Alright... I'm not sure if I'm the best guy for this, but a couple of my fellow enthusiasts inspired me to start this thread and I figured I had nothing to lose by giving it a shot, so here it is.
All the recent news about the failing subframes of our cars has proven that if BMW is hassled enough and confronted about real defects in their cars that eventually they will take responsibility for their stupidity and do something about it. That's another reason I felt like this just might end up being worthwhile.
As I'm sure most of you already know, there is another part in our cars that is equally as defective (maybe even more defective). It is the hydraulic pump in the SMG transmission. If you own a 2002-2006 M3 with an SMG transmission it is almost certain that at some point during your cars life it will require a new pump. BMW makes an absolute killing selling these things to us. I've heard of people having to pay a grand total up to $4,000 when it's all said and done after their pump goes bad, that's insane, not to mention the inconvenience of having your car in the shop while they take their sweet time to fix it. It's just ridiculous that this gigantic hassle is all but guaranteed for every single SMG owner out there. As the owner of an M3 with an SMG transmission myself, I want to be able to commute daily and take my car on road trips without the constant fear of having my car break down (especially if the thing decides to go out while I'm on the highway doing 70+mph., which I have definitely heard of). These are nice cars that we spend a lot of money to maintain as it is, and having BMW turn a blind eye to this design flaw (just as they did for so long with the issue of cracking subframes) is just wrong IMO. Obviously there are far fewer SMG pumps out there than subframes...since not every single 3-series has one, only a limited number of M3s do. That is why I think you don't hear about it as often. My guess is that the failure percentage of these pumps is actually greater than that of the subframes (I'm not sure about this, it is just my guess). The reason I say this is because not EVERY subframe fails, there are plenty of 3ers and Ms out there with 100k+ miles and the subframes are just fine, there are hardly any SMG pumps that make it 100k+ miles without failing, and if you own one that has withstood 100k+ miles, my guess is that it will probably go out any day now. So even with this higher rate of failure, BMW still has done nothing about it. I accredit that to the fact that there are fewer of us SMG owners out there to raise hell about it. This brings me to the entire point of the longest post I've ever made.
If you've got an M3 with SMG transmission and your pump has failed then post about it here. Tell us what year your M3 is, what kind of mileage it was at when it happened, how you were driving it, how much it cost to fix etc. We see these "Oh damn my SMG pump failed" threads on almost a daily basis it seems, so lets at least start posting them all in one place so we can hopefully start to get some actual numbers on how many of these things are failing.
My SMG pump has yet to fail, but my car only has 28k miles, and I'm sure that it will happen eventually, and when it does I am more than willing to donate my "broken" pump to anyone who knows these things and would be able to take it apart and see what is ACTUALLY going wrong in there (as many members have said before, it's possibly a 10 cent o-ring or some stupid part that doesn't cost thousands to fix that is actually breaking, not the entire pump like BMW would have us believe and charges us for).
So let's hear it, I know you guys with the failed pumps are out there, and I'm sure there are many more to come. So post it here and tell us all about it.
And P.S.... You guys with the manual transmissions, there is no need for you to hop on here and say "Yep dat sounds bout right, that's why I stayed away from that crap back when I was looking for an M3" or "Boy I sure am glad I own a manual so I don't have to deal with this sorta stuff" We've heard it all before. Those kinds of posts are unwanted here. We are all fully aware of why you chose not to get an SMG, and are also aware that you like driving your manual more because you feel more "connected" to your car. None of that will help what this thread is trying to accomplish, and I would appreciate it if all SMG bashers just steered clear of this thread.
All the recent news about the failing subframes of our cars has proven that if BMW is hassled enough and confronted about real defects in their cars that eventually they will take responsibility for their stupidity and do something about it. That's another reason I felt like this just might end up being worthwhile.
As I'm sure most of you already know, there is another part in our cars that is equally as defective (maybe even more defective). It is the hydraulic pump in the SMG transmission. If you own a 2002-2006 M3 with an SMG transmission it is almost certain that at some point during your cars life it will require a new pump. BMW makes an absolute killing selling these things to us. I've heard of people having to pay a grand total up to $4,000 when it's all said and done after their pump goes bad, that's insane, not to mention the inconvenience of having your car in the shop while they take their sweet time to fix it. It's just ridiculous that this gigantic hassle is all but guaranteed for every single SMG owner out there. As the owner of an M3 with an SMG transmission myself, I want to be able to commute daily and take my car on road trips without the constant fear of having my car break down (especially if the thing decides to go out while I'm on the highway doing 70+mph., which I have definitely heard of). These are nice cars that we spend a lot of money to maintain as it is, and having BMW turn a blind eye to this design flaw (just as they did for so long with the issue of cracking subframes) is just wrong IMO. Obviously there are far fewer SMG pumps out there than subframes...since not every single 3-series has one, only a limited number of M3s do. That is why I think you don't hear about it as often. My guess is that the failure percentage of these pumps is actually greater than that of the subframes (I'm not sure about this, it is just my guess). The reason I say this is because not EVERY subframe fails, there are plenty of 3ers and Ms out there with 100k+ miles and the subframes are just fine, there are hardly any SMG pumps that make it 100k+ miles without failing, and if you own one that has withstood 100k+ miles, my guess is that it will probably go out any day now. So even with this higher rate of failure, BMW still has done nothing about it. I accredit that to the fact that there are fewer of us SMG owners out there to raise hell about it. This brings me to the entire point of the longest post I've ever made.
If you've got an M3 with SMG transmission and your pump has failed then post about it here. Tell us what year your M3 is, what kind of mileage it was at when it happened, how you were driving it, how much it cost to fix etc. We see these "Oh damn my SMG pump failed" threads on almost a daily basis it seems, so lets at least start posting them all in one place so we can hopefully start to get some actual numbers on how many of these things are failing.
My SMG pump has yet to fail, but my car only has 28k miles, and I'm sure that it will happen eventually, and when it does I am more than willing to donate my "broken" pump to anyone who knows these things and would be able to take it apart and see what is ACTUALLY going wrong in there (as many members have said before, it's possibly a 10 cent o-ring or some stupid part that doesn't cost thousands to fix that is actually breaking, not the entire pump like BMW would have us believe and charges us for).
So let's hear it, I know you guys with the failed pumps are out there, and I'm sure there are many more to come. So post it here and tell us all about it.
And P.S.... You guys with the manual transmissions, there is no need for you to hop on here and say "Yep dat sounds bout right, that's why I stayed away from that crap back when I was looking for an M3" or "Boy I sure am glad I own a manual so I don't have to deal with this sorta stuff" We've heard it all before. Those kinds of posts are unwanted here. We are all fully aware of why you chose not to get an SMG, and are also aware that you like driving your manual more because you feel more "connected" to your car. None of that will help what this thread is trying to accomplish, and I would appreciate it if all SMG bashers just steered clear of this thread.