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.

A messy tale indeed. I am afraid I am not going to give you any good news, which I am very sorry for. Firstly, I am assuming you bought from a dealer. If so, a 1 month warranty is NOT typical. Unless your end of the country is dramatically different to the South Coast, a normal warranty offered is 3 months. BUT in law, regardless of the warranty, you actually have certain rights up to 6 months after purchase, and the courts tend to side quite firmly with the consumer when they get a case of "You vs Arthur Daley". I know this because I have a very good friend who is a VERY straight and honest dealer, and about once a year he gets very unfairly shafted through the courts. (Would you believe a diesel car that had done 15,000 miles in a year since purchase, seized because there was NO oil in it, and they got their money back?)

So, following from the above, after 2 months you would have been on very solid ground to have forced the dealer to get this sorted out. But now that you have gone so far down the road with engine replacement and so on, you will sadly have negated any chance of getting any help there.

So sadly, no helpful advice from me other than to take a deep breath and get the car to a main BMW dealer. They will have more experience of this specific problem, and their technicians and equipment is, after all, BMW specific. But its going to cost you, I'm afraid. Good Luck, and my Best Wishes.

... With the new engine doing the same, why didn't they change the ECU/DMA in the first place??? If only to eliminate it !!

Get a Solicitor ;)

Trouble is now, who's he going to sue? The original seller is safely out of the picture with the engine change done, the garage may have mis-diagnosed but is working under best endeavours (although has probably invalidated the warranty on the replacement engine by swopping electrics and reprogramming) and they've long lost the sensible option of BMW "offer" to consider good will offer if taken to main dealer, which is what they should have done before they spent £1500 on another engine.

as above,one month warranties are useless because as has been said you have a fit for purpose consumer item for at least 6 months and as yours was inside this and the car was not fit for purpose your first port 0of call should have been the original dealer

I refer the honourable gentlemen to the answer I gave previously !!

Firstly, sending a letter of intentions to both the seller and garage...

Secondly, a solicitor to help determine which of the above is culpable ;)