[lordnikon]

Also how long do you plan on keeping the car? If you're keeping it, then change it if it gives you peace of mind.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by DBShiznit

I’m not saying rebuild the motor. I’m talking about components that are known to fail. Both my n54s had the water pump fail, reason why I said I spoke from experience. It also depends on where you live and how much the temps fluctuate. I’ve had many BMWs myself so our experiences could be different. These e series cars weren’t around for 38 years and e36s also had cooling issues. I never had an issues with the e30s I owned. Most of it was all metal back in the day anyway.

I had an E30 for 18 years and 256,000 miles. The cooling system was pretty robust but the plastic-sided heater cores could scald your leg; there was a recall on that issue. BMW later made an all brass heater core, which took about an hour to install. My particular car had the aluminim t-stat housing fail, which left my wife on the side of the road and a flatbed trip home. I routinely changed the coolant with BMW coolant and distilled water.

Then again the valve cover came off every 30,000 miles and the water pump every 60,000 miles, so generally no leaking VCG or failed water pumps. The M20 had no OFHG, although you could swap in a replaceable element oil filter housing (which I did) but it had the old tried and true flat profile gasket, so it never leaked.

The only real failure point on the E30 was the radio antenna. 🤣🤣🤣

[nuke21]

My pump is factory and im at 178,000 miles. I have also been told it will give you a warning and you will kind of get some codes ahead of time that the car thinks it is failing. Possibly you could just have a code shoot up that it has failed and I always kept that in the back of my mind when driving especially on the highway. I keep a aftermarket BMW scanner in my car if so anytime the check engine light comes on I pull over as soon as I safely can and run it and then decide if I want to keep driving and it's something I can take care of when I get home or if it's something I want to tow truck to tow me home for. Last two times I needed it were coils that started mis firing. One of them i pulled over within walking distance of AutoZone so just went there and got a duralast one to hold me over until I could drive home because I was about 3 hours away from home.

[StradaRedlands]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I had an E30 for 18 years and 256,000 miles. The cooling system was pretty robust but the plastic-sided heater cores could scald your leg; there was a recall on that issue. BMW later made an all brass heater core, which took about an hour to install. My particular car had the aluminim t-stat housing fail, which left my wife on the side of the road and a flatbed trip home. I routinely changed the coolant with BMW coolant and distilled water.

Then again the valve cover came off every 30,000 miles and the water pump every 60,000 miles, so generally no leaking VCG or failed water pumps. The M20 had no OFHG, although you could swap in a replaceable element oil filter housing (which I did) but it had the old tried and true flat profile gasket, so it never leaked.

The only real failure point on the E30 was the radio antenna. 🤣🤣🤣

Two out of three of our E30s had fuel pumps go out on us right around 100,000 miles. And one had the lower radiator hose let loose, I forget mileage (<100k???). But other than that, ZERO oil leaks or other typical E90 problems.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by nuke21

My pump is factory and im at 178,000 miles. I have also been told it will give you a warning and you will kind of get some codes ahead of time that the car thinks it is failing. Possibly you could just have a code shoot up that it has failed and I always kept that in the back of my mind when driving especially on the highway. I keep a aftermarket BMW scanner in my car if so anytime the check engine light comes on I pull over as soon as I safely can and run it and then decide if I want to keep driving and it's something I can take care of when I get home or if it's something I want to tow truck to tow me home for. Last two times I needed it were coils that started mis firing. One of them i pulled over within walking distance of AutoZone so just went there and got a duralast one to hold me over until I could drive home because I was about 3 hours away from home.

The only time you get a trouble code related to the water pump is when the engine overheats, and the yellow-the-red coolant temperature icon lights up. Scanning the car periodically with a BMW scan tool is the only way to find the codes (2E8X) that are stored in the ECU memory.

[sabino56]

For older cars like the E90, a concern to consider is the quality and mfg of the replacement part. You probably are not buying the original BMW component from the original OEM supplier. As time goes on, the older parts are sourced from different suppliers (supposedly to the same specs) but cost usually wins at time goes on. This is true even for BMW logo’s parts. Of course, it depends which part and supplier, geo that the mfg, etc.

I wonder sometimes if a replacement part is necessarily better than the old original part in the vehicle. So unless it’s something that can damage something if it fails - like a DISA shaft falling out and into the engine - I usually wait for something to fail.

No right or wrong here, just my two cents