thermostat

[storminmike]

[quote="X5Sport"]
Mine always sat a fraction below dead centre.  Is the car warming up?  Is the heating etc working OK?

Richard
[/quote]

It has been to dead centre.....but rarely does. The car seems to take an age to warm up inside and I have the wife's X to compare. He Webasto works and mine doesn't but that's got to be a red herring.

The car is very flat spot acceleration in the morning too but does seem to improve eventually. I can do 26 miles on a motorway and never see it hit dead centre.

The cars performance dosn't seem all that it should be either, it's as if it gets better after its heat soaked. The performance can seem quite dead. It did feel better during the warm spell the other day

The front fan does spin on its own when cold, perhaps a tad stiff but it is generally free.

On start up I see the fine jet of water too in the expansion tank, I would have thought that it shouldn't do that until its going through the radiator. Is this gobbldy gook or some clue?

If this is the thermostat I'd like to know what cost i'm in for or if its a DIY.....but from what i've seen on you tube it looks a nightmare

ps....although not scientific I can tell how well or not well its going by the amount of acceleration I feel versus the way the mpg guage flies to the right. On a good day its a heavy whoosh and the guage only drops a bit. On a bad day it can be a bit dead and i'm pushing the pedal a bit harder for less reward...and the engine sounds more mechanically strained at 2.5k revs

One may be due to the other....performance versus heat....which I'm hoping it is....fingers crossed

[storminmike]

Update: Trip to indy and thermostat replaced along with new coolant. Needle now dead centre, did cost me £112 though

At least the cabin gets warm no though and the engine might be a tad happier

[Rusty]

The Webasto will make a significant difference to the heating up time of the cars coolant.
Diesel engines run cooler than petrol so take longer to get up to a decent temperature which is why the Webasto's were installed on the old cast iron lumps.
The newer Aluminium blocks don't take as much heat to warm up hence no aux heater. 


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[storminmike]

[quote="Rusty"]
The Webasto will make a significant difference to the heating up time of the cars coolant.
Diesel engines run cooler than petrol so take longer to get up to a decent temperature which is why the Webasto's were installed on the old cast iron lumps.
The newer Aluminium blocks don't take as much heat to warm up hence no aux heater. 


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[/quote]

I've noticed that on the wifes X5. My webasto is bust...but even so it never reached dead centre.

Thermostat was jammed open when the indy showed me. If i'm flush I'll try to source a replacement webasto before next winter but they seem to go for £200

[Rusty]

Can you not get it repaired? See Jayana's post about aux heating.


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[lezmtaylor]

Thermostat was jammed open when the indy showed me. If i'm flush I'll try to source a replacement webasto before next winter but they seem to go for £200
[/quote]

I've got one that looks as new, we could do a deal.( you have it and fit , if works do a deal would be £100 max)

Lez

[storminmike]

[quote="Rusty"]
Can you not get it repaired? See Jayana's post about aux heating.


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[/quote]

I suppose I could if I knew what I was doing. The tricky bit is that I rely on the car for 6 days a week so I can't afford to have it in bits. This is why I go a bit anal on planning because I couldn't afford for it to go wrong, get towed, have loose pipes everywhere or drop bolts.

If I could pull it and run without then perhaps. It seems i would need some coolant pipes linking and diesel blocking off at the very least just to plonk it on the table and run the car.

[storminmike]

[quote="storminmike"]




Thermostat was jammed open when the indy showed me. If i'm flush I'll try to source a replacement webasto before next winter but they seem to go for £200
[/quote]

[quote="lezmtaylor"]
I've got one that looks as new, we could do a deal.( you have it and fit , if works do a deal would be £100 max)

Lez
[/quote]

Can I come back to you on that LEZ?

The wife's X5 goes in for MOT next week and that's another squeeky bum time and to cap it all her insurance is due in May too.

Mike

[lezmtaylor]

Sure, no problem.

Lez

[storminmike]

Cheers Lez...if you get rid so be it.

On a very positive note I have today done my first journey to work since the thermostat fix. Bearing in mind it is warmer generally but the gauge went to dead centre reasonably quickly and sat there....no dramas either.

I also checked the tyre pressures too at the weekend and they'd lost 2 or 3 psi so I went 32 front 34 rear as an experiment. Ride a wee bit hard but soon forgot about it as it was a marginal change.

I have to report that the engine seems a lot smoother and less stressed although it's a little flat at cold...but I swear the MPG has improved. The MPG guage has never been that far left at 60 mph. It's not been that cold last week so this must be a bonus all round.

Happy days....

[storminmike]

damn and damn

the gauge is now back at the 1/3rd tick. Can the main thermostat really have gone up the duff....again >:(

50 miles and a wee sniff above 1/3rd tick. It has been dead centre since the fix earleir in the year but now seems to have gone poor again. Stopped the car and the fan can still be spun by hand. Phoned BMW aboout EGR thermostats to be told that they don't think facelifts have them ....is this TRUE?

ECP Shows the part but realoem says not available for this car

Failing that it may be back to the main thermostat. Considering getting a genuine bmw thermostat installed

I dont know for certain but I think the main one that was replaced may have been an ecp part

[shadrack]

Could well have gone again
There designed to fail safe ie open so you dont boil your car. The cheap ones are very cheap so could be knackered.  Its actually a pretty easy diy tbh if you want to save a few pennies. Try an oem one although on a part like that I can't see it been much better. Also I think there is an egr stat when I looked into it

[storminmike]

[quote="shadrack"]
Could well have gone again
There designed to fail safe ie open so you dont boil your car. The cheap ones are very cheap so could be knackered.  Its actually a pretty easy diy tbh if you want to save a few pennies. Try an oem one although on a part like that I can't see it been much better. Also I think there is an egr stat when I looked into it
[/quote]

I'll lift the cover at weekend to have a look for that EGR thermostat. BMW manchester on the phone did seem adamant that there wasn't one

see this - not applicable
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do ... g=11&fg=50

same site, same area...but listd parts?
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do ... g=11&fg=50



The BIG thermostat looks a bit nightmareish to if I'm honest....seems the fan has to come off and I haven't a big spanner anyway

an idiot proof how to would be good???? :-[

[shadrack]

oh i have a flat viscous fan spanner

[storminmike]

[quote="shadrack"]
oh i have a flat viscous fan spanner
[/quote]

lucky you )

well its; official after lifting the lid this morning

I have NO (obvious) EGR thermostat...what's that all about ?

There is this simple looking pipe shown here....which surely can't be just a pipe for that price?

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do ... g=11&fg=50

In laymans terms what did the EGR thermostat do and why was it implicated in causing cold running bypass circulation?

This just looks like a simple piper replacement that goes to the EGR.....and does what....how on earth does it do what it does bar holding water?

Must doa alot for $121.90

I therefore think it must be the main thermostat at fault as I can't for the life of me think how the water would circulate otherwise

Feels like a trip to  gargage coming on again. Even if I had a spanner it looks impossible to get at