The Shade Tree Garage of Morristown NJ has gracefully invited the NJ BMW chapter to host our October meeting at their service facility. We will be joined by John O'Connor, owner of Shade Tree Garage and others to explain to us what to look for during a tech inspection and answer any questions about our vehicles.
If you are interested to have your car looked at on a lift, please send an email to Paul Ngai.
Meeting starts at 6:30pm (updated)
Pizza and drinks will be served.
Address:
171 Washington St Morristown, NJ 07960
(973) 540-9880
Website: http://www.shadetreegarage.com/
Contact John O'Connor at Shade Tree Garage for more information.
October Monthly Meeting on Thurs 10/24 @ Shade Tree Garage
Just wanted to give my thanks to John and Andrew from Shade Tree. I'd brought my Z3 to the meeting with the expressed purpose of having trained eyes and ears to track down a rattling I've been hearing the past few months. I haven't driven it as much because of the noise. I was thinking it was the VANOS unit going bad. The clattering noise can be heard in this video, every time he backs off of the throttle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REX2TisSos8
Andrew from Shade Tree put the car up on a lift with the engine idling, and we saw that the harmonic balancer and crankshaft pulley were wobbling badly. I was able to leave the car with them, and expected to have to replace the balancer, a $500+ part. Fortunately, they determined that the balancer (vibration damper, according to realoem.com) was fine, but it had worked its way loose of the hub. Several of the bolts had pulled out. Shade Tree was able to re-tap the hub and re-use the balancer.
I've got the car back, and the rattling's gone! This was bugging me for a long time, and I'm grateful to Shade Tree for finding and fixing the problem.
Andrew from Shade Tree put the car up on a lift with the engine idling, and we saw that the harmonic balancer and crankshaft pulley were wobbling badly. I was able to leave the car with them, and expected to have to replace the balancer, a $500+ part. Fortunately, they determined that the balancer (vibration damper, according to realoem.com) was fine, but it had worked its way loose of the hub. Several of the bolts had pulled out. Shade Tree was able to re-tap the hub and re-use the balancer.
I've got the car back, and the rattling's gone! This was bugging me for a long time, and I'm grateful to Shade Tree for finding and fixing the problem.
-Jon Trudel, #163357