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Hi, it's Mark Bossert. I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
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Vancouver's best auto service experience. And we're talking cars. How are you doing,
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Bernie? Doing very well. Well, this morning, our guest is a 2017 BMW M240i. They love their
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long names, BMW. What was going on with this vehicle? We can add XDrive onto the end
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of that, too, just to make the name even longer. This vehicle came in with a coolant leak. Also
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needed rear brakes, but we'll talk about that another time. But yeah, it came in with a coolant
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leak. So we did our diagnosis, which consists of a pressure test to start. Found some leakage
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from the water pump and areas in behind the water pump. These are often buried, so
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things need to be removed to find out where the actual leaks are coming from.
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But at the very least, we knew it needed a water pump.
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So this being a smaller BMW, is this still like what motor is running in this?
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It's got a six cylinder twin turbo. Inline. Inline, yeah. I say traditional BMW. So there's
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our beautiful little convertible sports car. Very nice little machine. There's the view
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of the engine crammed into that little engine compartment. This view here actually shows
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part of the process. We remove the intake manifold to access the rest of the cooling
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system because to get the water pump out, there are bolts and items underneath the
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intake manifold. So we start with that, but there's a whole bunch of cooling system components
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underneath the intake manifold and with those arrows all point out a few. So the red arrow
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just points to the radiator hose that goes from the radiator to the engine. There's
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a plastic piece that yellow and red hose attached to. There's a temperature sensor
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in there. And the red arrow I put there because that's basically a very common
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clip that they use on not just BMWs, a lot of cars, but it's basically a snap
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together clip. So that's a plastic fitting, snaps onto the housing. There's a rubber o-ring
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in there. Those things can leak the moment you touch them or move them. They deteriorate
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over time. So we replace that. The yellow arrow I'm just pointing to the clamp on
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that. That's a pinch clamp on a traditional rubber hose. And those don't need to be
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replaced because they tend to last. They're very reliable. Why they don't use
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them more. The reason they don't use them more often is because it's way
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easier to assemble stuff with snap together clamps. The blue arrow points
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to an item called the coolant thermal management unit. It's a very fancy name
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for a thermostat. And that piece we also replaced in the process because we had
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to remove components from that. And the moment you touch anything on these,
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usually you end up with a coolant leak. So you didn't want to have the customer
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come back with a coolant leak coming from somewhere else. Now there's the
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front view of the engine. This is where the water pump is located. That
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red arrow actually points to the water pump. And unlike a lot of BMW engines
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which use an electric water pump, which has the thermal management unit beside
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the water pump of the thermostat. This one uses a mechanical water pump driven
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by the fan, which is a little different than BMWs used for quite a while. In
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order to remove the pump, you got to move this and this. Yeah, that's right.
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So the item on the right where you're moving your mouse pointer, that's
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the air conditioning compressor. We don't have to discharge the air
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conditioning, but it just needs to be unbolted from that housing. And the
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alternator also needs to be removed. Again, they're not a huge, you know,
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they're a couple of bolts, but they're all things that you need to do to
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remove these pieces. So all of those have to come off. And then once the
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water pump is unbolted from the block, it comes off that thermal
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management unit. There's a coupler that connects them. That piece broke
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just because it's all brittle plastic. And that's only sold with a
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thermal management unit. And it sounds like a country and Western song.
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It's like, you know, this broke and that broke. It's right. My dog
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died. Your dog died. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So this is a view of the
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thermal management unit. You can see that the coolant hose that was
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there on the right, the radiator hose is off. And there's a few
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pieces in there. We replaced all of those items, except that hose
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that had the yellow arrow to it. Because again, I've mentioned
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those clamps are very durable. And it's rubber, not plastic.
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That's rubber. Yeah, exactly. So anything that plastic is
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really just kind of asking for trouble. So this is that
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thermal management unit. Again, a fancy name for thermostat and
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very expensive. So we're looking sort of the inside where the
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coolant flows in from the water pump. And this unit will divert
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coolant into the engine or heating system or wherever it
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decides to go, depending on where the most effective cooling and
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most effective energy usage. This allows the engine to
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warm up properly when you first start it when it's cold. It
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prevents it from overheating when you're driving hard or
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Exactly. Yeah. And that's kind of key. If you get into a really
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old car, like say 30 years old, and you hop in, you turn it on,
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especially on a cold day, it'll take a while for the heat to
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get in the cabin. A car like this, you have some warmth
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trickling in on a super cold day, even in a minute. So yeah,
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it makes a big difference. And here we have this is the water
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pump with the housing. And so that piece that we're
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looking at sort of in the bottom left, it has a big
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black seal around it. If we look closer at that seal, you can
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see it's already deteriorated and kind of disintegrating. And so
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this was leaking a bit just kind of happens over time. So this is
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metal, it's not plastic, like we complain about how it tends to
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wear out. But again, the seals tend to go so. So did you just
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replace the seal on this? Or did you have to put in a whole
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new water? No, the water pump comes complete with the
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housing. You can actually buy a water pump without the
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housing, but BMW doesn't sell it that way. There's after
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market pieces, you can see the water pump doesn't bolt from the
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housing. And it was leaking, but not as severe as the amount of
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leakage was coming out. So we knew we had two leaks on this
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vehicle. So there was a leak in here, where I'm moving,
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roughly in there or up in here, the other end, and then as
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well here. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So then you replace
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everything. Yeah, replace everything. What's this?
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This is a plastic coupler that goes between that metal water
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pump housing and that thermal management unit. And of course,
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the process of taking it apart, we're very gentle and careful
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as we could be. But the piece in the plastic on the top, this
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little nipple that sort of sticks up, that piece snapped off, it
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just kind of happens when you try to gently move things out
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sometimes. Again, plastic, old and brittle. And that piece,
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unfortunately, is not sold separately. You have to buy
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that whole thermal management unit. I'm not going to say how
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much it was. It was a lot of money. It comes complete
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with that. So once you've repaired all that stuff, put
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everything back together again, how was the vehicle running?
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Perfect. Runs awesome. No leaks. When everything is done
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complete, so there won't be any, oh, you know, six months or a
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year that's like, oh, it's leaking from there. We got to pull
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the intake manifold back off to fix something. It's done
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complete and should be good for another eight years or
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hopefully longer. It's a good car. It should last for a
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long time. It should have lots of life left in it. If
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you're having issues with coolant leaks, the people to
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see in Vancouver are Pawlik Automotive. You can
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reach them online at pawlikautomotive.com or you can
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call them to book your appointment. You can call them
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and talk to someone too at 604-327-7112. You have to
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book ahead. They're always busy. Pawlik Automotive in
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Vancouver, BC, Canada. Thanks so much for watching and
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listening. Thanks, Bernie.
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Thank you, Mark. Thanks for watching.
