I’m a mechanic, my brother is an engineer, when he started working the first thing I told him was “don’t forget someone has to work on what you design”
@@salemcrippleIt’s true though, design engineers in that industry aren’t incentivized or even asked to make things repairable. It’s the opposite actually, vehicles are designed to be proprietary, for profit. In some other industries it’s different, so things are easily repairable. For example dirt bikes, or commercial cooking equipment… and many others. So the real blame lies with the bean counters and corporate that decide to prioritize profit over ease of repair and consumers, and the politicians that allow them to do it, not the engineers.
@@mattmattmatt131313they do. Every engineer works on their own product during development. The problem is that engineers have to balance so so many other things that you don't care about. Size, cost, ease of assembly, manufacturability. The vast majority of time, if you just read the service manual, the engineers have documented exactly how to get access to such-n-such, and what tools you need. But mechanics think they know how to do the work, and often back themselves into a corner. For example, I had a mechanic tell me they had to lift an entire engine to access a broken belt tensioner bolt. If they had bothered to read the service manual, they would have known that all you have to do is remove one wheel and a fender cover, and there's an access hole.
IT"S NOT THE ENGINEERS!!! IT'S THE C SUITE!!!! ONe guy said his retired uncle said engineering at GM was a quagmire of politics and overbearing management who would over ride the engineers to save a penny. #RightToRepair wait till you find out how OEMs treat hospital equipment and warranty work.
German engineering: I can't remember the exact model, but I'm like 65% sure it was a Volkswagen Toureg. Guy brings it in to the shop for a blown O2 sensor, and he just couldn't figure out a way to get to it. Looks up in the repair manual on how to change that sensor, and right there in the manual it said "step 1: remove engine."
My Audi S7 O2 sensor felt that way. Engine is symmetrical left and right, including the exhaust manifolds. One side took 15 minutes to change. Other side took 5 hours of pain. Sensors in the identical spots left and right, but on one side they moved the connector from on top of the engine to the back of it between the engine and firewall in a pit with 2" of clearance with no line of sight into and no way to reach into without dislocating your arm. That and you're supposed to slide the locking tab off the connector, then get leverage to depress the release on the connector in that area. Probably pretty easy if there wasn't a pesky firewall or engine in the way. They could have kept the connector in the same spot on top for both sensors, making them both 15 minute jobs...but no.
All Audi o2 sensors have been that way for 15 years and they are zip tied to the rear coolant pipe making them impossible to reach, impossible to cut the zip ties and impossible to get a socket on the sensor. We used to cut the wires and have to make a tool to reach the sensor
The founder of Honda made Honda a trust that operates only if 4 levels of safisfaction are hit. 1. Consumer satisfaction 2. Repair worker satisfaction 3. Line satisfaction 4. Vendor satisfaction. Those four things determine if the shareholders GET to KEEP their shares or else the company reverts back to full private with language in place that those things must be fixed before any C suite bonus, buyout, or any golden parachute for the holders. Pretty smart imo. I think thats the sole reason Honda is as dominant and yet understandable as they are.
I have a civic. My friend has a Camry and my mom has a RAV4. Toyotas are not solid by any means these days. I make him feel bad by tapping his tim cam hood every time I walk past it @@ayliniemi
@ArariaKAgelessTraveller I don't think that'd help them much. Honda has like 3 cars on the top 10 most sold in US list and only recently got detroned by Tesla model Y as THE most sold car. They're doing just fine. If they wanted to be like everyone else maybe they'd make their luxury brand, Acura, actually their luxury brand and make some fancy yet truly functional cars. But honda tends to let either the race teams do the inventing, or just innovate the thing Mercedes did like 10years ago but actually make it manufacturingly scalable.
They should bring him on the main channel. Maybe do a build-off series even, have the Donut guys go up against Sandro and his boys, starting with the same car and budget and build it to be able to do multiple things. For example, they could split the builds into 2 videos, a video taking them rockcrawling, a video mudding, a video doing laps, a video doing drifting and a video doing drag racing. and at the end whoever wins 3 of the 5 is the champion.
@@acarpenter1332 yep. I mean, it's not that hard to figure out. But they can be picky about what is shared in social media, and I didn't specify WHICH German OEM I worked at lol. Could the the vehicle manufacturer or one of the suppliers.
@@frtard I could.... But there's multiple German companies here that supply BMW too. Gotta be careful these days saying shit about your employer online.
14:22 "built like tanks" WWII german panzer tanks suffered from over engineering as well. German tank operators had difficulty repairing them in the field and often times abandoned them.
That Merc trying to do a burnout is from Australia. That dude won the car in a raffle and didnt know shit about it. Tried showing off at his mates wedding and blew up the car lol
I thought Australians were born knowing how to do a burnout? Don't you do your first one shortly after having your first fackin' VB Longneck at like age 9? 😂
Worst German car I worked on was a Smart fortwo. To replace an alternator, you have to unbolt the entire rear subframe, empty and disconnect the air conditioning, raise the body off the subframe, then raise the engine up out of the cradle so that you can get enough clearance to swap in the old alternator.
@@piotrkowalczyk1087 all the engineering is German, I had a Fortwo Diesel, and that little car also had some problems with the engine holders, they would rot and the engine would drop on the ground, the good thing that Peanuts ignores on that miserable little car is the mileage, a micro turbo diesel consuming 3.2 liters every 100 km's was something that even some 125 cc scooters and light motorcycles can't achieve.
The black Mercedes trying to burnout was Australia. It was SOME RANDOM guys wedding, he HAD traction control on, and had just WON the car worth an insane amount and killed it RIGHT THERE.
@@owenhunt6796 Maybe it blew a trans cooler line or something, because God knows that trans was HOTT after that hahahaha.. It's probably just super hot coolant landing on the super hot exhaust, and burning instantly, causing a quick fire
Would be cool to hear some personal horror stories from the mechanics they've experienced. They all seem to be passionate and I'd like to hear more personal accounts sometimes than just their opinion/reaction to a video. The reactions are awesome, but I always like hearing personal accounts, they tend to have a lot more emotion than a video you scroll past in my experience.
I used to work as a mechanic in NJ 15-20 years ago. That time, I hated to work on VW and Audi. All plastic and fragile sensor covers, connectors, wiring harness etc. jam packed under the hood. It was almost guaranteed to break something else before you reach the part you wanna replace. Leaky head gaskets were icing on the cake. I wonder if its still the case.
Sandro is a true tradesman, his knowledge is beyond textbook. You can tell he has a shit ton of hours working on cars. He also mentioned in a past vid that his dad was/is a mechanic. So you know his knowledge runs deep. Also, he gotta get it right because he's doin it for da bois.
see i also would of guessed something small and stupid. hes complaining about having to take the clutch pedal out to repair the clutch pedal. kinda stupid imo
@kevingeezy5176 istg people who think mechanics should get it right the first time 100 percent of the time make me hate people. If you've ever done actual work on a line of cars/trucks you'd know that's not possible. Especially not when you're given stupid questions like I took out the pedal what am I repairing.
@@NickButlerishMy thoughts too. It is exactly where usually the carburetor is placed on that conversion (one of the few places there is space in the engine bay)
I had a Volvo V50 and the cabin air filter was behind the steering wheel 😳🤯. To simply swap your filter: 1) remove the steering wheel 2) remove all gauges 3) swap filter 😂
That's easier than my 1991 BMW 5 Series. 1) Remove glovebox 2) remove a bunch of inner plastic panels 3) remove remove some HVAC vents 4) remove AC module 5) pull out air filter while contorting your body in the passenger footwell.
The coolant isn’t “dripping”‘onto the wire harness. The issue is the 7-series uses an electronic thermostat so the ECU can regulate coolant temperature. The problem is the e-thermostat seals will fail and “wick” coolant inside the wire harness and take out the control modules.
The coolant is not just dripping on the harness. BMWs use an electrically controlled thermostat, which sometimes leaks internal allowing the coolant to enter the wire. The outside of the harness is water tight, but that doesn’t help when it comes from the inside of the connector. This happens with the oil pressure sensor too.
This is a very common issue on international dt466E the injection drive harness that goes through the valve cover does the exact same thing. We call it wicking. But it does that exactly it will push the oil all the way to the ecm and fry it.
Love seeing the reaction to the n63 engine out of the car, I’ve spent many an hour working on that nightmare and the car attached to it. You get used to having chafed forearms
I had the same happen to a Ford Fiesta where the BCM git fried because the wiper fluid went all the way from the pump into the BCM. So no its not Just a German Car/BMW Problem.
That failed burnout with the Mercedes amg was over here in Australia. Actually in my suburb lol. That car was only a few days old. Turns out he blew the entire gearbox to smithereens because he couldn’t figure how to turn off all the traction controls.
"I'm a BMW guy, oh no" 😂😂 I felt that deep down inside. Just got a 2011 335i and felt so worried about it but it grew on me quickly and I love it too much
That's the most accurate thing. American mechanics simply seem to lack the experience. Somehow over here in Germany, they're happy with German cars and despise the couple American models they get.
Germany always did like it's overly complicated schemes, mechanisms, etc.. Just look at all the convoluted steps that bischmarch had to take to simply unify germany, only differenece being that it worked in his case.
True. My mid-life fun car is an M Roadster. When I spun the oil pump nut off (being stupid hooning), it took a few weeks nights & weekends to swap in a new S52. Not bad with no lift considering I replaced all the coolant hoses, new clutch, etc. SAFETY WIRE YOUR OIL PUMP NUT, PEOPLE 🤓
Bmw engineers meetings always start off with "hey, I found out where we can put another coolant line thats not required, and where we can bolt more plastic parts onto metal at".
Probably... but.... I was working on a Chrysler once upon a time. 3.5 v6 I think.. 2004 Concorde.. The entire intake manifold (the molded plastic sort) popped about 6 inches from my face as I was leaned over trying to listen. It was sitting for quite some time. Had a few turn over - no starts prior, apparently something happened timing wise, and the gas didnt leave the valves from the prior start attempts, and it decided to blow.
Agreed. It is sad that Audi could once make my indestructible 1984 4000 Quattro and now only makes Techno-Garbage. As my 4000q has never had any major work to the engine, trans, etc. and had about *350k miles on it. * The odometer was stuck at 225k when I bought it seventeen years ago...
Whats your opinion on the 1.8turbo? I always found that to be one of the easiest cars to work on ever, would never dare to touch the 2.8 or any of the s4 engines though, only pita I can think of with the 1.8 is electrical gremlins, especially regarding the trunks wiring harness getting pinched from repeated use of the trunk hatch and the fancy led for hazards and warnings fading away with heat(almost forgot the fact that the b6 doesnt have an oil pressure gauge in the cluster, just have to hope the red oil lamp of doom appears when its a problem.
I've had a few second generation Audi A8, great car the one I have now has 260,000 on it. It has some really funny water intrusion problems, if you don't keep the drains clear the water from the windshield backs up and shorts the transmission control unit located literally in the cowl drain area in a plastic box that says in German that "water intrusion is forbidden." The other thing is once that fills up it leaks into the HVAC system through where the blower motor is (also in the cowl drain area) once it fills up in the heater core it dumps the water through an overflow pipe into the driver and passenger side footwells, the reason that I know they knew about this issue and over engineered it is that it eventually makes it to drain holes that are drilled on the low spot under the driver and passenger seats and it comes out under the car. In Audi's defense the first guy that buys the car for $100,000 keeps it in a garage and won't learn about this "truth in engineering" i keep mine outside and have to spend about an hour twice a year clearing all the drains with compressed air. Luckily 100% of the frame and body of that model is aluminum so it doesn't rust from the water or anything like that.
As a BMW Master Tech of over 17 years, it’s obvious who hasn’t worked on these shit-boxes. 0:21 it’s not abnormal to have a thermostat in that location. BMW has so many extra coolers and coolant hoses because they’re trying to get as much power in a confined space. I don’t know why she said it was abnormal to have a thermostat down there. The reason why the coolant wicks its way up the harness is due to a phenomenon called “capillary action”, something you should have learned in chemistry. When the pins of the thermostat are not water tight, the flow of electricity will actually wick that fluid back up the wires, back to the source- the DME. The same is true of oil circuits. This isn’t a BMW exclusive thing, but those N63 engines did have a recall or bulletin for that issue. 1:49 that’s the typical N63 twin turbo V8 that BMW has been using for almost 15 years now, with a few updates. They’re a nightmare of coolant hoses, wiring harnesses, vacuum lines, etc and nothing is easy to access. It’s a “hot” V8, meaning the exhaust and turbos are between the cylinder heads, and the intake is on the lower side of the heads, where the exhaust would typically go. These engines also use corrugated plastic pipes for the PCV system, which get fragile and brittle over time, with the motion of the engine, and the fact that they sit on top of the turbos. Also, the turbo coolant lines tend to leak because of the same reason. THIS is a better example of trapping heat than the BS Scotty Kilmer video, which made no sense at all. 2:27 that steering wheel thing is nothing normal or that can be blamed on the engineering. That’s definitely an issue with the car….NOT the steering angle sensor. All modern BMWs use electric steering, except maybe some M cars, for better feedback through hydraulic steering. 5:00 the switch could just be shorted out, but it is possible that it’s due to spilled fluids. EDC controls the suspension dynamics, not sport mode. But she’s probably right in the fact that the connection point is pinkish in color. 6:18 that’s an N54. It’s super easy to access all of the plugs and coils. I’d never let him touch my car, seeing him use a 4’ prybar. Take out 8x 8mm screws to remove the microfilter cowling, and you have easy access to all plugs and coils, and it takes 2 minutes. That engine cover doesn’t retain the heat. It helps protect that area from water, and has sound deadening underneath the cover because that engine utilizes direct injection, so the injectors are very noisy. The next iteration 335 has an N55 which actually would be a GREAT example of shitty design. It still has the air filter up top, but there’s a charge pipe that goes over cylinders 4-6, so you have to take off a bunch of stuff to access the back 3 cylinders, you can’t easily swap plugs and coils, and you can’t run it with the cover off. If you want good examples of shitty BMW engineers: I need a second person to help me open and close the hood on the i8. It’s lightweight, aluminum hood that can bend and distort very easily. It’s also $15k to replace. In order to replace the air flaps (another stupid BMW design that blocks airflow to the radiator to heat the engine up faster…but they fail all the time and cause check engine lights) I have to remove the hood before I can remove the bumper On the i3, in order to replace a window regulator, you need to completely remove the door from the body, as the door brake check goes THROUGH the door panel, and there’s no way of removing it otherwise. On the iX, BMW engineers decided to put the subwoofer in the rear of the car, under the back seat, but on the underside of the chassis. That means that if your subwoofer goes out, you have to remove the entire high voltage battery unit, just to replace a speaker. We also have a TCB under the shark fin antenna, which has a battery you have to replace every few years- typically you have to replace one before it goes out of warranty. In order to replace it, you have to lower the headliner to access it. It pays 3 plus hours on some cars under warranty. That’s 5-6 hours when the customer has to pay for it. Heck, even filling up the washer fluid can be an ordeal on some cars. On the iX, they don’t want the customer to open the hood, so the BMW emblem opens up to fill up the washer fluid…but you have no idea how much you need to add. On other cars, the little blue cap is recessed to the point that it won’t stay open. So you open the cap, lift your Gallon of washer fluid to pour it in, and the cap closes back down. You literally have to take the cap off by pressing a release/lock tab that you SHOULD only need to engage when resolving the cap…all just to put washer fluid in the car. That’s an absolutely blatant example of how the engineers never seem to touch the cars, or think about working on them. I could go on and on and on about it. We have a saying in the BMW world: “A BMW engineer would climb over a PILE of virgins, just to fuck a technician”
Yep any competent person with some tools and time can swap out plugs and coils from an N54 easily. Scotty is just sensationalist trash who probably drives a BMW himself.
1:02 The “for some reason” is called capillary action. You can demonstrate it by taking a strip of paper towel and partly immersing it in a glass of water. The water will wick up to higher than the water level.
Maybe, or thermostat housing (plastic) has a heating element in it (emissions and such). In case there is a leak there, it would send coolant (or steam) under relatively high pressure up the connector, wiring harness, that is sealed well enough to make it all the way up.
@@durbinmotorworks6253 ick, that sounds like a royal mess! I’m currently building a control cabinet for a chemistry research project, and the reaction uses a really aggressive solvent (DMF) that attacks basically every plastic except HDPE, Teflon, Kapton, and PEEK - all the usual wire insulation materials are hopeless against it. So we decided that we will simply put the external wires in Teflon tubes, and then put the entire cabinet, and the tubes coming from it, under positive pressure with nitrogen, so that even if DMF leaks out, it can’t wick onto the wires due to the positive pressure. Precisely to avoid the kind of mess that appears to have happened in this vehicle!
@@adminadminson3147 I know that. But sometimes you can’t choose what type of wire a particular component is made with. Or the component has Teflon leads, but they’re too short and you have to splice them. (Sure there’s Teflon heat shrink, too. But it isn’t adhesive-lined, and regular adhesive-lined heatshrink isn’t chemically compatible.) Or you can’t get a particular Teflon-insulated multi-conductor cable by the foot, only by the reel in a size much larger than you need. Protecting wiring inside conduit or pipes, both rigid or flexible, is commonly done in industrial environments. We are literally just doing that in miniature.
Older German cars are relatively easy to work on as it’s more about mechanical engineering and durability but anything that has a lot of computer controls become much harder to work on, especially diagnostics. But all those computers take up more room so there is less working room in which to even get in and actually service the item. Older German cars really had a philosophy of rebuild and servicing components vs just throwing it out and buying a new one. But they do drive like few other cars do
Exactly, as my 1984 Audi 4000q is the best car I have ever owned but I would never buy a newer Audi. Likewise the BMW 2002tii was a great car but modern BMW's suck to own...
I make small mistake hit a high curb and broke windshield wiper fluid reservoir in my Audi A4, to get to this u need Take wheel off, take inside of wheel-well off. then u have access
13:50 I ran onto the same thing changing the heater core on a Grand Cherokee. The entire dash has to come out because it's integrated into the ventilation channels. There's one ground wire right in the middle you better not forget about. Or your taking it apart again.
As a german engineer I can confirm we always try to make it as hard as possible for the mechanics. Then we all have an evil laugh before working on adding more complexity.
Mk4 VWs are difficult to put aftermarket radios in for three reasons. 1) the radio on/off is controlled by canbus so to install an aftermarket radio correctly, you need to buy a $100 or so canbus interface adapter. 2) if you're not installing an aftermarket radio correctly, there is no 12V switched power in there, you have to run a separate wire for switched power to turn the radio on and off. 3) there aren't really any nice dash kits since the mounting system they use is proprietary and very very low profile. The dash kits that work are just press fit into the hole since the car doesn't have any ISO DIN brackets and the standard aftermarket radio cages wont sit properly.
Mk4s absolutely have switched and constant 12V at the radio. There's no CAN-Bus at the radio in any MK4. At most the later MK4s had CAN-Bus for ABS, ECU, Cluster and a gateway. These cars have almost entirely standard ISO-Pinouts at the radio. What You're mentioning happened on the next generation of vehicle networks, like in the B7 A4 for example.
My worst German car experience was my 2013 GTI. It had less than 30k miles on it and the DSG transmission failed. 6 months and about 3k miles later, the thermostat failed. Then the intake needed to be changed on a recall. And finally, I had a misfire due to carbon buildup on the valves with less than 45k on the odometer. I took it to VW because I didn’t have the time deal with it and they tell me I need to pay for diagnostics. I pay for it. They inform me that the use of non-OEM coil packs can be recognized by the onboard computer and that I need OEM coil packs to complete the diagnostic. I asked if they swapped plugs or coils to see if the misfire changes cylinders because they were all aftermarket coils and it was strange that the misfire was in one cylinder, if that was the case. They said no they didn’t attempt swapping the coils or plugs. I tell them I’m not buying new coils for a test and they just need to complete a valve cleaning service and charge me for that. The technician had the audacity to tell me that their scan tool could tell if the valves had carbon build-up…as if there was a sensor inside or around the combustion area. I asked for my car back, took it to a local Euro shop, they agreed 100 percent with my assessment and verified it by swapping the coils and plugs around. Cleaned the valves and the problem was solved. I sold that car and refuse to buy another VW/AUDI.
@@nicksokolis6343i dont think youd have much of an issue with carbon build up in Toyotas because they use port and direct injection to clean the valves from carbon build up. At least not at 45k miles. My friend has an Audi and had to get his cars intake cleaned for this same problem.
Based on my time working on a late 90s merc, the worst and most painful part has to be the plastic pieces. They snap easily when taking off, and the worst part is that it is often incredibly difficult to find a replacement piece for them too
I've owned two cars. a 2nd gen mazda 3, and a b8 audi s4. Replacing the all rotors and pads in my mazda took me about an hour. In my audi it takes about 2 hours. Replacing the valve cover gasket in my mazda, takes 40 minutes with watching a tutorial. A couple of bolts and youre done. In my Audi (granted it has 2 gaskets) takes nearly 3 hours. You have to remove the intake, remove a gas line, remove the coolant tank, plastic valve covers, and plastic crank case breather hoses that are designed to break when you remove them...But I still love my S4.
My 05 Mazda sp23 is easy to work on its still going daily driver for my wife over 300,000kms got her 2 new cars since then and she wont part with the Mazda and sold the new cars after about a year. My 80 series Landcruiser is easy to work on when the wife got me a new 4wd she said you have to sell the 80 series or the 2nd gen 4runner, I sold the 4runner and the new 4wd about 12months later. We still have a 1990 80 series Landcruiser and a 2005 Mazda sp23 some cars are just too good to get rid off.
ok yes but you are talking about a car that is a v6 supercharged and has dual everything. Even the b5 s4 was 2 of everything… it would take a little more time.
I also once had an Audi a4 B8 with the 2.0 l tfsi. and that is the engine that is always clogging up the pistons. In any case, Audi repaired this on the American models at their own expense. As a German, the German companies prefer to fuck me, but they simply claimed that 1-2 liters of oil per 1000 km is completely normal for a car from 2009. These pussers. I tell you German customers prefer to fuck German car companies.
As a Skoda owner (vw group), I'm glad my car's platform isn't flawed enough to reach your studio :)) This video was basically a BMW show with a little VW and a touch of Mercedes
Skoda in general are stripped down versions of VW group cars, so you lose some of the technology, but in a good way. As an example, my Skoda will do things like set the radio presets depending on which key fob starts it, but it doesn’t have the driver specific electric seat adjustment that an Audi level car would have. Same platform, same computer, but with a lot less wiring and electric motors that get real expensive to repair after 5 years or so of ownership.
@@King-Kazma Skoda don`t have anything with German`s ;) Yes it`s European but is from Czech Republic. And another thing every new`ish car is mess because ot the PC and every "factory update" that have inside ;) The old cars don`t have 99% of problem new`ish have
@@crybaby1363 probably someone in denial, but yeh really they are all pretty much built on one VW platform or another... and not necessarily a bad thing, for one the engines are far FAR FAR!! better in every way. heck my mates TDI Octavia has the EXACT same engine as my golf. but going further back i think the version starting 2004 was built on the A5 platform (so same as golf,A3,leon ect ect)
@@iskrendinchev5882 Skoda are 98% German. Same chassis platform as Audi/VW/Seat. Same engines. Same electronics. Most parts have VW or Audi stampings. Only the outer sheet metal and upholstery fabric is Czech. This makes it easier to source parts though as more or less the same engine may be in a dozen different models of car.
VW guy here. Once had my headlight switch randomly catch fire on me for seemingly no reason. After a careful inspection of the wiring, and finding nothing else wrong. I replaced said switch, fixed nothing else, and haven't had a problem with it in 10 years!
Skoda owner here. Brilliant bit of kit, and its VW. My mechanic's fav cars are Minis, Range Rovers, Beemers etc, because they make him the most money. Least favourite? Toyota, Lexus. Almost never have issues, so makes no money😂
Shouldn’t have had a problem to begin with if it were properly designed. I once had a $55k VW Touareg. I drove it from the stealership to its grave at the junkyard in about 79000 miles. Every single thing on that car broke. Never again VAG. Never. Again.
I am from Germany and I work as a hobby on cars. Sometime I fix minor things for friends and family. Nothing big, nothing complicated. Stuff like installing new headlights, radios, swapping breaks etc. By far my worst experience with a German car was BMWs who needed what felt the whole from taken out to change the headlight bulbs. Equally baffling was a Renault that needed a specially molded radio (or a plastic cover ) because of course the radio needs to be part of sloping plastic thing
@@065Tim Look up how to change a cabin air filter on a new Renault Master. It's astonishingly stupid. And, even worse, the new filter comes in two pieces. But for some reason the original one is a one-piece filter that won't fit through the hole you are supposed to take it out through. So you basically have two options: Either cut the filter in half through a small hole you can barely reach through or take the dash apart even further than you already needed to (You need to remove the whole glovebox assembly in order to get to the filter opening).
i had a 2003 BMW X5 with a 5 speed manual that i bough for dirt cheap a few years back. first day of ownership: the top of the radiator exploded, so i replaced that. 2 days later: CV axle slightly pops out of the front differential, causing the car to not move (no clue how, nothing was messed up) the next day after repair, the clutch goes out. One month later, my valve cover gasket starts letting oil leak all over the engine. some time after fixing that, the transmission starts overheating, but the fill bolt for the gear oil decides it wanted to be a cylinder, so i took it into a shop to fix. a few days after i get it back, cylinder 2 decides it wanted to go to space. The only thing i did with this car was take it on a 4 hour road trip, and drive to work every day, my s2k is my fun stuff car. That X5 is now a cube at a scrapyard somewhere in texas.
Push it again 😂😂😂 Sandro reminds me of my friend in high school he got us in so much trouble but I loved every single minute of hanging out with him 😢 I miss him to this day
The moment I saw Scotty Kilmer my brain just instantly wanted to skip that part. He's not teaching anything in his videos he's just yelling and yapping shit and seemingly can't accept the fact that people have different preferences and opinions.
My boss bought 2023 bmw transmission went at 13.000 then the decals fell off then the electric went fucked . Ggen he bought a tundra.....my best friend bought a Mercedes transmission skipped several gears and smoked at 30.000 and harness fried the totaled the car. .... meanwhile my " pos American truck" had 167.0000 and no issues
8:00 exactly! When automakers switched to direct injection the customers started complaining about ticking noises (high pressure fuel pump). Don't be surprised to find lots of noise dampening material on your domestics
As a german automotive engineer, we put drain plugs/valves in the rear quarter panel compartments, but people clog them with leaves and stuff, and the water gets in there because they don't clean the leaves and moss out in the trunk seal channel 🤷♂️ And if you want to go fast in a car with a big engine in a small bay, you need to get crazy with cooling. It's a BMW after all, and in Germany, we love to drive 130mph+ for more than 20min without overheating.
@gmarinelarena8675 it's not an excuse, it's the reason. As an engineer you have to keep the balance between manufacturing cost, specifications and usability. But because car companies are businesses, run by business economists, cost is paramount, spec have to be met that it works excellent in a test and acceptable for five years, then it's out of leasing or warranty and the manufacturer does not care anymore. Usability has to be good in that period, but if it reaches the age that it's not returning to the dealers workshop, the OEM couldn't care less how crazy the package is. If the OEM can save a penny during manufacturing and it costs you an arm fixing something after five years, he'll gladly accept it. And the engine bays in Germany are not always that well filled, here, smaller engines are quite common and usually the engine that was in the original design. But for the US engines need to be big, so the most ridiculous, barely fitting blocks are pressed in there, so engineers got to get creative.
@gmarinelarena8675 Can you tell me which OEM gives you the freedom of optimising for maintenance and accessibility instead of cost effectiveness? It is what it is, that's why I am happy not working for VW anymore. I am now happy in a small company working closely with manufacturing and mechanics, way more fulfilling.
I recently picked up a BMW Z4 and I knew I liked it after test driving it for a bit. But after a few weeks of owning it, I REALLY like it far more than I expected. But nothing will beat my baby, a 1997 NA Mazda MX5 ❤
Had an audi a6. A certain brake module on that year often failed, it cost $800 to replace, and was tucked in behind another $800 part that didn't fail you had to remove and reinstall when replacing the high failure rate (and nationally backordered, forgot that lol) part. Guess what Audi did. They re-engineered the two parts into one f**king $1600 molded plastic housing with both inside that replaced the seperate parts.
In germany we say "Bayrischer Mist Wagen" or "Bring Mich Werkstatt" (Bavarian Shit Car or Take me to the Workshop) Audi and BMW got notorious for over-engineering so you simply cant repair yourself. Bring it to them so they can milk you for more cash.
@@ricktrue8441 LMAO loser thinks he can buy a bmw for 10k and not worry about maintanance. last time I checked bmw are made for perfomance and people who buy them dont life with their parents 😂 😂
@ 8:00 The reason the engine covers aren't necessary is because of heat retention. In certain HOT states it's worse. Most wire assemblies won't be damaged from moisture considering they're under the hood which protects most damages as well as the fact that moisture cannot reach them. UNLESS you have a massive gap between the bumper and hood or an intake system like a Corvette which pulls air in through the bottom and diffuses it into the brake system as well as the intake system which is why most sports cars with these systems aren't driven proficiently in rainy weather conditions.
5:21 Thank you Sandro, you are super funny and you always bring the "older brother" feel to the channel. You have a lot of really good info, you have a Great way of putting things and you throw awesome jokes into it. Thanks for being so awesome😁👍
German engineering is basically “how can we ram as much as possible into a small space with the intent of making things better but it becomes so complicated nobody can fix it”
@@Sdizzle7 They were great cars until they went to so much plastic under the hood. One 'simple' repair that would cost $1500 on a GM/Ford/Toyota would cost you $3800 on a 10 yr old audi. Lease one every 2-3 years. It's your best bet with German cars. Unless you have the money, then hell yes! Enjoy because they do drive wonderfully!
Can't argue, but before they started using so much plastic under the hood, they were very reliable. Back then if you had the money to afford an audi, you had the money to maintain one. Not anymore. The plastic wears out so much quicker and that same $1500 in a GM/Ford/Toyo will be $3550 in an Audi. This has actually been seeping in for years. Early 2000's Concorde had to remove a tire and splashguard to get to the battery. Late '90s Buick had to undo a motor mount and tilt the engine to replace the one serpentine belt! It's all about the sticker in the window now days. 70-% of people just look at that. MPG(weight)/HP/Price. They want you to believe you need 240 hp in a daily driver that weighs 3000 Pounds! Sry, ranting! lol.
It is the remnants of the Prussian military culture that dominated Germany for a very long time. It is very hierarchical, and it has a tendency to make the officer class forget about the existence of the enlisted. Basically, the engineers here have a job to do, and that is to make the vehicle work efficiently and reliably. However, "will it be convenient or even workable for the mechanic" does not even come into it - mechanics are not part of their class so their existence does not even fall within their perception. Funnily enough, with NATO the actual German military moved past this boneheaded culture a long time ago. Sadly, its remnants are alive and well and still doing damage in a lot of civilian sectors in Germany (and the militaries of other nations who were modelled after the Prussian army, often with Prussian advisors, in the past).
@@LordKhuzdul thats not even true a little bit 🤣 Especially since manufacturers like BMW, Audi and Porsche are from the very south of Germany (Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg), which have NOTHING to do with prussian culture.
Love me some Sandro! Bring Steph back for more stuff! And I think it's funny they used a Scotty video! They need to do a whole series on his hack and dangerous repairs 🤣🤣
The quality went down when American philosophy entered. The numbers every quarter got more important than the longevity. Still better than American made cars, even when the asians beat them in durability these days. But as long as they are still looking this good I’m ok with some extra bucks spent for maintenance. And if you keep up with (preventive) maintenance the are very reliable (except one BMW i had, that was a lemon if I’ve ever seen one. I still suspect the first owner, a chief physician in a big hospital here around, drove it like he stole it in the one year he had it…)
@@erebostd Please refrain from using common sense, science and statistics. The Americans truly dislike it! It a country that defends measuring things with their feet, while braging about NASA, even though Russia carried NASA for decades
That bullshit with the flooded computer happened to my dad's Audi too. The screen/radio etc in the front doesn't work anymore due to the water damage in the back.
I have and old E36 with 140k miles here in Switzerland. Its has the 1.9 105hp petrol engine. It runs and drives great and under the hood it looks like new! I bought it used for 2k€. It has been only serviced at BMW for the past 22 years. Still runs great and no major repairs just the usual wearables.
The plastic coolant pipe at the rear of the head can be pushed out by corrosion causing them to leak and boil. Seen a few do it and its not really visible. The m43b19 is a tough engine alright 💪 iv owned e36s and e46s and they were designed brilliantly, it was at the end of the e46s that they started going very wrong. The n42b20a is a 2l petrol engine which when running is powerful and revvy, but everything breaks 😂 thats what replaced your engine
@@Mrich775I get it, also 2-3 "services" at BMW would be at 2k range probably, so I will dubbel down and say its BS, if true, that car should be at the museum.
15 years ago i was working as supplier with BMW AG on N54 and N55 and Prince engine a little (M13/M12) (Munich, Germany) and S85 (M GmbH, Munich, Germany) and N57 and M57TÜ2 (Steyr, Austria). So three things: 1.BMW M GmbH / S85 Guys at BMW M GmbH were working in little team and knew what they were doing and listened to us in what we were trying to help them. It is sad that this V10 became known for its lack of reliability but these are the guys you wanted to work with. They had a McLaren F1 engine at the reception waiting space it was setting the tone but they were WAY more humble than any other engineer from Peugeot or Renault or BMW AG. BMW M GmbH was little then it was really nice to work with them. Their parking lot was crazy and the workshop inside was something of another world. With them it was not really working it was more like an engineering dream come true. I want to thank them. 2.BMW AG (benzin) / N54 + N55 Guys at BMW AG were pretty good for project management and putting suppliers on their knee and cutting cost. But that's about it. They were creating product's specification "GS" (General Specification) that were way too complicated and that were written without taking into account supplier's capability or reality of the product. (to my humble opinion this is what explain that the cars made then were too complicated). Technically they were too proud but were not so good and it was a huge issue in developpement. I understand they can not trust too much suppliers and it is difficult for them to have same experience on a given product than that of the supplier itself. But hey, they were speaking like they knew it all but in the back they were asking us stupid explaination about stupid electric stuff they should have known. They made a mess about everything and they even crashed the only prototype car they had to test our product on the track in Miramas, France. They crash the car while high speed joy riding. The test to be conducted were slow test. High speed test were not relevant and not critical. Many times they would be like project dictators, trying to enforce stupid deadline with a hammer while telling "if you don't do that we will kick you out forever" and things of that magnitude. There was no "farmer's common sense" in Munich. It was much internal politics and reality denial, as it always comes with politics. We can say they were on the technical woke side of the industry. You did not want to work with them. One time they were loud and told my collegue "our next intern is miss playboy oktoberfest". And here she was, a few days later, dressed decently, when we all had seen her before with less clothes on playboy on line. They would complain about us when we were working like crazy with crazy complex stuff. She was here creating 4 lines table (4 lines, yes) and they were happy with her you could tell. That's where they were. At that time it felt like they had a huge gap between the old generation and the new generation. The guys from the old generation seemed like they refused everything and were just here to complain and be the center of the attention. Naturally the newer generation was then not loud and let them be the center of the show. So at the end it was more like a puppet show because the old bmw generation was trying to reject any new things while the new generation was making specifications to built 1 ton rockets with integrated hotel for 86 persons. These old generation had a say on stuff that they had no understanding of it was annoying. It was really a bad puppet show to watch. It is clear that 530i and 325ix from the 80s were good cars but it felt like they just could not comply to the idea that new cars will need new technologies and new bolts. And I mean litterally new bolts because that's what we were arguing about, bolts or welding solution. 3.BMW Steyr (Diesel) / M57Tü2 / N57 They were working in little teams and did more work than double the amount of people at Munich. One or two guys were not that friendly (the youngest one are the less humble ones at BMW this was a common pattern, even in Steyr). But they could manage it and they were not in line with Munich, they had WAY more common sense. Actually at first the Steyr Factory was a tractor factory! It seemed they had kept all their "farmer's common sense". They had very nice workshops and their mechanics were so good you could tell not much explaination needed, they figure things out on the spot and do it so fast, like at BMW M GmbH. I guess many of them were into racing teams before. The city of Steyr and its hotel were very nice, driving there was litterally like going to holidays. I did not enjoy working with the young guys, maybe they were thinking they are the dog's bollocks. The rest of time i was working with Audi both Diesel (Neckarsulm) and benzin (Ingolstadt). What I can say is that if Audi are complicated and not relialable.... well.... no wonder... at all. Really. It was nice to watch W12 and V10 and RS4 DTM pace car driving around the factory or in workshop, but no wonder idf AUDI are complicated cars. A few years after i got to work at BMW internally on other project. I realised that how BMW Munich was treating us a suppliers... got me to the conclusion that these former "collegues" at BMW Munich were complete /*/*/**/*//**-/. Well you get it. A few years later i worked with an inusrrance company as "expert". Most cases were VW and BMW taking fire. It was just sad to see how BMW and VW treated their customers. I make it short: BMW and VW will throw all they can against their customers to accuse them... If it includes heavy trials and courts stuff, they will take that path. if this needs lying in court against you, they will do. In South Korea, they even lied to the government/justice and some BMW executive (German) had to FLEE the country to avoid jail for lying in court. Almost the same happen in USA with VW. Lying is part of BMW daily life, for many projects
Thanks for the interesting story, somehow it does not surprise me. It is similar to other industries, eu is really on its way out as an industrial powerhouse...
1:02 - Jaguars XFs - X250 platform - also have this issue. Coolant leaks and it finds it's way to the 'body control module' in the driver's side front fender. So if you're e-park brake won't release, it could be this issue. Common if the car's been sat around for several months. Iirc it's around $9.5k for the harness + module.
I love Sandro cuz he reminds me of all the homeboy I grew up with. He's the homeboy you go to when you want to do something dumb, but don't know how to do it. Sandro the type of vato to just show up and help "just to see what happens"
12:26 My brother bought a $200 beater and they had spliced the head unit into the headlight wiring so the radio would turn on or off with the head lights.
Economy car quality? What VWs have you been looking at? We've owned Fords, Hondas, and Toyotas before our VWs and the VW fit and finish, as well as performance, is way above those other three. I'm not denying they're more complicated but you can tell they're more sophisticated when driving.
Obviously we’re all proud of our PITA German cars but I think the 4 chain, 9 guide, engine out timing job of the Audi 4.2 deserves an honourable mention.
Fun times as a BMW tech. Had to program an e90 only for the radio to crash mid process. Subsequently, it took out every other module with it in the process. Fun talks all round with the foreman, service advisor, and customer about why they needed to purchase all their modules.
@@CrossWindsPat Voltage problems. E9x modules especially lightand body module incredibly picky when it comes to voltage especially if they jumped incorrectly
so while the car was in your shop, you caused something to break and billed the customer for it? that stuff only flies in America. anywhere else you and the shop are responsible for any defects caused during your work. You are the expert, you are the one who should have known the voltage can damage other components, you are the one who has all the equipment to check the voltage in the first place. the only way to make the customer take blame is if he did some form of unauthorized modification or repairs on his car that caused the problem.
@@CrossWindsPat Dralership ended up covering it after everything was said and done. It wasn't wholly uncommon for modules to just up and shit the bed during programming sessions, just not always to the point where they would brick the entire car.
I can't stand him. Nothing but misinformation. Spent a day in one of my automotive e classes going over all his misinformation. 2 hour class and according to the teacher we didn't cover all of it.
Sandro is easily a homie , like the mechanics y’all found tend to have a lot of experience and know what they are talking about but they are just great personalities for this and I fricking love them lols
@@CaptainAlex69 I commented this at the same time. It just took me a couple minutes to do because I had to find the emojis which explains why it says it was 2 minutes after
@@JC_500 it’s not assumed. When I was originally looking, the original comment said 19 minutes ago. Yours (this one I’m commenting under) said 14 minutes ago. There was two other replies to the first comment that each said 15 minutes ago.
Sandros.....I fried the sunroof on my BMW years and years ago. It was just a 2007, nothing awesome. However, it smoked hard enough that I jumped out of the car and disconnected the battery. I thought it was going to burn my car down! Mechanic confirmed water has completely washed out the whole assembly.
I love the way Sandro reacts to some of this stuff--the smile says either he's never gonna work on it, or he's gonna enjoy charging a *lot* of money. 🤣
![ลองสุ่มไอโฟน 990 โกงมั้ย? [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.101 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bfsWe0j492k/mqdefault.jpg)
I’m a mechanic, my brother is an engineer, when he started working the first thing I told him was “don’t forget someone has to work on what you design”
As a mechanic. I've told engineers the same thing. "it's not my job, to make your job easier" was the exact reply i got.
@@salemcrippleIt’s true though, design engineers in that industry aren’t incentivized or even asked to make things repairable. It’s the opposite actually, vehicles are designed to be proprietary, for profit. In some other industries it’s different, so things are easily repairable. For example dirt bikes, or commercial cooking equipment… and many others.
So the real blame lies with the bean counters and corporate that decide to prioritize profit over ease of repair and consumers, and the politicians that allow them to do it, not the engineers.
This is why every engineer should have to work in a repair shop for a few years as part of their training.
@@mattmattmatt131313they do. Every engineer works on their own product during development. The problem is that engineers have to balance so so many other things that you don't care about. Size, cost, ease of assembly, manufacturability. The vast majority of time, if you just read the service manual, the engineers have documented exactly how to get access to such-n-such, and what tools you need. But mechanics think they know how to do the work, and often back themselves into a corner. For example, I had a mechanic tell me they had to lift an entire engine to access a broken belt tensioner bolt. If they had bothered to read the service manual, they would have known that all you have to do is remove one wheel and a fender cover, and there's an access hole.
IT"S NOT THE ENGINEERS!!! IT'S THE C SUITE!!!! ONe guy said his retired uncle said engineering at GM was a quagmire of politics and overbearing management who would over ride the engineers to save a penny. #RightToRepair wait till you find out how OEMs treat hospital equipment and warranty work.
"It could be that girl in the back that planted a bomb in there."
Never change Sandro, never change.
Said the same thing.😂😂
she didn't even turn around when it exploded 🤯
@@steverayrapp" cool guys dont look at explosions"
Homeboy is the GOAT
yah that's not so much a German engineering fail, more of an Irish mechanic success
German engineering: I can't remember the exact model, but I'm like 65% sure it was a Volkswagen Toureg. Guy brings it in to the shop for a blown O2 sensor, and he just couldn't figure out a way to get to it. Looks up in the repair manual on how to change that sensor, and right there in the manual it said "step 1: remove engine."
Porsche Cayenne turbo.
My Audi S7 O2 sensor felt that way. Engine is symmetrical left and right, including the exhaust manifolds. One side took 15 minutes to change. Other side took 5 hours of pain. Sensors in the identical spots left and right, but on one side they moved the connector from on top of the engine to the back of it between the engine and firewall in a pit with 2" of clearance with no line of sight into and no way to reach into without dislocating your arm. That and you're supposed to slide the locking tab off the connector, then get leverage to depress the release on the connector in that area. Probably pretty easy if there wasn't a pesky firewall or engine in the way. They could have kept the connector in the same spot on top for both sensors, making them both 15 minute jobs...but no.
All Audi o2 sensors have been that way for 15 years and they are zip tied to the rear coolant pipe making them impossible to reach, impossible to cut the zip ties and impossible to get a socket on the sensor.
We used to cut the wires and have to make a tool to reach the sensor
I'm happy that fixing R1200GS is a bit easier than that
TouAreg bitteschön
The founder of Honda made Honda a trust that operates only if 4 levels of safisfaction are hit.
1. Consumer satisfaction
2. Repair worker satisfaction
3. Line satisfaction
4. Vendor satisfaction.
Those four things determine if the shareholders GET to KEEP their shares or else the company reverts back to full private with language in place that those things must be fixed before any C suite bonus, buyout, or any golden parachute for the holders.
Pretty smart imo. I think thats the sole reason Honda is as dominant and yet understandable as they are.
Your comment makes me want to get a Honda. Toyota is all the craze right now, but can't forget about Honda.
Brilliant.
I have a civic. My friend has a Camry and my mom has a RAV4. Toyotas are not solid by any means these days. I make him feel bad by tapping his tim cam hood every time I walk past it @@ayliniemi
Honda just needs to drive up their marketing and they will be dominant
They are still dominant in many parts of asia though
@ArariaKAgelessTraveller I don't think that'd help them much. Honda has like 3 cars on the top 10 most sold in US list and only recently got detroned by Tesla model Y as THE most sold car. They're doing just fine. If they wanted to be like everyone else maybe they'd make their luxury brand, Acura, actually their luxury brand and make some fancy yet truly functional cars. But honda tends to let either the race teams do the inventing, or just innovate the thing Mercedes did like 10years ago but actually make it manufacturingly scalable.
I see Sandro, I click. Simple
Jerry's German impression is CRAZY
Exactly 😂
Facts
Easy peasy.
Yes
nice seeing a new face on the show, sandro's the favorite tho cant lie
Until you realize she paid by audi
money makes the world go around, nobody gonna fight you on that.@@geecee12
@@geecee12okay and?
@@geecee12oh no, anything but someone with a job!
Angelina is BAE tho
Sandro is so dang comfortable on the show now and I'm here for it
I’m glad I’m not the only whose noticed it the past few episodes you can tell he’s just relaxed
They should bring him on the main channel.
Maybe do a build-off series even, have the Donut guys go up against Sandro and his boys, starting with the same car and budget and build it to be able to do multiple things. For example, they could split the builds into 2 videos, a video taking them rockcrawling, a video mudding, a video doing laps, a video doing drifting and a video doing drag racing. and at the end whoever wins 3 of the 5 is the champion.
@@dyent"the boys" lol it's for them, ya know?
@@CDCI3 well, the boys *are* back in town.
@@dyent the boys deff needa do a build on the main
As someone who works at a German OEM in South Carolina, let me just say, even BUILDING these cars is a pain in the ass.
so... you can just say BMW.
Spartanburg! Haha
@@acarpenter1332 yep. I mean, it's not that hard to figure out. But they can be picky about what is shared in social media, and I didn't specify WHICH German OEM I worked at lol. Could the the vehicle manufacturer or one of the suppliers.
@@frtard I could.... But there's multiple German companies here that supply BMW too. Gotta be careful these days saying shit about your employer online.
I mean you should stop building cars using your ass. Hands would be much more comfortable imo
Giving the young lady props for her first time on the channel. Solid addition. Definitely deserves to be in the rotation
LITERALLY COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER..
TOP COMMENT
@@dylanjamesryan9432GOBBLESS
The young lady was really bright and has a beautiful personality. However, my choice is still Angelina. I do hope she is kept in the loop though.
Fax!
Ya ok she suckssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
14:22 "built like tanks" WWII german panzer tanks suffered from over engineering as well. German tank operators had difficulty repairing them in the field and often times abandoned them.
yes
Panther: "Hanz the transmission!!!"
Sherman: "Just swap it out for another one"
@@abitofapickle6255 we first needz zo remove ze engine too remove ze tranzmizzion ja?
That was more propaganda than truth of allied forces
@@IcePhoenixOfTime there's some truth to them being overdeveloped, for sure. They were good tanks but certainly not without faults.
That Merc trying to do a burnout is from Australia. That dude won the car in a raffle and didnt know shit about it. Tried showing off at his mates wedding and blew up the car lol
Ha was that an LMCT or ECM "charity" ?
@@batchmotorsportLCMT . He also tried to claim insurance the night of the fire before the video went viral. Didn’t work.
Thats more than not knowing shit about it, thats not knowing shit about operating a vehicle.
Apparently he didn't even know the guys at the wedding. That's how I remember it
I thought Australians were born knowing how to do a burnout? Don't you do your first one shortly after having your first fackin' VB Longneck at like age 9? 😂
Worst German car I worked on was a Smart fortwo.
To replace an alternator, you have to unbolt the entire rear subframe, empty and disconnect the air conditioning, raise the body off the subframe, then raise the engine up out of the cradle so that you can get enough clearance to swap in the old alternator.
For such a miserable little car, just pop into Toys R Us and buy another one
exept that SMART is not german
@@piotrkowalczyk1087 The fact that it was built in France is irrelevant. Daimler engineered it.
@@piotrkowalczyk1087 all the engineering is German, I had a Fortwo Diesel, and that little car also had some problems with the engine holders, they would rot and the engine would drop on the ground, the good thing that Peanuts ignores on that miserable little car is the mileage, a micro turbo diesel consuming 3.2 liters every 100 km's was something that even some 125 cc scooters and light motorcycles can't achieve.
new cars are only good for the crusher ...
The black Mercedes trying to burnout was Australia. It was SOME RANDOM guys wedding, he HAD traction control on, and had just WON the car worth an insane amount and killed it RIGHT THERE.
Hahahaha shieeet 😂😂😂😂
Wow what a tool! I feel like the universe dished out sublime justice in that moment!
noice
ok but why was it on fire. or it at least looked that way
@@owenhunt6796 Maybe it blew a trans cooler line or something, because God knows that trans was HOTT after that hahahaha.. It's probably just super hot coolant landing on the super hot exhaust, and burning instantly, causing a quick fire
Steph was actually pretty cool, gonna need her back
Would be cool to hear some personal horror stories from the mechanics they've experienced. They all seem to be passionate and I'd like to hear more personal accounts sometimes than just their opinion/reaction to a video. The reactions are awesome, but I always like hearing personal accounts, they tend to have a lot more emotion than a video you scroll past in my experience.
Yeah that would be sick, anouther little show maybe even with little doodle art to help with the visuals
A cartoon series with them would be great
The fact that liquid fuel rocket engines can have less tubing and be easier to work on than these engines is insane.
To be fair, a rocket engine better be built with service in mind. That thing fucks up, you're a lot worse than stuck on the side of the road.
"Any time you push a button and smoke comes out-..."
Sandro- "push it again"!!
I wish I was one of his boys. I'd do anything to ride with that dude.🤘
Get some friends my guy
Get some gays my friends
im gay get me guys
@@Cydro12 what you talking about
@@albinqoqaj925he's gay get him guys
Always love to see Sandro. This my first time seeing Steph. She a real one! Hope to see more of her in future.
Sandro has an 8 series... Truly a man OF AUTOMOTIVE CULTURE.
Nah, it's the sign of a total Masochist or he got it cheap from a customer because it needed a cheap part that took a huge amount of labor to R&R...
I wonder which generation because it didn't look like he recognised the S63 at 1:50
depends what year though.
I bet E31 @@lemster101
If not e31 then it's a can. E31 840 is actually solid, but the 850 v12 is a lot touchier
I used to work as a mechanic in NJ 15-20 years ago. That time, I hated to work on VW and Audi. All plastic and fragile sensor covers, connectors, wiring harness etc. jam packed under the hood. It was almost guaranteed to break something else before you reach the part you wanna replace. Leaky head gaskets were icing on the cake. I wonder if its still the case.
maybe they are like fords now, where you have to remove the body off the frame to do a head gasket on a f150 $5,000 labor to replace a $80 head gasket
Sandro getting the answer right over the actual audi tech is why Sandro is the goat.
Sandro is a true tradesman, his knowledge is beyond textbook. You can tell he has a shit ton of hours working on cars. He also mentioned in a past vid that his dad was/is a mechanic. So you know his knowledge runs deep. Also, he gotta get it right because he's doin it for da bois.
see i also would of guessed something small and stupid. hes complaining about having to take the clutch pedal out to repair the clutch pedal. kinda stupid imo
that "audi tech" is probably just a secretary in the shop
I hate to be like that but I don't think she really a mechanic. Probably just a cute girl they got to read a script
@kevingeezy5176 istg people who think mechanics should get it right the first time 100 percent of the time make me hate people. If you've ever done actual work on a line of cars/trucks you'd know that's not possible. Especially not when you're given stupid questions like I took out the pedal what am I repairing.
The Audi explosion clip is from Albania and was for real a assassination attempt.
Has to be. There's nothing in a stock passenger cars engine that can explode that violently.
Yeah… cars don’t do that
I was thinking propane conversion that went wrong
Hhahahahahahahah I just commented that with the a video link from Top Channel
@@NickButlerishMy thoughts too. It is exactly where usually the carburetor is placed on that conversion (one of the few places there is space in the engine bay)
I had a Volvo V50 and the cabin air filter was behind the steering wheel 😳🤯. To simply swap your filter: 1) remove the steering wheel 2) remove all gauges 3) swap filter 😂
Should have bought a pre 98 🤣. Big mistake
I had a dodge ram and it broke
Nooooooo😂😂
That's easier than my 1991 BMW 5 Series. 1) Remove glovebox 2) remove a bunch of inner plastic panels 3) remove remove some HVAC vents 4) remove AC module 5) pull out air filter while contorting your body in the passenger footwell.
The coolant isn’t “dripping”‘onto the wire harness. The issue is the 7-series uses an electronic thermostat so the ECU can regulate coolant temperature. The problem is the e-thermostat seals will fail and “wick” coolant inside the wire harness and take out the control modules.
Scotty Kilmer, Donut, and Sandro in one video? One hell of a Jimmy Timmy power hour.
Rev up your va jay jays
Fucking hate scotty
Scotty Kilmer is a hack. He couldn't even wipe Sandro's nuts.
I'm convinced that Scotty snorts a big fat line of coke before he turns on the cameras.
I fucking hate scotty kilmer.
The coolant is not just dripping on the harness. BMWs use an electrically controlled thermostat, which sometimes leaks internal allowing the coolant to enter the wire. The outside of the harness is water tight, but that doesn’t help when it comes from the inside of the connector. This happens with the oil pressure sensor too.
This is a very common issue on international dt466E the injection drive harness that goes through the valve cover does the exact same thing. We call it wicking. But it does that exactly it will push the oil all the way to the ecm and fry it.
I do hvac and I have seen that happen with just condensation alone.
Sandro is so sincere , and you can tell he’s a low key genius under the hood
He knew exactly what was going on with the car leaking water and the clutch. The only guest mechanic that has kept up with him is Ms. A
Love seeing the reaction to the n63 engine out of the car, I’ve spent many an hour working on that nightmare and the car attached to it. You get used to having chafed forearms
Havent finished the video but I hope they mention how easy it is to work on bmw inline 6s
I love how quickly this channel turned into a Sandro fan club lmao
Yeah I love it...
At 13:00 did he say 'slave'...... yea he did 😅
00:50 - The reason the coolant follows up the wires is theough capillary action. The same process that plants use to draw water up the roots.
aka wicking
And solder
The weird part is that these cars usually use special wires to prevent that fluids creep up the wires.
Looks like somebody here cheaped out
I had the same happen to a Ford Fiesta where the BCM git fried because the wiper fluid went all the way from the pump into the BCM. So no its not Just a German Car/BMW Problem.
That failed burnout with the Mercedes amg was over here in Australia. Actually in my suburb lol. That car was only a few days old. Turns out he blew the entire gearbox to smithereens because he couldn’t figure how to turn off all the traction controls.
That sucks
Probably the traction control option is buried under 30 sub-menus in the infotainment screen
Hahah 😂
Very well deserved. So How on Earth someone can have money to buy an AMG but be so dumb to do that is beyond my comprenhension
@@JP-xd6fm he won it in a raffle 🤣
"I'm a BMW guy, oh no" 😂😂
I felt that deep down inside. Just got a 2011 335i and felt so worried about it but it grew on me quickly and I love it too much
As someone with a German made car it took me 4 mechanics until I found the masochist who likes to work on them and knows them well
That's the most accurate thing. American mechanics simply seem to lack the experience. Somehow over here in Germany, they're happy with German cars and despise the couple American models they get.
Germany always did like it's overly complicated schemes, mechanisms, etc..
Just look at all the convoluted steps that bischmarch had to take to simply unify germany, only differenece being that it worked in his case.
@@anelbegic2780 Bismarck*
BMW inline 6 motors are pretty easy to work on. When they started turbocharging them with the N54 then it reached an entire new level
True. My mid-life fun car is an M Roadster. When I spun the oil pump nut off (being stupid hooning), it took a few weeks nights & weekends to swap in a new S52. Not bad with no lift considering I replaced all the coolant hoses, new clutch, etc. SAFETY WIRE YOUR OIL PUMP NUT, PEOPLE 🤓
Bmw engineers meetings always start off with "hey, I found out where we can put another coolant line thats not required, and where we can bolt more plastic parts onto metal at".
don't forget pocket watch-esque complex series of gears and doodads.
I knew a mechanic that lost a finger trying to replace the factory stereo in a Mercedes-Benz when the spring-loaded retainer sprung back on his hand.
I'm a mechanic in Norway. German cars are the bane of my existence
Norwegian wood
Nah you are not a mechanic. The only right awnser is french cars. pure trash
I want to know, from Norway, how you feel about American auto engineers.
Fly Lexus! ✈️
@@tedley70 American is second to none
Clip 2, that's a bomb trying to kill him...
"why does this look like a crime scene?" I think someone knows some shit! 🤣🤣🤣
Probably... but.... I was working on a Chrysler once upon a time. 3.5 v6 I think.. 2004 Concorde.. The entire intake manifold (the molded plastic sort) popped about 6 inches from my face as I was leaned over trying to listen. It was sitting for quite some time. Had a few turn over - no starts prior, apparently something happened timing wise, and the gas didnt leave the valves from the prior start attempts, and it decided to blow.
I wrenched for a German used car lot. I actually had a mental breakdown dealing with 2000s Audis.
Agreed. It is sad that Audi could once make my indestructible 1984 4000 Quattro and now only makes Techno-Garbage. As my 4000q has never had any major work to the engine, trans, etc. and had about *350k miles on it.
* The odometer was stuck at 225k when I bought it seventeen years ago...
Whats your opinion on the 1.8turbo? I always found that to be one of the easiest cars to work on ever, would never dare to touch the 2.8 or any of the s4 engines though, only pita I can think of with the 1.8 is electrical gremlins, especially regarding the trunks wiring harness getting pinched from repeated use of the trunk hatch and the fancy led for hazards and warnings fading away with heat(almost forgot the fact that the b6 doesnt have an oil pressure gauge in the cluster, just have to hope the red oil lamp of doom appears when its a problem.
I've had a few second generation Audi A8, great car the one I have now has 260,000 on it. It has some really funny water intrusion problems, if you don't keep the drains clear the water from the windshield backs up and shorts the transmission control unit located literally in the cowl drain area in a plastic box that says in German that "water intrusion is forbidden." The other thing is once that fills up it leaks into the HVAC system through where the blower motor is (also in the cowl drain area) once it fills up in the heater core it dumps the water through an overflow pipe into the driver and passenger side footwells, the reason that I know they knew about this issue and over engineered it is that it eventually makes it to drain holes that are drilled on the low spot under the driver and passenger seats and it comes out under the car. In Audi's defense the first guy that buys the car for $100,000 keeps it in a garage and won't learn about this "truth in engineering" i keep mine outside and have to spend about an hour twice a year clearing all the drains with compressed air. Luckily 100% of the frame and body of that model is aluminum so it doesn't rust from the water or anything like that.
As a BMW Master Tech of over 17 years, it’s obvious who hasn’t worked on these shit-boxes.
0:21 it’s not abnormal to have a thermostat in that location. BMW has so many extra coolers and coolant hoses because they’re trying to get as much power in a confined space. I don’t know why she said it was abnormal to have a thermostat down there. The reason why the coolant wicks its way up the harness is due to a phenomenon called “capillary action”, something you should have learned in chemistry. When the pins of the thermostat are not water tight, the flow of electricity will actually wick that fluid back up the wires, back to the source- the DME. The same is true of oil circuits. This isn’t a BMW exclusive thing, but those N63 engines did have a recall or bulletin for that issue.
1:49 that’s the typical N63 twin turbo V8 that BMW has been using for almost 15 years now, with a few updates. They’re a nightmare of coolant hoses, wiring harnesses, vacuum lines, etc and nothing is easy to access. It’s a “hot” V8, meaning the exhaust and turbos are between the cylinder heads, and the intake is on the lower side of the heads, where the exhaust would typically go. These engines also use corrugated plastic pipes for the PCV system, which get fragile and brittle over time, with the motion of the engine, and the fact that they sit on top of the turbos. Also, the turbo coolant lines tend to leak because of the same reason. THIS is a better example of trapping heat than the BS Scotty Kilmer video, which made no sense at all.
2:27 that steering wheel thing is nothing normal or that can be blamed on the engineering. That’s definitely an issue with the car….NOT the steering angle sensor. All modern BMWs use electric steering, except maybe some M cars, for better feedback through hydraulic steering.
5:00 the switch could just be shorted out, but it is possible that it’s due to spilled fluids. EDC controls the suspension dynamics, not sport mode. But she’s probably right in the fact that the connection point is pinkish in color.
6:18 that’s an N54. It’s super easy to access all of the plugs and coils. I’d never let him touch my car, seeing him use a 4’ prybar. Take out 8x 8mm screws to remove the microfilter cowling, and you have easy access to all plugs and coils, and it takes 2 minutes. That engine cover doesn’t retain the heat. It helps protect that area from water, and has sound deadening underneath the cover because that engine utilizes direct injection, so the injectors are very noisy. The next iteration 335 has an N55 which actually would be a GREAT example of shitty design. It still has the air filter up top, but there’s a charge pipe that goes over cylinders 4-6, so you have to take off a bunch of stuff to access the back 3 cylinders, you can’t easily swap plugs and coils, and you can’t run it with the cover off.
If you want good examples of shitty BMW engineers:
I need a second person to help me open and close the hood on the i8. It’s lightweight, aluminum hood that can bend and distort very easily. It’s also $15k to replace. In order to replace the air flaps (another stupid BMW design that blocks airflow to the radiator to heat the engine up faster…but they fail all the time and cause check engine lights) I have to remove the hood before I can remove the bumper
On the i3, in order to replace a window regulator, you need to completely remove the door from the body, as the door brake check goes THROUGH the door panel, and there’s no way of removing it otherwise.
On the iX, BMW engineers decided to put the subwoofer in the rear of the car, under the back seat, but on the underside of the chassis. That means that if your subwoofer goes out, you have to remove the entire high voltage battery unit, just to replace a speaker.
We also have a TCB under the shark fin antenna, which has a battery you have to replace every few years- typically you have to replace one before it goes out of warranty. In order to replace it, you have to lower the headliner to access it. It pays 3 plus hours on some cars under warranty. That’s 5-6 hours when the customer has to pay for it.
Heck, even filling up the washer fluid can be an ordeal on some cars. On the iX, they don’t want the customer to open the hood, so the BMW emblem opens up to fill up the washer fluid…but you have no idea how much you need to add. On other cars, the little blue cap is recessed to the point that it won’t stay open. So you open the cap, lift your Gallon of washer fluid to pour it in, and the cap closes back down. You literally have to take the cap off by pressing a release/lock tab that you SHOULD only need to engage when resolving the cap…all just to put washer fluid in the car. That’s an absolutely blatant example of how the engineers never seem to touch the cars, or think about working on them.
I could go on and on and on about it. We have a saying in the BMW world:
“A BMW engineer would climb over a PILE of virgins, just to fuck a technician”
You just can’t come here with facts! It destroys the whole meaning with this video 😂
Couldn't fully rubberized sealed sleeving around the thermostat harness protect it from the failure at 0:21?
And here we See again that you should never trust a TH-cam Video fully. Since Most arent really experts...
All "Donut" media vid like these are FULL of bs and nonsense. No need to write a book about it! 🤣
Yep any competent person with some tools and time can swap out plugs and coils from an N54 easily. Scotty is just sensationalist trash who probably drives a BMW himself.
1:02 The “for some reason” is called capillary action.
You can demonstrate it by taking a strip of paper towel and partly immersing it in a glass of water. The water will wick up to higher than the water level.
Maybe, or thermostat housing (plastic) has a heating element in it (emissions and such). In case there is a leak there, it would send coolant (or steam) under relatively high pressure up the connector, wiring harness, that is sealed well enough to make it all the way up.
@@durbinmotorworks6253 ick, that sounds like a royal mess!
I’m currently building a control cabinet for a chemistry research project, and the reaction uses a really aggressive solvent (DMF) that attacks basically every plastic except HDPE, Teflon, Kapton, and PEEK - all the usual wire insulation materials are hopeless against it. So we decided that we will simply put the external wires in Teflon tubes, and then put the entire cabinet, and the tubes coming from it, under positive pressure with nitrogen, so that even if DMF leaks out, it can’t wick onto the wires due to the positive pressure. Precisely to avoid the kind of mess that appears to have happened in this vehicle!
@@tookitogo as impressive as your engineering solution is, you can buy teflon insulated wire.
@@adminadminson3147 I know that. But sometimes you can’t choose what type of wire a particular component is made with. Or the component has Teflon leads, but they’re too short and you have to splice them. (Sure there’s Teflon heat shrink, too. But it isn’t adhesive-lined, and regular adhesive-lined heatshrink isn’t chemically compatible.) Or you can’t get a particular Teflon-insulated multi-conductor cable by the foot, only by the reel in a size much larger than you need.
Protecting wiring inside conduit or pipes, both rigid or flexible, is commonly done in industrial environments. We are literally just doing that in miniature.
Older German cars are relatively easy to work on as it’s more about mechanical engineering and durability but anything that has a lot of computer controls become much harder to work on, especially diagnostics. But all those computers take up more room so there is less working room in which to even get in and actually service the item. Older German cars really had a philosophy of rebuild and servicing components vs just throwing it out and buying a new one. But they do drive like few other cars do
Exactly, as my 1984 Audi 4000q is the best car I have ever owned but I would never buy a newer Audi. Likewise the BMW 2002tii was a great car but modern BMW's suck to own...
I make small mistake hit a high curb and broke windshield wiper fluid reservoir in my Audi A4, to get to this u need
Take wheel off, take inside of wheel-well off. then u have access
Most older cars are like that. Not just euros
My 88 300TE is by far the easiest car I’ve ever worked on. Old German vs New is totally different ballgame
@@mateuszzimon8216 that is like 5 mins worth of work....
13:50 I ran onto the same thing changing the heater core on a Grand Cherokee. The entire dash has to come out because it's integrated into the ventilation channels. There's one ground wire right in the middle you better not forget about. Or your taking it apart again.
As a german engineer I can confirm we always try to make it as hard as possible for the mechanics. Then we all have an evil laugh before working on adding more complexity.
as a man of German blood, I understand this desire.
😂🤣
Mk4 VWs are difficult to put aftermarket radios in for three reasons.
1) the radio on/off is controlled by canbus so to install an aftermarket radio correctly, you need to buy a $100 or so canbus interface adapter.
2) if you're not installing an aftermarket radio correctly, there is no 12V switched power in there, you have to run a separate wire for switched power to turn the radio on and off.
3) there aren't really any nice dash kits since the mounting system they use is proprietary and very very low profile. The dash kits that work are just press fit into the hole since the car doesn't have any ISO DIN brackets and the standard aftermarket radio cages wont sit properly.
german car manufacturer not following german industrial norm😂
Fortunately, they correctly adopted the standard in later years. It was pretty straightforward in my 2013 beetle.
Mk4s absolutely have switched and constant 12V at the radio. There's no CAN-Bus at the radio in any MK4. At most the later MK4s had CAN-Bus for ABS, ECU, Cluster and a gateway. These cars have almost entirely standard ISO-Pinouts at the radio. What You're mentioning happened on the next generation of vehicle networks, like in the B7 A4 for example.
My worst German car experience was my 2013 GTI. It had less than 30k miles on it and the DSG transmission failed. 6 months and about 3k miles later, the thermostat failed. Then the intake needed to be changed on a recall. And finally, I had a misfire due to carbon buildup on the valves with less than 45k on the odometer. I took it to VW because I didn’t have the time deal with it and they tell me I need to pay for diagnostics. I pay for it. They inform me that the use of non-OEM coil packs can be recognized by the onboard computer and that I need OEM coil packs to complete the diagnostic. I asked if they swapped plugs or coils to see if the misfire changes cylinders because they were all aftermarket coils and it was strange that the misfire was in one cylinder, if that was the case. They said no they didn’t attempt swapping the coils or plugs. I tell them I’m not buying new coils for a test and they just need to complete a valve cleaning service and charge me for that. The technician had the audacity to tell me that their scan tool could tell if the valves had carbon build-up…as if there was a sensor inside or around the combustion area. I asked for my car back, took it to a local Euro shop, they agreed 100 percent with my assessment and verified it by swapping the coils and plugs around. Cleaned the valves and the problem was solved. I sold that car and refuse to buy another VW/AUDI.
My 2010 GTI engine blew with 60.000 kilometers chain jumped
Still got it tho love the car
Sound like a local dealer problem rather than a car problem. It can happen with a Toyota.
@@nicksokolis6343i dont think youd have much of an issue with carbon build up in Toyotas because they use port and direct injection to clean the valves from carbon build up. At least not at 45k miles. My friend has an Audi and had to get his cars intake cleaned for this same problem.
Seems like VW customer service is horrible everywhere
Based on my time working on a late 90s merc, the worst and most painful part has to be the plastic pieces. They snap easily when taking off, and the worst part is that it is often incredibly difficult to find a replacement piece for them too
I've owned two cars. a 2nd gen mazda 3, and a b8 audi s4. Replacing the all rotors and pads in my mazda took me about an hour. In my audi it takes about 2 hours. Replacing the valve cover gasket in my mazda, takes 40 minutes with watching a tutorial. A couple of bolts and youre done. In my Audi (granted it has 2 gaskets) takes nearly 3 hours. You have to remove the intake, remove a gas line, remove the coolant tank, plastic valve covers, and plastic crank case breather hoses that are designed to break when you remove them...But I still love my S4.
I currently own a gen 2 Mazda 3 and it’s so easy to replace thing
My 05 Mazda sp23 is easy to work on its still going daily driver for my wife over 300,000kms got her 2 new cars since then and she wont part with the Mazda and sold the new cars after about a year. My 80 series Landcruiser is easy to work on when the wife got me a new 4wd she said you have to sell the 80 series or the 2nd gen 4runner, I sold the 4runner and the new 4wd about 12months later. We still have a 1990 80 series Landcruiser and a 2005 Mazda sp23 some cars are just too good to get rid off.
Ive got a b8.5 S4 and so far most things I've had to do are fairly straight forward. But you are right, they usually take a bit of time hahaha.
ok yes but you are talking about a car that is a v6 supercharged and has dual everything. Even the b5 s4 was 2 of everything… it would take a little more time.
I also once had an Audi a4 B8 with the 2.0 l tfsi. and that is the engine that is always clogging up the pistons. In any case, Audi repaired this on the American models at their own expense. As a German, the German companies prefer to fuck me, but they simply claimed that 1-2 liters of oil per 1000 km is completely normal for a car from 2009. These pussers. I tell you German customers prefer to fuck German car companies.
As a Skoda owner (vw group), I'm glad my car's platform isn't flawed enough to reach your studio :))
This video was basically a BMW show with a little VW and a touch of Mercedes
Skoda in general are stripped down versions of VW group cars, so you lose some of the technology, but in a good way.
As an example, my Skoda will do things like set the radio presets depending on which key fob starts it, but it doesn’t have the driver specific electric seat adjustment that an Audi level car would have. Same platform, same computer, but with a lot less wiring and electric motors that get real expensive to repair after 5 years or so of ownership.
@@King-Kazma Skoda don`t have anything with German`s ;) Yes it`s European but is from Czech Republic.
And another thing every new`ish car is mess because ot the PC and every "factory update" that have inside ;) The old cars don`t have 99% of problem new`ish have
@@iskrendinchev5882 How tf doesn't it have anything to do with germans if they're owned by the Volkswagen group for more than 20 years?
@@crybaby1363 probably someone in denial, but yeh really they are all pretty much built on one VW platform or another... and not necessarily a bad thing, for one the engines are far FAR FAR!! better in every way.
heck my mates TDI Octavia has the EXACT same engine as my golf. but going further back i think the version starting 2004 was built on the A5 platform (so same as golf,A3,leon ect ect)
@@iskrendinchev5882 Skoda are 98% German. Same chassis platform as Audi/VW/Seat. Same engines. Same electronics. Most parts have VW or Audi stampings. Only the outer sheet metal and upholstery fabric is Czech.
This makes it easier to source parts though as more or less the same engine may be in a dozen different models of car.
VW guy here. Once had my headlight switch randomly catch fire on me for seemingly no reason. After a careful inspection of the wiring, and finding nothing else wrong. I replaced said switch, fixed nothing else, and haven't had a problem with it in 10 years!
Skoda owner here. Brilliant bit of kit, and its VW. My mechanic's fav cars are Minis, Range Rovers, Beemers etc, because they make him the most money.
Least favourite? Toyota, Lexus. Almost never have issues, so makes no money😂
Shouldn’t have had a problem to begin with if it were properly designed. I once had a $55k VW Touareg. I drove it from the stealership to its grave at the junkyard in about 79000 miles. Every single thing on that car broke. Never again VAG. Never. Again.
Why I got an IS350, tho I'm not gunna lie, I like them R32's! Those VR6's, beautiful pieces of machinery.
You guys are great. Great combinations of rapport, humor, and automotive mastery. And I just got my first BMW (a 2014 330ix) in June 2024!
I am from Germany and I work as a hobby on cars. Sometime I fix minor things for friends and family. Nothing big, nothing complicated. Stuff like installing new headlights, radios, swapping breaks etc. By far my worst experience with a German car was BMWs who needed what felt the whole from taken out to change the headlight bulbs. Equally baffling was a Renault that needed a specially molded radio (or a plastic cover ) because of course the radio needs to be part of sloping plastic thing
This.
If you think German cars suck, try a French car.
They are overly complicated without any benefits.
@@065Tim Look up how to change a cabin air filter on a new Renault Master. It's astonishingly stupid. And, even worse, the new filter comes in two pieces. But for some reason the original one is a one-piece filter that won't fit through the hole you are supposed to take it out through. So you basically have two options: Either cut the filter in half through a small hole you can barely reach through or take the dash apart even further than you already needed to (You need to remove the whole glovebox assembly in order to get to the filter opening).
i had a 2003 BMW X5 with a 5 speed manual that i bough for dirt cheap a few years back. first day of ownership: the top of the radiator exploded, so i replaced that. 2 days later: CV axle slightly pops out of the front differential, causing the car to not move (no clue how, nothing was messed up) the next day after repair, the clutch goes out. One month later, my valve cover gasket starts letting oil leak all over the engine. some time after fixing that, the transmission starts overheating, but the fill bolt for the gear oil decides it wanted to be a cylinder, so i took it into a shop to fix. a few days after i get it back, cylinder 2 decides it wanted to go to space. The only thing i did with this car was take it on a 4 hour road trip, and drive to work every day, my s2k is my fun stuff car. That X5 is now a cube at a scrapyard somewhere in texas.
just like a cayenne. these cars are cheap bc one would need money to make it reliable again
Buy toyota car dud near ur location, toyota is reliable
My 2007 3 series diesel has 250000 km on it and still runs great and barely needs any maintenance
Buying a dirt cheap BMW was your fist mistake.
There’s a reason why you bought it for a cheap price… 😅
Push it again 😂😂😂 Sandro reminds me of my friend in high school he got us in so much trouble but I loved every single minute of hanging out with him 😢 I miss him to this day
Videos like this really make me like my old truck with very little electronics
Dude, a Scotty video in a Real Mechanic stuff video? This is like inception!
“bwuaaammm”
The moment I saw Scotty Kilmer my brain just instantly wanted to skip that part. He's not teaching anything in his videos he's just yelling and yapping shit and seemingly can't accept the fact that people have different preferences and opinions.
@@Iisakki3000 Yeah, when I realized Scotty was more political than educational I also checked out.
My boss bought 2023 bmw transmission went at 13.000 then the decals fell off then the electric went fucked . Ggen he bought a tundra.....my best friend bought a Mercedes transmission skipped several gears and smoked at 30.000 and harness fried the totaled the car. .... meanwhile my " pos American truck" had 167.0000 and no issues
8:00 exactly! When automakers switched to direct injection the customers started complaining about ticking noises (high pressure fuel pump). Don't be surprised to find lots of noise dampening material on your domestics
As a german automotive engineer, we put drain plugs/valves in the rear quarter panel compartments, but people clog them with leaves and stuff, and the water gets in there because they don't clean the leaves and moss out in the trunk seal channel 🤷♂️
And if you want to go fast in a car with a big engine in a small bay, you need to get crazy with cooling.
It's a BMW after all, and in Germany, we love to drive 130mph+ for more than 20min without overheating.
This reminded me a time when valeting cars. So many of them had cloged drains in fuel filler area and this is something people see on regular basis.
Dude, that is not a good excuse
@gmarinelarena8675 it's not an excuse, it's the reason. As an engineer you have to keep the balance between manufacturing cost, specifications and usability.
But because car companies are businesses, run by business economists, cost is paramount, spec have to be met that it works excellent in a test and acceptable for five years, then it's out of leasing or warranty and the manufacturer does not care anymore. Usability has to be good in that period, but if it reaches the age that it's not returning to the dealers workshop, the OEM couldn't care less how crazy the package is.
If the OEM can save a penny during manufacturing and it costs you an arm fixing something after five years, he'll gladly accept it.
And the engine bays in Germany are not always that well filled, here, smaller engines are quite common and usually the engine that was in the original design.
But for the US engines need to be big, so the most ridiculous, barely fitting blocks are pressed in there, so engineers got to get creative.
@@Brazzelkanal this is an even worst excuse dude. I am also a design engineer and believe me I take into account all of my designs.
@gmarinelarena8675 Can you tell me which OEM gives you the freedom of optimising for maintenance and accessibility instead of cost effectiveness?
It is what it is, that's why I am happy not working for VW anymore.
I am now happy in a small company working closely with manufacturing and mechanics, way more fulfilling.
I recently picked up a BMW Z4 and I knew I liked it after test driving it for a bit. But after a few weeks of owning it, I REALLY like it far more than I expected. But nothing will beat my baby, a 1997 NA Mazda MX5 ❤
Had an audi a6. A certain brake module on that year often failed, it cost $800 to replace, and was tucked in behind another $800 part that didn't fail you had to remove and reinstall when replacing the high failure rate (and nationally backordered, forgot that lol) part.
Guess what Audi did. They re-engineered the two parts into one f**king $1600 molded plastic housing with both inside that replaced the seperate parts.
I worked at a German car shop for a while. we used to say BMW stands for Been Made Wrong.
In germany we say "Bayrischer Mist Wagen" or "Bring Mich Werkstatt" (Bavarian Shit Car or Take me to the Workshop)
Audi and BMW got notorious for over-engineering so you simply cant repair yourself. Bring it to them so they can milk you for more cash.
BMW Break My Wallet
@@ricktrue8441 LMAO loser thinks he can buy a bmw for 10k and not worry about maintanance. last time I checked bmw are made for perfomance and people who buy them dont life with their parents 😂 😂
@@ricktrue8441 odly translatet from german into english " bring me workshop "
Big money wasted
Kilmer looked like one of those late night commercials, trying to sell you a water hose or something and the people are tripping and falling down!
Scotty is generally just an opinionated obnoxious dolt.
he is such a character. I don't listen to much of anything he says, but he is so entertaining and I'm glad he exists. ahaha
the way he was purposefully fumbling the screwdriver around the ignition coils
The fact that there are People out there taking Kilmer seriously is still mindboggling to me but pretty much any Mechanic
My timeline has been Scotty free for a long time. Yet he sneaks in here, thankfully Sandro makes up for having to watch a bit of Scotty.
@ 8:00 The reason the engine covers aren't necessary is because of heat retention. In certain HOT states it's worse. Most wire assemblies won't be damaged from moisture considering they're under the hood which protects most damages as well as the fact that moisture cannot reach them. UNLESS you have a massive gap between the bumper and hood or an intake system like a Corvette which pulls air in through the bottom and diffuses it into the brake system as well as the intake system which is why most sports cars with these systems aren't driven proficiently in rainy weather conditions.
5:21
Thank you Sandro, you are super funny and you always bring the "older brother" feel to the channel. You have a lot of really good info, you have a Great way of putting things and you throw awesome jokes into it. Thanks for being so awesome😁👍
German engineering is basically “how can we ram as much as possible into a small space with the intent of making things better but it becomes so complicated nobody can fix it”
and they still have good cars.
@@Sdizzle7 They were great cars until they went to so much plastic under the hood. One 'simple' repair that would cost $1500 on a GM/Ford/Toyota would cost you $3800 on a 10 yr old audi. Lease one every 2-3 years. It's your best bet with German cars. Unless you have the money, then hell yes! Enjoy because they do drive wonderfully!
Can't argue, but before they started using so much plastic under the hood, they were very reliable. Back then if you had the money to afford an audi, you had the money to maintain one. Not anymore. The plastic wears out so much quicker and that same $1500 in a GM/Ford/Toyo will be $3550 in an Audi. This has actually been seeping in for years. Early 2000's Concorde had to remove a tire and splashguard to get to the battery. Late '90s Buick had to undo a motor mount and tilt the engine to replace the one serpentine belt! It's all about the sticker in the window now days. 70-% of people just look at that. MPG(weight)/HP/Price. They want you to believe you need 240 hp in a daily driver that weighs 3000 Pounds! Sry, ranting! lol.
It is the remnants of the Prussian military culture that dominated Germany for a very long time. It is very hierarchical, and it has a tendency to make the officer class forget about the existence of the enlisted. Basically, the engineers here have a job to do, and that is to make the vehicle work efficiently and reliably. However, "will it be convenient or even workable for the mechanic" does not even come into it - mechanics are not part of their class so their existence does not even fall within their perception.
Funnily enough, with NATO the actual German military moved past this boneheaded culture a long time ago. Sadly, its remnants are alive and well and still doing damage in a lot of civilian sectors in Germany (and the militaries of other nations who were modelled after the Prussian army, often with Prussian advisors, in the past).
@@LordKhuzdul thats not even true a little bit 🤣
Especially since manufacturers like BMW, Audi and Porsche are from the very south of Germany (Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg), which have NOTHING to do with prussian culture.
Love your show. You guys put humor in problem. I'm a mechanic and this a good educational program too😊
As the owner of a German car I can confirm that some of the repairs are a pain but maintenance is KEY.
Love me some Sandro! Bring Steph back for more stuff! And I think it's funny they used a Scotty video! They need to do a whole series on his hack and dangerous repairs 🤣🤣
My favorite part of Thursday is seeing Sandro and it just got better! More Steph!!
Man, I'm on my third master cylinder on my Ranger, and it's so easy to replace. Aside from removing some plastic you just unclip, twist, and pull.
I think that German cars are just shy and hiding their sensitive parts
Yeah. They hid them in the middle of the engine
Their sensitivity possession
@@Jimmy_Jones😂😂😂😂
Tsundere cars
"Loud noise from engine" is also also highly regulated in Germany and will get you fined when the police show up and your car is to loud.
I came here to point that out too. Nothing to do with your preferences. It's the law of the land to keep the decibels LOW.🤫
@@sachadee.6104 its legal in most places to have a loud car.
@@tripplefives1402 the point is it is not legal in the eu the market these cars are designed for
so do M cars just get ticketed constantly?? they all have loud exhausts from the factory at least in the states
Then how do you explain all of those extremely loud Ferraris and Lambos in Germany?
"If it's not broken, it doesn't have enough features yet! "
~German Engineer
The quality went down when American philosophy entered. The numbers every quarter got more important than the longevity. Still better than American made cars, even when the asians beat them in durability these days. But as long as they are still looking this good I’m ok with some extra bucks spent for maintenance. And if you keep up with (preventive) maintenance the are very reliable (except one BMW i had, that was a lemon if I’ve ever seen one. I still suspect the first owner, a chief physician in a big hospital here around, drove it like he stole it in the one year he had it…)
😂😂😂😂🎉🎉🎉🎉
@@erebostd Please refrain from using common sense, science and statistics. The Americans truly dislike it! It a country that defends measuring things with their feet, while braging about NASA, even though Russia carried NASA for decades
You do know that is something all engineers say, right? So your point is that USA got no real or good engineers?
@@VikingRul3s lol you european cry babies are hilarious stay obsessed
That bullshit with the flooded computer happened to my dad's Audi too. The screen/radio etc in the front doesn't work anymore due to the water damage in the back.
I have and old E36 with 140k miles here in Switzerland. Its has the 1.9 105hp petrol engine. It runs and drives great and under the hood it looks like new! I bought it used for 2k€. It has been only serviced at BMW for the past 22 years. Still runs great and no major repairs just the usual wearables.
Yeah right... for 2k only at BMW...
The plastic coolant pipe at the rear of the head can be pushed out by corrosion causing them to leak and boil. Seen a few do it and its not really visible. The m43b19 is a tough engine alright 💪 iv owned e36s and e46s and they were designed brilliantly, it was at the end of the e46s that they started going very wrong. The n42b20a is a 2l petrol engine which when running is powerful and revvy, but everything breaks 😂 thats what replaced your engine
Would love an E36 but most of them are either fked up from drift boys or insanely overpriced :S
@@Hk7762Tube He said serviced at BMW, not purchased...
@@Mrich775I get it, also 2-3 "services" at BMW would be at 2k range probably, so I will dubbel down and say its BS, if true, that car should be at the museum.
15 years ago i was working as supplier with BMW AG on N54 and N55 and Prince engine a little (M13/M12) (Munich, Germany) and S85 (M GmbH, Munich, Germany) and N57 and M57TÜ2 (Steyr, Austria).
So three things:
1.BMW M GmbH / S85
Guys at BMW M GmbH were working in little team and knew what they were doing and listened to us in what we were trying to help them. It is sad that this V10 became known for its lack of reliability but these are the guys you wanted to work with. They had a McLaren F1 engine at the reception waiting space it was setting the tone but they were WAY more humble than any other engineer from Peugeot or Renault or BMW AG. BMW M GmbH was little then it was really nice to work with them. Their parking lot was crazy and the workshop inside was something of another world. With them it was not really working it was more like an engineering dream come true. I want to thank them.
2.BMW AG (benzin) / N54 + N55
Guys at BMW AG were pretty good for project management and putting suppliers on their knee and cutting cost. But that's about it. They were creating product's specification "GS" (General Specification) that were way too complicated and that were written without taking into account supplier's capability or reality of the product. (to my humble opinion this is what explain that the cars made then were too complicated). Technically they were too proud but were not so good and it was a huge issue in developpement. I understand they can not trust too much suppliers and it is difficult for them to have same experience on a given product than that of the supplier itself. But hey, they were speaking like they knew it all but in the back they were asking us stupid explaination about stupid electric stuff they should have known. They made a mess about everything and they even crashed the only prototype car they had to test our product on the track in Miramas, France. They crash the car while high speed joy riding. The test to be conducted were slow test. High speed test were not relevant and not critical. Many times they would be like project dictators, trying to enforce stupid deadline with a hammer while telling "if you don't do that we will kick you out forever" and things of that magnitude. There was no "farmer's common sense" in Munich. It was much internal politics and reality denial, as it always comes with politics. We can say they were on the technical woke side of the industry. You did not want to work with them. One time they were loud and told my collegue "our next intern is miss playboy oktoberfest". And here she was, a few days later, dressed decently, when we all had seen her before with less clothes on playboy on line. They would complain about us when we were working like crazy with crazy complex stuff. She was here creating 4 lines table (4 lines, yes) and they were happy with her you could tell. That's where they were. At that time it felt like they had a huge gap between the old generation and the new generation. The guys from the old generation seemed like they refused everything and were just here to complain and be the center of the attention. Naturally the newer generation was then not loud and let them be the center of the show. So at the end it was more like a puppet show because the old bmw generation was trying to reject any new things while the new generation was making specifications to built 1 ton rockets with integrated hotel for 86 persons. These old generation had a say on stuff that they had no understanding of it was annoying. It was really a bad puppet show to watch. It is clear that 530i and 325ix from the 80s were good cars but it felt like they just could not comply to the idea that new cars will need new technologies and new bolts. And I mean litterally new bolts because that's what we were arguing about, bolts or welding solution.
3.BMW Steyr (Diesel) / M57Tü2 / N57
They were working in little teams and did more work than double the amount of people at Munich. One or two guys were not that friendly (the youngest one are the less humble ones at BMW this was a common pattern, even in Steyr). But they could manage it and they were not in line with Munich, they had WAY more common sense. Actually at first the Steyr Factory was a tractor factory! It seemed they had kept all their "farmer's common sense". They had very nice workshops and their mechanics were so good you could tell not much explaination needed, they figure things out on the spot and do it so fast, like at BMW M GmbH. I guess many of them were into racing teams before. The city of Steyr and its hotel were very nice, driving there was litterally like going to holidays. I did not enjoy working with the young guys, maybe they were thinking they are the dog's bollocks.
The rest of time i was working with Audi both Diesel (Neckarsulm) and benzin (Ingolstadt). What I can say is that if Audi are complicated and not relialable.... well.... no wonder... at all. Really. It was nice to watch W12 and V10 and RS4 DTM pace car driving around the factory or in workshop, but no wonder idf AUDI are complicated cars.
A few years after i got to work at BMW internally on other project. I realised that how BMW Munich was treating us a suppliers... got me to the conclusion that these former "collegues" at BMW Munich were complete /*/*/**/*//**-/. Well you get it.
A few years later i worked with an inusrrance company as "expert". Most cases were VW and BMW taking fire. It was just sad to see how BMW and VW treated their customers. I make it short: BMW and VW will throw all they can against their customers to accuse them... If it includes heavy trials and courts stuff, they will take that path. if this needs lying in court against you, they will do. In South Korea, they even lied to the government/justice and some BMW executive (German) had to FLEE the country to avoid jail for lying in court. Almost the same happen in USA with VW.
Lying is part of BMW daily life, for many projects
Thanks for the interesting story, somehow it does not surprise me. It is similar to other industries, eu is really on its way out as an industrial powerhouse...
How long did it take you to type this comment LOL
@@popahontas "eu is really on its way out as an industrial powerhouse"
Yeah, you keep telling yourself that
I could have replaced all the hoses on that BMW engine in the time it took me to read through that...
@@TheComputec i am in europe so i hope its not true...
Steph has to be the finest mechanic ive ever seen
I'm in love with her
Man, damn you all need fuckin glasses too. 🤮
1:02 - Jaguars XFs - X250 platform - also have this issue. Coolant leaks and it finds it's way to the 'body control module' in the driver's side front fender. So if you're e-park brake won't release, it could be this issue. Common if the car's been sat around for several months. Iirc it's around $9.5k for the harness + module.
I love Sandro cuz he reminds me of all the homeboy I grew up with. He's the homeboy you go to when you want to do something dumb, but don't know how to do it. Sandro the type of vato to just show up and help "just to see what happens"
"why can't I burnout with traction control on?"
As a German VAG mechanic I would say replacing the master cylinder on that car is like normal work. Is it easier to work on American cars?
BMW has a designated dept. to clean up oil leaks as the new cars go down the assembly line
Steph was really insightful! Awesome getting an actual audi tech
Steph is great, please bring her back. And Sandro OF COURSE. We love Sandro!
Alright Sandro and Steph may be taking over best duo… Sandro takes the cake from the solo aspect hands down
12:26 My brother bought a $200 beater and they had spliced the head unit into the headlight wiring so the radio would turn on or off with the head lights.
Pretty much any VW, economy car quality, luxury car complexity and prices. Man nailed it when he said "Luxury doesn't equal longevity!".
Uncle has a VW, was debating on spending $5-6k to replace timing chain, which is a known problem for that engine.
Economy car quality? What VWs have you been looking at? We've owned Fords, Hondas, and Toyotas before our VWs and the VW fit and finish, as well as performance, is way above those other three. I'm not denying they're more complicated but you can tell they're more sophisticated when driving.
Obviously we’re all proud of our PITA German cars but I think the 4 chain, 9 guide, engine out timing job of the Audi 4.2 deserves an honourable mention.
....there are FOUR timing chains?!?!?
@@CrossWindsPatit’s also on the REAR of the engine.
@@_corteks_ Wtf....
@@CrossWindsPatLook it up. You won't regret it. It's a comedy show. XD I listed the Audi V engines from the new era as worst german cars to work on.
I'm german myself btw. And love a lot of cars made here. These engines... While they run well... I don't like em.
Fun times as a BMW tech. Had to program an e90 only for the radio to crash mid process. Subsequently, it took out every other module with it in the process. Fun talks all round with the foreman, service advisor, and customer about why they needed to purchase all their modules.
Brooo..... Thats fucking insane!!!! What happened? There is no world in which I want to imagine BMW not covering that...
@@CrossWindsPat Voltage problems. E9x modules especially lightand body module incredibly picky when it comes to voltage especially if they jumped incorrectly
@@questionabletaste2700 No I meant to ask how did the situation get handled between the owner and the dealership?
so while the car was in your shop, you caused something to break and billed the customer for it?
that stuff only flies in America. anywhere else you and the shop are responsible for any defects caused during your work. You are the expert, you are the one who should have known the voltage can damage other components, you are the one who has all the equipment to check the voltage in the first place. the only way to make the customer take blame is if he did some form of unauthorized modification or repairs on his car that caused the problem.
@@CrossWindsPat Dralership ended up covering it after everything was said and done. It wasn't wholly uncommon for modules to just up and shit the bed during programming sessions, just not always to the point where they would brick the entire car.
Steph is so good! She needs to be on these videos more!
Scotty showing up here is like when I go to a friend's party and see a friend from a totally different social circle there.
I can't stand him. Nothing but misinformation. Spent a day in one of my automotive e classes going over all his misinformation. 2 hour class and according to the teacher we didn't cover all of it.
I'M SURPRISED SCOTTY WASN'T YELLING THE WHOLE TIME.
I SAID I'M SURPRISED HE WASN'T YELLING
Everyone’s crazy uncle who suffers from lead poisoning and is a functioning alcoholic.
No idea who scotty is.
Idk how people watch them.
I like how Steph explained everything going on, I actually felt like I learned something
Sandro is easily a homie , like the mechanics y’all found tend to have a lot of experience and know what they are talking about but they are just great personalities for this and I fricking love them lols
Honestly, the day I found out that a flat battery means my car has to go to the shop is the day I stopped respecting my car.
Me: Sees Sandro in the thumbnail
My fingers: 🆑ℹ️©️K
The fact that you stole this comment, but made it objectively worse is wild.
@@CaptainAlex69 I commented this at the same time. It just took me a couple minutes to do because I had to find the emojis which explains why it says it was 2 minutes after
@@CaptainAlex69 the fact that you assume things like that is wild 🥴
@@JC_500 it's kinda unfortunate people jump to conclusions so fast, really tells you something doesn't it.
@@JC_500 it’s not assumed. When I was originally looking, the original comment said 19 minutes ago. Yours (this one I’m commenting under) said 14 minutes ago. There was two other replies to the first comment that each said 15 minutes ago.
Sandros.....I fried the sunroof on my BMW years and years ago. It was just a 2007, nothing awesome. However, it smoked hard enough that I jumped out of the car and disconnected the battery. I thought it was going to burn my car down! Mechanic confirmed water has completely washed out the whole assembly.
I love the way Sandro reacts to some of this stuff--the smile says either he's never gonna work on it, or he's gonna enjoy charging a *lot* of money. 🤣
Smart engineering with built in additional special features. Loving it !!