The BMW Mechanic

This isn’t strictly concrete, but I thought you might like to know more about Tom’s other “hobbies.” If you are any kind of gearhead, you might find this interesting.

A few weeks ago, I unearthed a picture of the husband from long ago (circa 1989 or so):

After we graduated from college, he got a job with a body shop in Baltimore as their parts guy. This was back in the dark ages, before the internet, so everything was done from catalogs and via the phone. He worked there for about a year before starting up his construction business. The body shop eventually went under due to the owner’s substance abuse problem.

If I recall correctly, he landed this job because this body shop had done some work on his BMW 5-series sedan. He saved up money from jobs in high school and college to buy that car. (It was a great car.) Unfortunately, the previous owner failed to disclose that the car had been in an accident and it needed $1000+ of structural repairs. (This was also in the days before Carfax.) We eventually sold the BMW so he could get a work truck.

The husband knew his car inside and out. That was back before cars were computerized, though, and it’s an entirely different ballgame now.

I’ve got a 2014 BMW 328 diesel station wagon as a result of the generous buyback I received from Volkswagen for my 2011 diesel Jetta station wagon. I wanted another station wagon, preferably diesel. If I were in Europe, I could have my pick of several dozen models, but thanks to the regs here in the US, diesel station wagons are scarcer than hens’ teeth. I set up an AutoNation search covering the Pacific Northwest, and one Friday morning in October of 2016, I got a notice that there was a car meeting all my specs at the BMW dealer in Seattle. It was a lease turn-in with 25K miles on it, all-wheel drive (a must in Montana), sunroof, and heated seats (also a must in Montana).

I called the dealer as soon as they opened, put a deposit down on the car, and said I would be there the following morning. I got on the train that evening. Someone from the dealership came and picked me up at the train station and drove me to BMW of Bellevue. I signed all the paperwork and was on the road to Spokane that afternoon.

I adore my car. It’s a station wagon on a sports car chassis. Unfortunately, we’ve had some fairly serious issues with it and the husband has had to catch up on three decades of changes. Back in May 2019, when the car had 72,000 miles on it (20,000 miles out of warranty, of course), I was on my way to town when I started to turn onto the highway and heard a loud bang. At first, I thought someone had hit me, but I was the only person on the road. And then I realized that the car wouldn’t stay in gear.

A guy from a nearby parking lot helped me push the car off the road. The husband was working only a mile away, but the mixer truck had just arrived with a load of mud and he couldn’t leave. I called and waited for the tow truck to come get me. The tow driver wanted to know what repair shop I wanted the car taken to and I said, “We’re taking it back to our house. My husband will fix it.” He was a bit skeptical but did as I asked.

I will try not to butcher this explanation. It turned out that the constant-velocity joint which transfers power between the transfer case and the rear drive shaft had failed. Catastrophically. This is the failed part. There are supposed to be ridges inside that cylinder and they had all worn away.

The husband researched the issue and discovered that this was a problem that tended to happen with the diesel models. He wrote down the part information and assigned me the job of calling to see if we could get a replacement transfer case. Why yes, we could, for the princely sum of $3000, not including labor. He did some more research and figured out which specific parts needed to be replaced. I started making phone calls again. The terrific parts guy at the dealer in Seattle where I had bought my car—which happened to be right down the road from DD#1’s office—ordered just the parts we needed for the much more palatable price of $600. DD#1 picked up the parts and brought them to Spokane when we gathered for DD#2’s graduation from Gonzaga. A few weeks later, my car was fixed and back on the road.

I had mentioned the problem to the service guy at the BMW dealer in Spokane about a year and a half ago when I had the car there for a front end alignment. (The dealer still has to do some things that the husband can’t.) He said they were aware of it and he expected that BMW would issue a recall, which they did about six months ago.

[The guys at the BMW dealer in Spokane tend to get a bit antsy when I mention that the husband has been working on my car. They all act like you need a special dispensation from Munich, although I pointed out to one (young) service guy that my husband was working on BMWs before he was even born. Get off my lawn, people.]

My BMW is about to turn over 100,000 miles. Last week, I was on my way to town when an alert popped up that the car was low on diesel exhaust fluid and that I had a 1000-mile range before it would be out completely. I texted the husband and he refilled the reservoir when he got home that evening. It took another drive to town for the car’s computer to figure out that the fluid had been replaced and that it could turn off the alert, but then the check engine light came on.

I know the significance of the check engine light, although there is “annoying check engine light” and “critical check engine light,” and I’ve learned to tell the difference. I have an onboard diagnostic system. If I run the diagnostics and everything is green but the check engine light is on, I text the husband and let him know and carry on. He plugs the car into the code reader when he gets home to see what the problem is.

The car is still throwing a code saying the diesel exhaust fluid is low. It’s not. He researched this problem and discovered that it’s a known problem and there are hacks for getting around it. He says the sensor is mucked up with crystal deposits and he needs to flush out the reservoir.

The lift in his new shop cost us $20,000. I estimate that what we’ve saved in parts and labor on all our vehicles—and especially the BMW, which is kind of a diva—has paid for at least half of that lift. And when he gets tired of doing concrete, he’ll be all set up to do car and truck repair.