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Bugger!

Adam D

Senior member
Langdon Hills, Essex
Great end to the day when your friendly BMW service centre advises you that they sheared the nipples off both front brake callipers when you go to collect your car.... I did begin to wonder why they hadn't called.

Bugger - two new callipers :(
 
I'd be telling them to drill them out... if they were that seized when then tried to loosen with a spanner surely you'd stop at that point?

Keep them on and DIY? Budweg are only about £80 new.
 
Sorry to hear, but not that surprising from BMW.
Don't buy new ones from them. Few options out there like this for instance. M3 has the same front caliper as ours.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-E46-M3-3-2-Front-Brake-Caliper-Genuine-ATE-Right-Drivers-Side-/171935834636?hash=item28082ca20c:g:e5UAAOSwsB9V-Zry
 
As above good garage should be able to drill an tap, poor form on the garage not to inform you about what had happened
 
ba3bas said:
How much damage? Wallet wise

You won't get much change from £800, fitted undiscounted.

For peace of mind a new pair fitted and warranted (for the right deal noting the inconvenience and lack of care) makes most sense to me, they were not happy to drill and tap with the right taper and I'm not going to push that solution and get the blame if it goes wrong.

They apologised for not letting me know sooner and will find out why no call was made.

To be fair the manager is trying to put things right but run out of time today.
 
At that price you can get a set of PB or D2 front brakes with discs pads and fluid.

Hopefully they sort without much pain
 
There's no way I'd fork out that on stock calipers! Surely a secondhand/refurbished set is the way to go?
 
tjlazer said:
There's no way I'd fork out that on stock calipers! Surely a secondhand/refurbished set is the way to go?

I certainly don't plan on paying that either! But the car isn't going anywhere without working brakes ;)
 
FFS that's a joke. You don't even need to drill and tap them. A decent set of stud extractors would sort this problem. BMW just employ bloody chimps.!!

Take the calipers to your local toolmakers, they will sort them in 10 minutes.
 
What kind of brake hose connector is on these?
Is it possible to fit a banjo bolt with a built in bleed nipple and leave the snapped bleed nipples as they are?
 
Brakes are off e46 csl
You can simply reverse thread bit them out:)
But I wouldn't be doing anything as Bmw should be doing the work :)

Always coat bleed nipps in lithium grease and put rubber caps back on, my habit as they get heat, dust etc etc

Sorry to hear buddy
Speak to Bmw customer services if no joy from dealer, ps ask to speak to owner/ dealer principle
Then say a valued member (ok lie;)
Of forum and will slag them off if don't correct damage
Ps they have costs set aside for this sort of stuff north oxford have an £80k budget for this ;)
 
D4dawg said:
Brakes are off e46 csl
CSL front calipers and standard M3 front calipers are the same btw. It's only in the disc size and carrier at the front that they differ from boggo M3s.
The rear calipers though are different from CSL(Z4M) to normal M3 (slightly bigger piston).
 
Spanner happy grease monkeys with little or no " feel". , a miniature blow lamp on the nipple itself once you realise it isn't undoing easily and a squirt of penetrating oil will safely remove most seized nipples. Did it a few months ago on my buggy, then a smear of copper grease and good for years again.
 
Having bled brakes quite a few times and most recently on my M last weekend, snapping 2 bleed nipples is a pretty poor show, made even worse by an unwillingness to fix the problem. If you've snapped one you should be taking extra care on the next. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, someone might have over tightened the nipples on the previous brake fluid bleed. But then i assume its that dealer that had done the previous bleed so ultimatly they've caused the problem. Breaking two nipples and then expecting the client to fork out for new callipers, even at a discounted rate, is poor service in my opinion.

Shows that this particular BMW main dealer is only interested in replacing bits on newer cars and the 'technicians' clearly don't have the skills to deal with slightly older models or anything more than basic replacement work. Hence once the car is out of warranty a proper specialist service history has more value than lots of main dealer stamps.
 
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