BMW coolant?? - just got my bill and its bulk

[wmann]

I took a look at my bill from the water pump incident that you all were nice enough to help me with. From some of the responses, one quoted below, it make me wonder if there should have been special coolant.

"For what its worth the flat rate time is 3.4 hours for the job so depending on what your shop charges plus parts Im not sure if 600 is way out of line. The hepu water pump for your car from bma is 107 plus around 24 a gallon now for bmw coolant, figure 40 for the belts and 20 for a thermostat and another 10 or so for misc orings and seals and sealant, I'd figure about 225 for the parts and 240 for the labor allowing 4 hours at 60 an hour..."

Should I be concerned that the coolent used is refered to as BULK on the bill and costs 2.20 per quart for the 8 quarts they used?

The shop is a foreign car garage that has been there for years and I know they do BMW work, but they don't cater to just BMWs.

Thanks in advance for the continued help.

Bill Mann

[632 Regal]

I wouldnt freak out but were anal about this sort of stuff...at least most of us are. same with synthetic oils and lubricants.

[wmann]

I am sure to use the correct synthetic oils and lubricants but I never considered antifreeze/coolant.

Would the recomendation be to switch it out? If so whats involved?

A radiator flush or just drain and replace with the correct fluid?

[mamilapon]

The weirdest thing!!! While you guys are on the subject of coolant, I decided to change the stat on my car this morning because it was running fairly cool. Now i just had the car for about 3 months so i have been spending time just changing the fluids and noting all future maintenance. So i open the stat housing and HORROR!!!! there's only the top part of the stat in there, the part where the o-ring sits on.

[632 Regal]

change it out.

If your gonna change to cool blue I would drain, flush with engine running each time you fill it and drain, probably 3 or 4 flushes like that should evacuate the invading green coolant. The fill half the system capacity with cool blue, top off with distilled water and bleed, bleed, bleed.

edit: lol, us proud V8 owners dont need to bleed at all. After it heat cycles check and fill the tank back up, total added fluid should be about a quart total.

Remember to have the heat turned full hot during the flush and fill so that gets replaced too.

edit edit: dont use any flushes or additives anywhere.

[yaofeng]

Bulk coolant is fine. Does the engine overheat with it in? I switched to full synthetic oil years ago because I have too many cars to change oil before I found other good things about it. Coolant I have not yet found any one bran to be superior to others.

But if BMW or Mercedes coolant let you sleep better at night, do it.

[Bill R.]

13.20 quarts so you should have taken 7 quarts since they billed it out
by the quart. Even though i am an advocate of bmw coolant at this point since you have new bulk coolant in there i would leave it alone and just change it out in a year. Since its fresh i wouldn't go to the trouble of replacing it now.

I took a look at my bill from the water pump incident that you all were nice enough to help me with. From some of the responses, one quoted below, it make me wonder if there should have been special coolant.

"For what its worth the flat rate time is 3.4 hours for the job so depending on what your shop charges plus parts Im not sure if 600 is way out of line. The hepu water pump for your car from bma is 107 plus around 24 a gallon now for bmw coolant, figure 40 for the belts and 20 for a thermostat and another 10 or so for misc orings and seals and sealant, I'd figure about 225 for the parts and 240 for the labor allowing 4 hours at 60 an hour..."

Should I be concerned that the coolent used is refered to as BULK on the bill and costs 2.20 per quart for the 8 quarts they used?

The shop is a foreign car garage that has been there for years and I know they do BMW work, but they don't cater to just BMWs.

Thanks in advance for the continued help.

Bill Mann

[Bill R.]

pieces get scattered... you should try to find as many pieces as you can

The weirdest thing!!! While you guys are on the subject of coolant, I decided to change the stat on my car this morning because it was running fairly cool. Now i just had the car for about 3 months so i have been spending time just changing the fluids and noting all future maintenance. So i open the stat housing and HORROR!!!! there's only the top part of the stat in there, the part where the o-ring sits on.

[mamilapon]

The freakyest thing is that i had a look in both halves of the housing and there's nothing. Where is it all gone? When i bought the car i noticed the pump had been changed. Could it have been that the bits of stat destroyed the pump, if so where could they all be sitting?