My second problem with the car and the fix:

When my interior blower was on and my 2004 530i was idling I could hear the fan make an audible noise fluctuating from high-low-high-low.

Drove me crazy till one day I was standing outside of my car when it was idling and the engine sounded like it was fluctuating as well, you could hear a fan go higher and lower sounding etc.

It was an intermittent problem and the dealer finally figured it out as the car needed to be warm before it would do it. It turned out to be the "Auxilliary Water Pump". They replaced it at the dealership and topped off the coolant.

Parts $263
Labor $195

Noise gone ever since.

 

Thanks for posting this, dude. I have the same noise. It's not that loud, but it's annoying. I'm trying to figure out whether it's worth having the dealer fool around with something that's not totally broken.

 

Ahhh, my car makes a similar noise. I wonder how hard it is to do myself....

If the dealer will do it for $195, doesn't seem too bad.

 

vwvwv - No problem for the post, the noise is really annoying! I decided to get it fixed when I gave this cute girl from work a ride to go for lunch and she was like "nice car, whats that noise?" I did that Side Show Bob shudder from the Simpsons and was like "hmm its regulating the temperature closely because its an accurate car" haha she was like "oh.. sweet". The dealer told me that it was something that would get gradually worse and eventually the pump would go.

Lawr - $195 is a good deal to get it fixed as mine was almost $500 (Canadian). Maybe we get hosed in Canada because there is less dealerships (2 in my City)