John Harmon wrote:
Scott Dorsey actually said:

I mean the big rubber hose going between the throttle body and the airflow
sensor. It cracks and then the airflow data becomes invalid and the car
starts running lean. You can patch the cracks with 3M weatherstripping
adhesive for a while until after a while you can't.

Oh, yeah. I know it all too well.

My first smoke test for a lean condition showed a crack on the *underside*
of that large ribbed tube. A few years later, my second smoke test showed
that the tubes sticking out had leaks.

It would have been cheaper to just replace the damn things, instead of
doing all those expensive smoke tests, which was your point, I agree!

First of all, if you'd had a competent BMW mechanic, he would have replaced
it before it failed.

Secondly, when it DID fail, he would have looked at that and at the hose
underneath it as the first things that cause leaks into the throttle body.

Thirdly, if he didn't know any of these things, it should have taken him
less than five minutes to find the leak with a can of starting fluid. There
is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE for someone to bring out the smoke machine for that
sort of leak unless they are trying really hard to find ways to bill their
customers for something.

This is an EXACT example of what I am talking about when I say that doing
maintenance is cheaper than doing repairs.

The issue on this one is that the they are using that TO220 FET as a linear
regulator to adjust the voltage on the motor, and it develops a lot of heat
of course.

Maybe you can answer a question which has irked me for years.
As you know, the AC/Heating system is "fully automatic" meaning it's not
intended for manual control, so, the blower starts at whatever settting it
wants to start at when you start the car, no matter what setting you left
it at when you last shut down the car.

I *always* adjust that, either to *off* or to the midway position.

But what I always wondered was, if the blower is on at all, whether the
full on, or midway position caused less stress on the FSU?

If you have it on full, the transistor is completely turned on and so there
is less heat being generated in that configuration. However, if you have to
worry about what position of the heater puts less stress on it, something
is wrong. Put a retrofit one in there and it won't fail.


The ABS "trifecta" failing on the E38, E39, and E46 is also shameful.
So is the trunk wiring loom fraying on almost every vehicle.
And the headlight adjusters crumbling on some of the models like mine.

ABS I don't know about... but everybody knows about the loom so everybody
wraps it. If yours wasn't wrapped, it will fail.

Likewise the headlight assemblies can be replaced with European spec ones
in some cases, which don't fail. It's only the wacky DOT ones for the
American market that are an issue.

I'm just a guy who likes to drive cars for a long time, and I like BMWs

Thanks for your insight.
Very interesting!

I just rolled over 360,000 miles on the new car this afternoon. Should have
it at 400,000 before 2018 starts.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."