Genuine BMW or Continental/Siemensl VDO fuel pumps ??
 

Anybody here have any experiences with replacing theirs with these brands ??

Why on earth does the Genuine BMW one cost twice as much ?? Is it made out of space-age material that makes it last longer than the other cheaper brands ??

How about durability ??

Any advice is sincerely appreciated, thanks !!

(BTW, many have an unfavorable opinion on Uro parts, so that choice was intentionally omitted).

I haven't had to swap one of these, but BMW isn't in the fuel pump making business, so it's probably the same pump.

Genuine OEM BMW parts are often significantly more expensive just by slapping the BMW label on it. Google "who makes BMW fuel pumps" and see if it's the same brand.

I assume part of the reason is because they come from a dealership somewhere and that dealership takes a big cut.

I assume this is the pump in the tank of an e46. I had mine fail in the wagon a couple of years ago about 50 miles from my house. I replaced it on the side of the road with whatever was in stock at the nearby autozone and have had no issues since. I wouldn't spend the $$$ for BMW OEM on a part like that personally.

That's what I figured.

Just another way for them to make $$, I suppose.

I hear you.

I had to buy a fuel pump on my 1/2-ton a few years back. The dealership wanted $300, so I bought mine online for 1/3 of the price and replaced it myself.

Been running ever since....

Yes, it is.

It's got 150k miles and the second pump failed on me on the way to work. Check out my Facebook status update yesterday:

So I'm cruising to work on I-80 doing about 75 mph (hey, I'm just keeping up with traffic here), and my BMW decides to lose power. It starts to buck and misfire, and I decide that I better take the next exit and find a suitable parking lot. As soon as I exit, my car stalls out, I start it, move about 20 feet at no more than 10 mph and stalls out again. I repeat this process about 8 times and I finally make to an empty parking lot, all the while pissing people off behind me.

When I get to the parking lot, my car won't start anymore. The starter keeps spinning and the engine won't catch. Because I'm blocking traffic, I quickly jump out and start pushing my car, but the driveway to the lot has a slight incline (yay me). Of course, I can't push it up by myself. Luckily, three guys jump out of their cars and help me push it up and onto the parking lot (gotta love Nevada !!). They quickly turn back to their cars before I can repay them for their kindness with some (holiday) cash.

Of course, this has to happen just about a mile from work. Which means that I have to call AAA and have my car towed back to my house about 14 miles away so that I can work on it. Yay me.

So my car is on a flatbed heading back to my house. The driver is a 20-25 year old kid who has only been a tow truck driver for 8 months. Long story short, I was intrigued with his skydiving experiences, he was intrigued with what I did for a living, and we had a great time talking to each other. I've probably called AAA about 3 times (perhaps it's time to trade in my beloved BMW.....nahhhh) and this was one of the best conversations I've had with their drivers.

We get to the house and I ask him, "Hey, do you think you can put my car back in the garage ??". He says, "Sure, I like a challenge". So he backs up his flatbed, rolls my car about half-way inside the garage with me steering the car, and pushes my car the rest of the way in without hitting ANYTHING. Before he leaves, I shake his hand and say, "Thanks for a great job and good company". He feels something funny in the palm of his hand, so he finishes our handshake and opens up a folded $20 bill. I can see in his face that he is reluctant to accept it, but I just assure him that he deserves it due to his towing expertise and treatment of customers.

Well, I guess I'll be buying myself a new fuel pump and fuel filter for my birthday. Yay.

And I'll probably install them myself the day after my birthday. Double yay...."

At least the story has a making a new friend happy ending.

My experence was similar, except I was in York, PA and pushed it into an illegal parallel parking spot in a sketchy neighborhood.

The fuel pump is an easy job and I think non OEM ones are less than $100, so it could have been much, much worse.

You don't need "genuine BMW". This plays out over and over in most parts. Hard to imagine you could get more name brand than Siemens or VDO.

To VDO's discredit though, they once made the worst bicycle computer in existence. I bought one thinking I'm secure with the brand with their gauge history & engineering, but oh man, what an interface.

My E46 fuel pump failing resulted in my meeting new friends as well. :lol:

Doing this makes for some interesting reading :rolleyes:

BMW doesn't have a lot of consistency in their own pricing. For example, 64-11-9-204-154 is the E46 climate control blower with a MSRP of $847.82. 64-11-3-453-729 is the E83 blower, MSRP $181.41. The only difference is that -729 (the cheaper one) comes with a longer cable and a different bracket (included in the package, but you can re-use your old E46 one).

Turner sells an "OEM Hella Blower" for $199.95 which at least has the correct-length cable. It had a sticker slapped on that said "BEHR Hella Made in USA", but the actual manufacturer's sticker on the other side said "Unimotor Made in Canada" and the package did NOT include the pictured saddle / clips / screws. It was just a re-labeled Unimotor 75808, MSRP $79.50. Turner also listed it as "in stock" (along with everything else) on my October 16th order, until I clicked "order". Then it said "Ship date: Nov 8". It actually shipped on October 25th. Not a big fan (no pun intended) at this point. I have sent an inquiry to Turner with additional details and I'll report back what they say.

Last time I was there, my g/f and I toured the Harley-Davidson factory.

You could've said, "Ah screw it, might as well ditch this car and get myself a Harley-Davidson CVO Limited with the Screamin' Eagle Performance Option".

;):D

Yeah, I thought about going to the dealership and get their Genuine BMW fuel pump, but I thought better of it.

There's something to be said about ordering it online and waiting patiently.

Guess I'll just have to drive my gas-guzzling 1/2-ton in the meantime, because it's just WAY too cold to ride my bike, lol.

I tried to shop the Turner website, but I found it frustratingly confusing.

So I ended up ordering from www.oembimmerparts.com, which has a lot of favorable reviews.

I discovered a new site called www.fcpeuro.com which I'll probably utilize in the future.

I had a good experience with oembimmerparts. bought pads rotors from all sorts of places and they were oneof thrm.

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