My friend has an '06 325i with a manual trans and he was cruising along in fourth gear the other day and the motor just died. He had it towed to the dealership and after testing they said that the motor needed replacing because he downshifted from 6th into 3rd twice. He admits to doing so, but days that it was days between the last time he did it and when the car died.
He is not an abusive driver, the car is a month old and has about 1,000 miles on it. The dealership thinks it will cost $8,000 to repair or $600 for more diagnostics.
This whole thing sounds fishy to me. Is this a common problem? Did he get a lemon? Does anyone have any advice for him?
Thank you for your time,
-Dietrich Seney
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| Reply » shifting from 6th to 3rd twice kills the motor? |
If he inadvertently shifted from 6 to 3 instead of 5 at rather high speed and thereby overreved the engine (more revs than redline):
then itīs called (appropriately) a money shift. The car may still run (for a while) but valves could have been bent, springs broken etc.
That would not be a lemon and is not covered by anything. Itīs abuse and whoever doesnīt know how to shift should have sticked to an auto or pay up for the mess.
But if he was doing the shift within normal US driving speeds, third gear is not short enough to overrev. On a US spec 325 MY06, to overrev in third youīd have to downshift into it at more than 80mph.
So be weary of the dealer statements and get a second opinion.
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| Reply » shifting from 6th to 3rd twice kills the motor? |
How fast was he going and how high was the RPM's when he shifted from 6 to 3rd?
If he overreved while doing so it is his fault. If not then that is BS
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| Reply » shifting from 6th to 3rd twice kills the motor? |
6th into 3rd over reving and damaging the engine, not once but TWICE after only one month . 
This guy needs to take some lessons on how to properly drive a manual trans car.
If he really did damage the engine... I don't feel sorry for him at all.
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| Reply » shifting from 6th to 3rd twice kills the motor? |
How did the dealer know it was a 6th to 3rd shift? Did he admit this first or were they able to monitor this somehow through the computer?
As with everyone else, whether this is a problem depends on how fast he was going and what the revs were/wanted to be when he hit 3rd gear...
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| Reply » shifting from 6th to 3rd twice kills the motor? |
The red line is about 7500 rpm. You would have to do the 6 - 3 shift at a fairly high speed, at least 75-80 mph, to exceed that redline. The result certainly could include bent valves or damaged pistons. The owner would definitely know that such an event had happened, since the effect, in terms of radically increased engine noise and sudden engine braking, would be quite dramatic. I cannot imagine that the specific shifts executed could possibly be stored in ECU memory, so the dealer must have other reasons for making such a statement. Of course, that statement may have been made merely to dodge an expensive warranty claim. A 6 speed manual transmission does introduce possibilities for expensive errors which do not exist for a 5 speed. The best rule is to shift rather slowly and carefully until skills are built up on the specific car being driven. In my 'other' life, I drive a Honda S2000. The 6 speed manual transmission has very short throws and a very narrow gate. A few members of the S2000 community [http://www.s2ki.com] have destroyed engines with unintended down shifts, e.g., going 5-2 when 5-4 was intended.
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shifting from 6th to 3rd twice kills the motor?