see where the thermostat is broken.

i want to stay away from this since my car is currenlty there.

Are u asking me if i checked the part number??? this is what was installed in my car by Mr.E36, and was claimed to be AA product for my car. I think i'm being clear here and I already mentioned this to u over the phone when it happened!

I dont see a misunderstanding. I was told its AA clutch fan, and then i was told that AA takes the OEM fan and modify, thats after i showed him this same picture! I have no knowledge of clutch fans to know brand names or anything!

[MR.E36I]

, thats after i showed him this same picture! I have no knowledge of clutch fans to know brand names or anything!

NO u didnt show me

[LSB_M3]

Dear All

Every stories or problem should have two parties , and since ( MR LSB) took his time to post this issues from his side with all pics and stuff

I guess I have my rights to take my time to explain the problems from my side
Please go through the points one by one, lets hear your side of the story.


I will not be able to replay now as I have something more important (Examination)


For your information
The problems start to pop up when we ask for our payments which
(we didn’t received any yet!!!) for both SPARE PARTS and BLABOURE charge

No u got this the other way around. When these problems started popping up, and the parts breaking down, thats when i stopped making payments on remaining amount due. i told u i will not pay until i resolve the issues with my car and until u show me supporting documents. Thats my least right when the car stayed with u for 4 months, i have already asked u for supporting documents in an email long time ago (right before u sent me ur final quote, and i made sure by telling please read my email and apply). I have also asked u for supportings more than 3 weeks back, where are they? u keep saying i will show u the documents, i will show u! Both VF and AA claim that u didnt do the stuff u mentioned (as explained above), im curious to know how u will come up with them, and whatever u show me will go to VF and AA.
Maybe there is another side to the story and "I" the customer decided to blow this out of proportion and make this update to rip you off over about 500 remaining balance! I already paid about USD 3,470, and i've always paid instantly the second u asked for a payment, but this stops when stories start to come up.