July 2000
This month I crossed that nasty line no new car owner ever wants to -- my car has officially exited its warranty period. Just for sanity's sake, I scheduled a last-minute warranty service appointment this month to check on a few things including some squeaks that had appeared over the past several thousand miles, and an air-conditioning-related noise. Here's the report.
For the last two seasons at least (thus a good part of the life of the vehicle), I've noticed an occasional "rattling" noise when the air conditioning compressor is engaged. At the end of the warranty period, I finally remembered to ask my dealer about this (fearing, of course, that the bearings in the compressor were on their way out...and I was damned if I was going to pay for a new compressor...can you say $700?). Turns out that when the tech heard it, he immediately said it was caused by the A/C belt beating up the idler pulley and this was caused by improper A/C belt tension. I asked him if he could tighten the belt and he said that he "would try, but at 48K miles, they should be replaced anyway". At first I thought about arguing with him (after all, this is a "BMW" and it only has 48K miles on it) but I quickly realized it made little sense to do so. Belts are a consumable on all vehicles and are usually the first thing to break and leave you on the side of the road blowing steam (or, in the case of the A/C, sweating your nads off). Given how I'm big on preventative maintenance on everything I own, I ultimately told him to go ahead with it. They did a nice job, and charged what I considered to be a reasonable $130 w/tax for both belts installed (and for those of you who just freaked, consider how much of a fu*%#! bitch it is to do a belt change on some cars. I considered it a gift. Incidentally, the belts amounted to about 1/2 of the cost ($60, no tax). Good 'ol overpriced BMW parts. :-)
I also brought to their attention a squeak in the passenger door that I could easily duplicate by resting my hand on the top of the door, just below the window and above the door handle, and pushing inward and downward. The tech said that the door latching mechanism probably needed some lube. They did that and it's now completely quiet.
I also mentioned a tendency of the fully-closed windows to squeak a bit when the body flexed while going over big bumps. I demonstrated the sound by merely opening the window and then allowing the one-touch up mechanism to bring the window all the way up, at which point the window would "creak" as it reached the stop. The sound wasn't exactly loud or terribly annoying, but the tech got the idea. I mentioned to him that I had heard this is simply due to the door frame seals rubbing up against the top of the window and that some lube might help. When I got the car back, I noticed they had sprayed some lube (probably silicone of some sort) on the seals and when I drove the car home with the radio turned off, the car was, as it had been when I bought it, completely DEAD SILENT. Amazing what a little lube & TLC will do.
Earlier in the month I had the oil changed mid cycle at about 46.5K with no problems, and for some reason, the oil change was cheaper this time...about $38 instead of the usual $50 (and yes, the filter element was, as it always is, replaced).