I am new to this forum but have a little dilema that covers Mechanical, Moral and Parental. My son decided at 25 to take a loan out and finance a 57 plate 118d (2.0 N47 Engine). He paid a fair price and had a typical 1 month Warranty. He was overjoyed as he has to travels a 50 mile round trip each day for work so a vehicle was crucial nd he always fancied a BMW. 2 Months after buying it he was driving along when the Engine Management light came on and it cut out. Despite checking the onboard diagnostics and any fuses he could reach it would turn over but not fire up. I went out to him and checked the obvious before towing him to a Garage in Chesterfield. The Garage plugged in the OBD or what ever it is and found alot of faults. After clearing all the faults and doing all the checks including Cam Sensor, it still would not start up. The Mechanic rang me after 10 days and declared the Bad news that after doing all the tests and searching all the forums he feared it was the timing belt and recommended contacting BMW for a Good Will gesture. Unfortunately they replied with a snotty E Mail explaining if I took it to a BMW dealer and if the FSH was complete and the mileage was correct etc they would look at it but would not guarantee anything. This is where I think things possibly went wrong. Although the Mechanic was brilliant and didn't charge much for the diagnostics he was still prepared to help out and offered swapping the engine if required or strip it down to do the necessary repairs and replace the faulty N47 BMW Timing Chain. After waying up the options of: 1. Taking it to BMW and possibly end up paying over the odds for the repair 2. Remove the Engine and strip it down to replace the damaged bits 3. Buy a Reconditioned, Certified Mileage, replacement Engine and swap the lot. For £1,500 I managed to get a 20k Mile 2007, 2.0d Engine with the modified BMW Timing Chain and 12 months Warranty, delivered to the garage and for an agreed price let the garage replace the engine. After a fortnight there was no news from the Garage so I contacted them. The Engine was fitted but they could not get it to start. They advised that they were going to swap the electrics too and reprogramme everything. After another week, they were no further forward and the car, turns over but fails to start. So after a total of 6 weeks the car is still at the Garage and it still will not start. To me it sounds like the original diagnosis was wrong. Does anyone have any Mechanical advice to solve the problem and what are your thoughts about the Garages diagnosis as he has not only purchased an Engine he might not need following the advice of the garage but he is still no closer to driving it off.
