I tend to agree that this is a structural flaw in the M3, which could have
easily (and cheaply, given the car's $44,000 price tag) been prevented with
some reinforcement, or even a rear tower brace... My body shop says they
have handled around 30 of these failures themselves. Why nobody has
successfully gotten BMW to take responsibility for this is beyond me.
Although, you will be happy to note that it cost only about $250 ($240 of
which was labor and paint) to get this fixed at my local body shop. (Yes it
was the same shop that the local BMW dealer uses)
I posted an article about a month ago which can be found at:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=Tv1Ka.33
37%24lT4.1612%40fe04.atl2.webusenet.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3
D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26q%3Dshock%2Btower%2Btearout%2B
OR, just Google the words "shock" "tower" "tearout" on the groups search
tab.
Good luck!
Mark
-= Mark Justin Cecil == New Orleans, LA == mjcecil@domain.elided =-
-= http://noml.dyndns.org/mark.html =-
-= UNIX/Storage Architecture, Implementation, and Administration =-
"The truth is the truth, no matter what you *believe*"
----- Original Message -----
From: "Zachary J. Lembo" <zlembo@domain.elided>
To: <bmw-digest@domain.elided>
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2003 10:38 AM
Subject: Rear Shock on M3 E36
> Has anyone out there had this experience:
> 98 M3 read shock upper mount has ripped completely loose from the
> mounting at the top of the wheel well
> There is currently a large hole at the top of the shock tower.
> This will have to be fixed, BMW is so far stonewalling everything,
> calls not being returned etc.
> The car has about 100K miles but has been well maintained and never
> abused or tracked.
> I think this is obviously a structural design flaw, bolting a shock
> right to the sheet metal at the top of the wheel well
> is really dumb. What do you think out there ?
> I have to get the car fixed, what are my options ? As I said before it
> looks like BMW will do nothing , so much
> for German workmanship and how they stand behind their product. Buyer
> beware !
> Can anyone recommend a good repair shop in the South Jersey, Phila. area
> that has done this kind of work.
> Thanks in advance,
> -Zack Lembo
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