Hi eveyone.
after reading alot about swirl flaps. just wondered if you own a 530d, could you answer a couple of questions

1 how many miles has it done ? reg ?

2 have the swirl flaps been removed ? (in the inlet manifold)

3 have you had any major mechnical problems with the car ?

thanks very much Paul

i'm trying decide weather to remove them or not.

 

53 reg 530d 141000 and no i havent removed the flaps.

 

built oct 2003, registered nov 2003, 56k, running fine at the moment, awaiting a response to an email i sent to bmw uk regarding this problem, dont know if they have been removed or not, im guessing not, no major problems to report

 

thanks for the reply. that interesting. 141 k and still going strong. some people are saying they fail at 70 k.

 

530d Nov 03 I think? 68K only 2K to go until distruction.

Am planning to remove the flaps but not too concerned at the moment. I think it's an isolated issue

 

Built 09 2003, 76K mls

I recently bought this car ( stolen recovered ) from an insurance company. The inlet manifold is in an awful state. It has the original crank breather (oil seperator) the EGR stat is always open and there is a small crack in the exhaust manifold.

I went back to the the guy who sold it and he has covered the cost of a new inlet & exhaust manifold. I am paying for the oil seperator , egr stat ( and main stat while I'm at it). The inlet was so bad that I would have replaced it anyway.

My advise would be to follow the links here and at least dig it out and have a look at it. I'm the sort of guy who likes things original (new set of RFTs!) so I would not have removed the flaps. However unless BMW do some sort of goodwill gesture, all the feedback here would indicate no penalty in removing the flaps.

 

you cant judge when/if they will fail.
i have a friend who has over 150k with his 03 530d and still has the swirl flaps fitted, i also know of a local guy (it was in the main dealers last month) who has total top end failure in a 2005 530d with under 70k.

it depends on usage/stress/"luck?"/component strength etc, but for peice of mind (as it only costs ?10 to do yourself) why would you not want to do it??
it is a documented fault BMW are very aware but will not make it public because they say it only affects less than 3% of cars.........but if you look at sales / volume of affected cars produced that equates to over 2,000 cars that we know about...do you want your out of warrenty car to be in that 2,000?? i didnt. the rep[air bill if they fail is circa ?5,000.

your chioce.

 

Have you got a DIY Link at that at all Dr Dave?

 

http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=...rl+flap+removal

excellent write up with photos.

good luck

 

I have a 2004 04 plate 530d that has now covered 58000 miles. I have not removed the swirlflaps but the turbo blew on it at 54000!