Never thought I had to deal with this, but mine was broken and hanging by thread once I put the socket on it it fail down. Thanks for the great advice.
Happened to me 2 years ago at 40,000km. Dealer couldn’t get me in for 3 weeks so I scanned it myself, got the code. Took a peek underneath to try find the water pump to see if it actually went bad, man that thing is buried in there. Fortunately saw the dangling ground wire and sheared off bolt in the process. I put a new aluminum bolt back in, thinking it was a pretty rare occurrence. Probably going to switch it again after seeing this and how common it is.
It's surprising there isn't a TSB about this out there yet. More and more people are coming forward talking about this failure/experience. Kudos to you for identifying the problem and fixing it yourself.
I replaced an electric water pump on a 2006 i535 xdrive. You are right, it's tucked up above the right front driveshaft and a real pita to do on your back!
Would you please tell me where this bolt is on my 2012 X5? I took the panels off the bottom and looked but cannot find anything that looks like what you are showing. Thanks for your help and these videos and information are priceless!
This is a great idea in theory, and many people make this kind of change on all kinds of things thinking that they upgraded the bolt and it will be stronger now bey using a stronger alloy/metal. I’m not an engineer by trade but have been formerly training in aviation maintenance. My question is how are you tackling dissimilar metal corrosion and not compounding the problem?
Ground points are Magic points to avoid some malfunctions!! From the early 2000 to these days some brands seem to forget that and small ground wires are use even with more electronics....
Proper griunds are everything for electronics. And a lot of weird gremlins can sometimes be resolved by fixing a ground. A lot of the braided ground cables used on modern BMW's are very problematic. They pretty much just disintegrate. Checking for proper ground first before going down the diagnostic rabbit hole can save you a lot of unnecessary running around. When it comes to this water pump problem there are two different pumps used on N55's. Pumps that do not have the rubber insulators/vibration dampers to the engine block mount (solid aluminum housing) will often ground themselves through then water pump housing if this primary ground breaks off. You get perfect continuity between the pump and the block. For the water pumps that are insulated from the block you will lose the ground if the main ground breaks off.
That’s because almost everything now a days is pulse width modulated, or is run by a driver that steps down the voltage. That’s why wiring has shrunken in gauge in the last 2 decades.
So I have a water pump from pierburg (the metal one) and it has rubber grommets for the bolts that the VDO original doesn’t have, that could mess with the pump to engine ground, my question is am I able to just relocate the ground to the subframe or block or it has to touch the water pump aswell
Using whatever existing ground is already in place will do; all of these pumps, including the original OE units, have mounting bushings, sometimes over time, that harden into a plastic type of looking material.
For the love of God, please do an F87 specific water pump and thermostat replacement video. I literally cannot find one single video on the internet of anyone doing this!
Can you confirm if this is on F chassis F3x? A lot of the guys are confused because realOEM doesn't show this bolt on that chassis / engine combination.
100% the same screw. Here are the fitments listed on RealOEM: www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/partxref?q=12527557037 This broke off on my 2017 X5 xDrive35i last December. The "maybe's" I mentioned in this video were things that definitely happened to me 200+ miles away from home. - Gareth
@@fcpeuro thanks for the response. No F3X cars are listed with that link, hence the confusion. Been meaning to check for the bolt myself, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
Happened to me. And since bringing this to light in our blog article it's turned into a talking point in the community. It's a very random failure that only seems to affect the N55. A lot of shops owners have seen these break off and I've seen a few techs post about it on social media as well. I thought it was a freak failure that happened to me until someone else on IG linked me to a video with the same problem. - Gareth
I had my waterpump that was in fail safe intermittently mode for almost 40k miles. It would run non stop after the engine was shut off draining the battery. Wonder if it was a ground connection that shorter it out.
@@matt.108 yeah but my ground is good and everything and in order to drive good without overheating the car i need to bleed the car so the pump can work
You can just put the car in accessory mode and then press the gas all the way down for 15 seconds it’ll activate the water pump and do the bleed for 12 minutes
hi im getting CODE U019F Lost Communication With Engine Coolant Pump Control Module, on a 2015 435i. could this be the same problem or is it the waterpump all together ?
Yes, I agree. Just another part that costs too much and breaks too often. Electric pumps came about from Higher CAFE Restrictions so emissions can be controlled through higher engine temps. They are NOT SAVING THE PLANET by building cars that have to be replaced every 100k /10 years. EVs are NOT SAVING PLANET either........Just a SCAM to control the masses and sell more vehicles.
I don’t disagree but that’s what’s in the 2000 and up BMW. I do not think there’s an alternative but to replace the pump at 100,000 with a trusted brand. Probably BMW OEM.
@@Iwillnotbepushed NO.....In 2000 M (such as M54) Engines were still being built with belt driven water pumps. Starting N52 Engine on has Electric Water Pumps. On US versions of the BMWs that would be 2006 and on. These electric pumps can fail as early as 60k and it is probably best to replace them before they reach 100k. They can go more. I had one fail at 94k and another fail at 140k. The issue is there is usually no warning when they fail, leaving one stranded on the side of the road. (Most of the time Mechanical belt drive pumps will give some warning - slow drip, noise etc.) The OEM BMW Electric Water Pumps are made by Pierburg. I have had belt driven water pumps go more than 200k miles. The other difference price $300 for the electric vs. $50 for the belt driven just for the pump itself. If you have never changed an electric one I would allow yourself 2 days, there are a lot of caveats and working in very tight spaces (Huge Learning Curve). In theory it should be easy, a electrical connector , 3 bolts and 2 hose connections. It is really more than that when you have to account for changing out the thermostat because it is highly recommend that you replace both at the same time because you need to remove the electric pump to replace the thermostat. It is +/- $1k job at the Deal for an Electric Pump. Mechanical Pump will be less than half.
