[ceedawg]

Originally Posted by insanecoder

you guys DO know launch control puts ALOT of impulse stress on the drivetrain???
this includes the axles ya know
this then after you tune and suddenly load up even more than factory expectations..
I mean wheel hop is even worse cause its more resonance in slippage and bad but lauch control can stressout w/o hop

FACTS!
This is 100% why the axle broke ,stock or tuned it does not matter. You launch you certainly risk doing damage.

[TEST DRYVER]

Originally Posted by ceedawg

FACTS!
This is 100% why the axle broke ,stock or tuned it does not matter. You launch you certainly risk doing damage.

So I'll give you my opinion on the matter. In the story, I left out several variables. First, the car didn't actually activate launch control. I disabled the traction control completely and had the car in Sport mode. This will not activate Launch Control. I should of just put the car in Sport Plus, put the transmission in Sport, then Launch Control would of been active.
When the car is trying to launch, but you're not really in Launch Mode (like what I did), it spins the rear tires, while braking the front tires. This was fine when the car was stock, the rear tires would break loose, while the front brakes would hold, then you let go and fire forward.
The new variable in my modified car (the reason I think I broke my rear axle) is the new tires. The OEM tires would break loose, but the new 265 Michellin PS4S tires refused to break loose. Which is understandable, since my levels of grip after swapping to these tires has dramatically increased. So this time around, when I screwed up launch control yet again, the rears didn't break loose, causing a huge amount of stress on the rear axle, even the new added power didn't matter, then blew the rear axle.
I actually heard the rears try to spin and break traction, but they wouldn't spin. Remember, this all happened within 2-4 seconds.
I believe the added grip of the rear tires broke my axle (and of course my idiocy and ignorance of properly using the launch control feature), not my added power or torque. I would find it hard to believe I snapped the rear axle by only adding 100 horsepower or 100 ft lbs of torque...
Btw, after all the mods I had applied to the car at one time, the most noticeable modification wasn't the additional power, it was the grip from the tires. It just proves how big of an improvement tires can make...

[TEST DRYVER]

Originally Posted by enjoythemusic

Very bummed to hear OP, yet nice of BMW to at least discount the repair a bit.

When you mod, you take calculated risks....

Yes sir, this is the risk we take when we modify... My wife asks me if I had a crystal ball and knew this was going to happen, would I of just left the car totally stock
I'm sorry to say, NO! I wouldn't, I have to see what the car can do if it's slightly opened up and unlocked. I would however of made some changes to the mods I bought for the car. For example, after driving the car on the Michellin PS4S's and the crappy OEM Bridgestone Potenza S001, the Bridgestone tires rode too harsh for my liking because of the runflat, but truth be told, the car was more fun to drive on the Bridgestones. In hindsight, I would of bought a less grippy tire than the Michellins. I have a 718 Cayman that has tons of grip, the Beemer was more fun with the tail hanging out. Of course I didn't give this response to my wife

Sidenote: BMW didn't discount anything. It was my relationship with the Service Advisor and all the previous business I did with them in the past that got me that killer discount. Btw, I didn't take the discount... Stay tuned!

[TEST DRYVER]

Originally Posted by IK6SPEED

You would do an extremely big favor to the forum if you would talk with the SA you are so tight with and find out in detail how they determined you had a tune.

Or did they just “assume” with all the other parts added?

No, they did see the other visible mods, which might or might not of been a problem. I called my BMW SA before buying the mods for his advice:
He said that a downpipe, especially if catted, is unlikely to cause any problems with my warranty. He did state that the fmic is questionable, even if it is better for the car, and I don't remember saying anything positive or negative about the chargepipes.
He did advise that IF I did choose to buy a tune, to consider buying a Dinan piggyback or an actual ECU tune by a reputable company, and not a piggyback (think JB4). The only piggyback he recommended was Dinan.
After the broken axle and the warranty claim denial, he did try and explain what they saw and how it was flagged. Honestly speaking, I was so upset that we couldn't find a resolution (mind you, it's obviously my fault, but I'm still human and apt to getting upset), that I didn't even pay attention to his explanation. He is a good guy and trying to be helpful and give advice.
He said the BMW rep advised for me to fix the axle on my dime and switch the car back to stock ECU to keep future warranty claims from being denied. That would lead me to believe that bolt-ons didn't bother the BMW field rep too much, since he didn't recommend the bolt-ons to be replaced with OEM parts.
I had the car pulled from that BMW dealership today and taken elsewhere, so stay tuned for the fix. I will try and call him to get better clarification to how they want to see a stock ECU and what really set off the red flag when things calm down a bit. Of course I will do this for you guys here, as for me, it's a bit too late. I've already been tainted! I'm damaged goods!

[jalkster]

Originally Posted by maxio

Are the snaps caused by repeated launches of the car?

Originally Posted by FastF30

I've been on here for 9+months and this is the first reading about it with just a tune anyways...I'd expect this more with a PS2 set-up more than a tune and meth... well this is all good to know and will take note.... but like I said I really never heard of it before, so not gonna really worry about it...

Both Ive seen have been from dig races yes.

[ceedawg]

Originally Posted by jalkster

Both Ive seen have been from dig races yes.

Yes I have seen this too.

[ceedawg]

Originally Posted by TEST DRYVER

So I'll give you my opinion on the matter. In the story, I left out several variables. First, the car didn't actually activate launch control. I disabled the traction control completely and had the car in Sport mode. This will not activate Launch Control. I should of just put the car in Sport Plus, put the transmission in Sport, then Launch Control would of been active.
When the car is trying to launch, but you're not really in Launch Mode (like what I did), it spins the rear tires, while braking the front tires. This was fine when the car was stock, the rear tires would break loose, while the front brakes would hold, then you let go and fire forward.
The new variable in my modified car (the reason I think I broke my rear axle) is the new tires. The OEM tires would break loose, but the new 265 Michellin PS4S tires refused to break loose. Which is understandable, since my levels of grip after swapping to these tires has dramatically increased. So this time around, when I screwed up launch control yet again, the rears didn't break loose, causing a huge amount of stress on the rear axle, even the new added power didn't matter, then blew the rear axle.
I actually heard the rears try to spin and break traction, but they wouldn't spin. Remember, this all happened within 2-4 seconds.
I believe the added grip of the rear tires broke my axle (and of course my idiocy and ignorance of properly using the launch control feature), not my added power or torque. I would find it hard to believe I snapped the rear axle by only adding 100 horsepower or 100 ft lbs of torque...
Btw, after all the mods I had applied to the car at one time, the most noticeable modification wasn't the additional power, it was the grip from the tires. It just proves how big of an improvement tires can make...

I understand. The better tires only made the situation worse when launching. The better traction means the energy will get transferred to the weakest link in the drivetrain. If you had bigger aftermarket axles,slicks sometimes the energy can get sent right back to the driveshaft which can break too. What happened to your car is not anything new to alot of us here.The prior tires with less grip pretty much acted like a fusible link to protect a circuit. Once you put in a stronger fuse the unit has no choice but to short out if that analogy makes sense.

[IK6SPEED]

Originally Posted by TEST DRYVER

No, they did see the other visible mods, which might or might not of been a problem. I called my BMW SA before buying the mods for his advice:
He said that a downpipe, especially if catted, is unlikely to cause any problems with my warranty. He did state that the fmic is questionable, even if it is better for the car, and I don't remember saying anything positive or negative about the chargepipes.
He did advise that IF I did choose to buy a tune, to consider buying a Dinan piggyback or an actual ECU tune by a reputable company, and not a piggyback (think JB4). The only piggyback he recommended was Dinan.
After the broken axle and the warranty claim denial, he did try and explain what they saw and how it was flagged. Honestly speaking, I was so upset that we couldn't find a resolution (mind you, it's obviously my fault, but I'm still human and apt to getting upset), that I didn't even pay attention to his explanation. He is a good guy and trying to be helpful and give advice.
He said the BMW rep advised for me to fix the axle on my dime and switch the car back to stock ECU to keep future warranty claims from being denied. That would lead me to believe that bolt-ons didn't bother the BMW field rep too much, since he didn't recommend the bolt-ons to be replaced with OEM parts.
I had the car pulled from that BMW dealership today and taken elsewhere, so stay tuned for the fix. I will try and call him to get better clarification to how they want to see a stock ECU and what really set off the red flag when things calm down a bit. Of course I will do this for you guys here, as for me, it's a bit too late. I've already been tainted! I'm damaged goods!

I understand all this.

But if you speak to the SA who you have a relationship with now under cooler circumstances and get him to explain exactly how they detected ECU tune, you would do a great service to others here.

[Polo08816]

Originally Posted by ceedawg

I understand. The better tires only made the situation worse when launching. The better traction means the energy will get transferred to the weakest link in the drivetrain. If you had bigger aftermarket axles,slicks sometimes the energy can get sent right back to the driveshaft which can break too. What happened to your car is not anything new to alot of us here.The prior tires with less grip pretty much acted like a fusible link to protect a circuit. Once you put in a stronger fuse the unit has no choice but to short out if that analogy makes sense.

Imagine how much worse this situation would have been if he‘d used the Continental SportContact6 tires instead of Michelin PS4S.

[upsidedownfunnel]

While I'm positive BMW can find out if you have a tune regardless of what you do to flash back to stock (lock DME), I bet it's far easier to figure it out if you don't lock. That's just an educated guess. The locking probably sets certain flags on the DME to a protected state which probably raises red flags if read by the dealership's computers. If locked, they probably have to do some investigation to whether or not your car was tuned or not.

The fact that you had a CP, FMIC, and downpipe are pretty much guarantees that you had a tune on your car. Also, for a $3100 warranty repair where they claim is often caused by tuning, I'm going to bet you would've been caught on this regardless. It might have taken longer, but they would have known.

I'm not saying that you should deceive your dealership or SA, but I think it behooves anyone with a tune to try to return a car back to stock as much as possible and flash back to stock and LOCK the DME whenever they take their car in for major warranty service. There's just no reason NOT to. Even if your service adviser is cool, it gives THEM plausible deniability the less you tell him and the fewer facts he knows. Don't lie, but you don't have to tell them everything unless they ask, right? If they decide to cover it, great, if not, then like it's been said, you have to pay to play.

[FSociety]

Sorry to hear this but first time I hear this on a 335.
Your first mistake was not flashing back to stock and locking it at home!
Your second mistake was flashing it at the dealership and not locking it.
This is the MAIN and BIGGEST reason why BM3 has its advantage over every other tune out there. It will restore 100% to your OWN factory software.

I, along many have gone to dealer for all types of non-tune related work or maintenance and the first rule of thumb is flash back to stock and lock it if you're 1 of those OBD unlock folks. Before February OBD Unlock came out everyone was bench flash and more ppl got flagged because some tunes would trigger "DME Tamper Code" a lot of ppl stopped going to dealer not to get flagged too.

Long story short, I've done over 100 DIGs in my X4 M40i because AWD cars are meant to do this. I wouldn't buy a car that I'm going to be worried about driving it hard. There's a lot of ppl driving those MPS4S tires in RWD cars and loving it because of its grip. The axles issue was pre-mature issue and the extra power just made a weak component come out sooner than later.

[B58togo]

Originally Posted by FSociety

Sorry to hear this but first time I hear this on a 335.
Your first mistake was not flashing back to stock and locking it at home!
Your second mistake was flashing it at the dealership and not locking it.
This is the MAIN and BIGGEST reason why BM3 has its advantage over every other tune out there. It will restore 100% to your OWN factory software.

I, along many have gone to dealer for all types of non-tune related work or maintenance and the first rule of thumb is flash back to stock and lock it if you're 1 of those OBD unlock folks. Before February OBD Unlock came out everyone was bench flash and more ppl got flagged because some tunes would trigger "DME Tamper Code" a lot of ppl stopped going to dealer not to get flagged too.

Long story short, I've done over 100 DIGs in my X4 M40i because AWD cars are meant to do this. I wouldn't buy a car that I'm going to be worried about driving it hard. There's a lot of ppl driving those MPS4S tires in RWD cars and loving it because of its grip. The axles issue was pre-mature issue and the extra power just made a weak component come out sooner than later.

Mission Performance tunes also have the ability to lock the DME. It's not some proprietary techno-wizardry exclusive to BM3.

And ok, I guess I'll be the first one to inquire as to how replacing an axle that retails for a (stupid) $1159 ends up costing $3100 all in. It's a two hour job if the tech is hung over on a Monday morning.

[paimon.soror]

Man threads like this make me concerned about playing with LC. There are a few checks before LC works and I've ran into this multiple times where i hammer the pedal hoping that LC activates and i end up snuffing the car.

I forget exactly what the checks were but I think it is something like the car has to travel at least 10 miles in the current drive cycle, be fully warmed up , and either dtc or sport plus

Of course with xdrive the wheels don't break free so i always get a pit in my stomach when i fail to trigger thinking about the stress on all the components

[TEST DRYVER]

Update: I had my car pulled from BMW and taken to Porsche (My place of employment). I had the parts department find and order a used (20k miles) driver side rear axle, new gaskets, 2 undercarriage (Underhood shield) panels (unrelated to my axle, but it was falling apart, so I wanted it replaced. BMW wanted $340 for these 2 pieces, installed), and collar nut. I had our Porsche Master Tech install all the parts, and the Beemer is finally back on the road.
Here's the breakdown of the current cost:
$400 in parts, used axle included
$250 in labor for 5 hours (this included the 2 underhood shields and hardwired connection for my Valentine One and mirror mount install)
$135 for Volvo S60 rental car while my car was at Porsche (3 days total)
$80 to tow my car from BMW to Porsche
$50 buying lunch for 2 people that helped make this happen
= $915 total

BMW's discounted price, including the 2 underhood shields was $2074

I'm obviously not stating that you can have the same work done for half the cost, like I did, but like most jobs (what we do for a living), we have perks. In my situation, my "perks" came in really handy! I brought the car back home that night, reinstalled my BM3 tune, and my car is running as strong as ever! I was very fortunate...

[TEST DRYVER]

Originally Posted by B58togo

Mission Performance tunes also have the ability to lock the DME. It's not some proprietary techno-wizardry exclusive to BM3.

And ok, I guess I'll be the first one to inquire as to how replacing an axle that retails for a (stupid) $1159 ends up costing $3100 all in. It's a two hour job if the tech is hung over on a Monday morning.

BMW priced the parts and labor like this:
Output Shaft (rear axle) $1367.12
Collar Nut $8.54
Gasket Set $122.98
Underhood shield $207.89
Cover, bottom left (a smaller piece of the underhood shield) $42.78
$1749.31 in parts
$1083.38 in labor
$3043.27 total

You're right as far as a BMW tech taking barely over 2 hours to replace the axle, but they get to charge the "book hours" for the labor, which if I remember correctly was 5.5 hours...

[ceedawg]

Originally Posted by TEST DRYVER

BMW priced the parts and labor like this:
Output Shaft (rear axle) $1367.12
Collar Nut $8.54
Gasket Set $122.98
Underhood shield $207.89
Cover, bottom left (a smaller piece of the underhood shield) $42.78
$1749.31 in parts
$1083.38 in labor
$3043.27 total

You're right as far as a BMW tech taking barely over 2 hours to replace the axle, but they get to charge the "book hours" for the labor, which if I remember correctly was 5.5 hours...

The stealership . The mechnics and SAs make a nice commission on stated repairs so I was told..And if it's an insurance claim the dealership will really go in.

[XutvJet]

Originally Posted by TEST DRYVER

BMW priced the parts and labor like this:
Output Shaft (rear axle) $1367.12
Collar Nut $8.54
Gasket Set $122.98
Underhood shield $207.89
Cover, bottom left (a smaller piece of the underhood shield) $42.78
$1749.31 in parts
$1083.38 in labor
$3043.27 total

You're right as far as a BMW tech taking barely over 2 hours to replace the axle, but they get to charge the "book hours" for the labor, which if I remember correctly was 5.5 hours...

How in the hell? BMW charged me 3.5 hours labor to install my M Performance LSD. That requires disconnecting two half shafts, the driveshaft, and a few suspension prices. 3.5 hours labor was $550 with tax. That was BMW book time. There's no doubt in my mind the tech did it all in less than 2 hours.

5 hours to remove one rear axle? In what freaking world? That can't be book time. If I had a lift and the BMW tool to pop the axle out of the diff, I could have an axle out in less than an hour including getting the car in the air.

[1N54E92]

VMR710 with spacers ? looks nice

[wdeerfield]

LTG puts it at 2.2 for one side. They really wanted to stick it to you. Glad you were able to get it sorted at a much more reasonable price. I, thankfully, just had my rear axle replaced under warranty and it took them less than half a day from dropoff to repair and final RO write up to me picking up the car.

[yoon_209]

damn... you only paid 50$/hr for labor by a porsche tech?

talk about perks...

i dont think you can get this price/hr from anywhere in regards to cars

[B58 parts]

$1400 for the part is also completely nuts. I know bimmer parts are all expensive and price gouged by default, but in the case of axles, pound for pound for what they are they're really pushing it. I used to get $60 replacement axles for the honda at autozone and snap them every few months carefree. They look kinda the same really .. should be close to $300 or so maybe. How do we get to 1400, do they have gold bearings inside...

[XutvJet]

Originally Posted by YuminNuman

$1400 for the part is also completely nuts. I know bimmer parts are all expensive and price gouged by default, but in the case of axles, pound for pound for what they are they're really pushing it. I used to get $60 replacement axles for the honda at autozone and snap them every few months carefree. They look kinda the same really .. should be close to $300 or so maybe. How do we get to 1400, do they have gold bearings inside...

It is ridiculous. With that said, you can get the axle from getbmwparts.com for $945. That means Brian at Sun Motors BMW will probably beat that by another 20%, so figure a still unreasonable $750 for a new axle. That's still about $300-400 more than you'd pay to buy a new axle for most any car. BMW doesn't sell remanufactured axles. That's why your replacement axles were so cheap. I typically pay $180-220 for reman axles for my old Subarus. I'd definitely try and source a used axle from LKQ like the OP did if I broke an axle outside of warranty.