Help r3v! Engine sludge, see pics, need advice

[I8UR911]

We inspect every single car that gets traded in, but its always after the sale is done. I did have a case though the other day where someone brought in their e46 for a few things, after they got the estimate to repair it they traded it in the same day. At that point sales had the sheet and knew what was wrong with it before hand and used that in their negotiation.

Other than cases like that, its left up to us to find stuff like this, but its never any more than taking off the oil cap, seeing sludge and asking sales if they want to go farther with it or send it to auction. Usually it ends up going, unless they got it for cheap and can make a huge profit they will put some money into it.

I understand how you feel about people trading in cars like this, but its going to happen. It's the dealers job to find the problems and not resell them to the public. Most reputable car dealers won't let this stuff slide, it's normally the mom and pop little places that sell this kind of stuff. They get their inventory from the auction.

Fully understand that every car is checked. The question is how thoroughly. Sales managers are known to not want to do any work on any car because it eats away at their profit. Techs realize that the likely hood of sales buying any work is slim therefore don't take the time to look at EVERYTHING THOROUGHLY because they're hardly getting paid for a used car check. The car gets the general run down of brakes, suspension, tires, safety items for state inspection and anything that may be broken or obvious. No one is looking inside the oil fill on a valve cover to look for sludge....I'll bet everything I own on that.

I spent 12 years in the dealer world from sales to service to general mgr.

Now I work at Turner Motorsport (insert shameless plug here :)

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[RLGDiesel]

Great read about sludge removal from an E46 engine after a 40K mile oil change interval

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?1281659-Umm-Need-Advice-VANOS-job-in-progress-after-40k-on-an-oil-change

[campbellj25]

Techs realize that the likely hood of sales buying any work is slim therefore don't take the time to look at EVERYTHING THOROUGHLY because they're hardly getting paid for a used car check.

Again it comes down to the dealers responsibility for finding it and not reselling the car to the public. If the tech don't want to check that's on him and like you said I'm sure most techs don't check.

[BobombETA]

Great read about sludge removal from an E46 engine after a 40K mile oil change interval

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...-an-oil-change

Hah thanks man. This will be good reading tonight.

[I8UR911]

Again it comes down to the dealers responsibility for finding it and not reselling the car to the public. If the tech don't want to check that's on him and like you said I'm sure most techs don't check.

So its not on the customer to disclose anything? Does the path go both ways when a dealer knows something is wrong with a car and doesn't say anything....is it the customers responsibility to check everything?

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[dnguyen1963]

It is the customer's responsibility to check everything. That is why one should bring the car to a mechanic to check over everything before making a purchase (if one is not fluent in car).

[campbellj25]

So its not on the customer to disclose anything? Does the path go both ways when a dealer knows something is wrong with a car and doesn't say anything....is it the customers responsibility to check everything?

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We're both in the car buisness for many years and we both know customers don't disclose any information about problems with their cars when trading them in. Should they yes, but they don't and never will. That leaves it to the dealer to inspect cars. The dealer has a reputation, if good I'm sure they want to keep it that way and won't sell cars with these kind of issues. That being said, sales only knows about these kind of issues if the techs tell them.

I can see if a tech is only getting paid a couple tenths to do a used car inspection. It probably consists of checking tire pressure, washer fluid, coolant, shining their flashlight a few places and putting it to wash. At that point sales thinks they have a good car to resell.

Our minimum inspection pays an hour, up to 2.5 for CPO inspections. We knit pick, looking for work. We are lucky though and our sales dept will spend money if they plan on keeping the car on the lot. At a minimum they will always buy tires, alignments, brakes and any service work needed. Major repairs will go to auction. We sell enough cars and do enough inspections that we (the techs) dont mind if sales declines our estimate, because at any given time we probably have 2-3 more used cars in our LRO that we got to deal with on top of all the customer cars coming in.

At my shop, if a car was sold and came back in a timely manner with this amount of sludge, it would fall back on the tech that inspected it and he would either eat the repair, or lose his job. We pay for our mistakes and mis diagnoses, so our inspections and repair estimates are pretty thorough to prevent this type of situation.

And I totally agree with dnguyen1963, unless someone is buying a used car from a reputable place that will stand behind what they sell, they should most definitely have it checked out by a tech if they don't know the car.

[I8UR911]

Campbell if you don't mind me asking, what dealer do you work for? There aren't many sales managers out there willing to buy $2k-$3k on a $10k-$20k car.

My guys were very thorough, but I've never seen any tech find sludge just from looking through the oil fill hole. You typically have to remove the valve cover to get a good idea of what's happening.

I agree that anyone buying a car from an unknown source should have a PPI done...absolutely.

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[BobombETA]

Wanted to give an update since this thread has remained active. She traded in the car and got a Ford Focus.

[mikeedler]

^ sounds good. Now tell her to DRIVE the car every once in a while on the highway.

[jeffnhiscars]

There aren't many sales managers out there willing to buy $2k-$3k on a $10k-$20k car.Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk 2

Having been a sales manager in both auto and RV dealerships I can say I would not hesitate to spend $3k on a $10k retail item...as long as I bought it right and had room to make a few $$'s As campbellj25 correctly points out, there is no logic to risking your reputation (or worse) to make a sale. I assumed every trade would need brakes & exhaust unless a customer could document they were done (like our e30 TB's) & on motor homes I assumed a lot more.

I got a detailed tech report on every trade along with cost to repair and then made a business decision as to whether we could sell it and stand by it or wholesale. There were no grey areas.

Most dealers will show you the internal invoice listing what a work they did but I always ask for a copy of the tech report which should show every nit picky thing on it (again points to campbellj25). This way you can see what they did not do. When I bought my 1st e30 which is the 84 318i I still have, I went to have the rear brakes adjusted that 1st week. The shop could not get the rear drums off (yeah I know..drums) so I said put it back together. They thought I was crazy since there was brake fluid running out the bottom of the drum. Of course what had happened was that the worn out shoes had carved so deeply in to the drum that adjusters wouldnt back off enough to let them come off. At the selling dealer I watched 2 guys spend 45 minutes trying to get the drums off til eventually they took a 3 ft crow bar to it..lol.

Obviously, the tech who checked off "rear brakes OK" was in hot water since he clearly did not remove the drums to inspect them. Needless to say they ate the rental car and the repair cost down to the backing plates without me saying another word.

Get the tech report :-)