I could use some advice...Had my 2011 335i in for service 3 weeks ago, partly for maintenance under warranty and partly to have an oil leak fixed...oil filter housing gasket leaking. Very expensive labor due to the fact that they "have to clean all the oil from the engine to ensure the leak is fixed as well as having to take apart a major portion of the engine to get at it"--I've paraphrased but that was the gist. Now, the car died on my way to work with all the electronics erroring out, and it turns out the serpentine belt slipped and was shredded. When they looked at it, they said there was an oil leak that caused the belt to slip off and shred. I reminded them that they had just repaired the oil leak, what's up? They spent the last two days "getting the right tech to look at it" and the new diagnosis is that the tensioners on the belt snapped causing this. I called BS and they are going to get back to me on Monday to see what they can do on price (initial quote $2400!). Has anyone had any experience with this kind of thing or have any knowledge on whether or not what they say is plausible? Wouldn't broken tensioners be evident on first glance? The car only has 80K miles, is this something that should go at this point? Any advice would be greatly appreciate! Thanks Ray
Can't say I have seen any issues with the N55 engine having the belts fall off. BMW does have issues with other engines having this issue from a bad tensioner. To do the oil filter housing gasket you don't need to remove or touch the belt or tensioner. It slipping off because of the oil I would be very surprised. Did a pulley break at all and did the belt shred or just fall off?
The belt shredded. They initially said it slipped off and shredded due to the oil leak, but when I reminded them that they just fixed the oil leak and supposedly cleaned it all up they "investigated further" and found that (I think they said 2) tensioners broke causing the belt to come free and shred. When I suggested it was suspicious that the story suddenly changed, my service adviser said he would look into it further and would get back to me yesterday...no word as of this morning. Sounds like you are saying it's more plausible that the tensioners broke than oil caused it. That would be an unfortunate coincidence for me...
