01-21-2018, 12:30 AM | #1 |
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35d Drive Belt and Balancer Refresh
So I’m getting ready to do a drive belt and tensioner refresh on my 35d as I have a whine and marble bearing sound coming from the front of the engine. Given the service history, it appears I’m still on the originals so a refresh as preventative maintenance makes sense.
That being said I’m now wondering if I should replace the harmonic balancer while I’m in there since it’s nearing the 90k mark. The interesting thing is that BMW has a drive belt repair kit as part of their value line and it appears to include the tensioner, balancer, belt and pulley all for $419. Not bad! Of course I know many are going the fluidsmper route but honestly, at $540+ I really don’t see the value as my OEM balancer is still operating just fine at almost 90k. Here is a link to the value line repair kit I’m referring to: http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...43#11282413245 Anyways just curious about people’s thoughts and whether or not anyone has ordered the value kit before. Thanks in advance. |
01-21-2018, 10:25 AM | #2 |
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Try to stick a phone down there and get a picture/video of the balancer hub to see if you can see any cracking in the rubber. Good time to replace if you notice anything.
People are installing a clutched alternator pulley in place of our solid one to try to get more life out of the stock balancer (nothing proven yet). 335d/x5d take different size spacers on the pulley for proper fitment. Here is a link to the clutched pulley w/ spacer kit. http://www.fixmyvw.com/decoupler-pul...-35d-and-335d/ Will be installing a fluidampr & clutched alternator pulley this week sometime. I like the counterbalance concept of the fluidampr, hopefully be silky smooth! |
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01-21-2018, 03:05 PM | #3 |
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My balancer was working fine at 182k on the X5. I swapped as a precaution but, it didn’t look to terribly bad.
I like the fluiddamper but, can’t justify the cost over the stock replacement. |
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01-21-2018, 03:15 PM | #4 |
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That’s exactly my thought. For the price of the fluidamper I could do a complete drive belt refresh with OEM parts I know will last for 80-90k. That puts me at 160-180k or 6-7 years of driving until I even touch that mileage. Also, what are the real benefits between the updated OEM balancer and the Fluidamper? Seems like there’s still data that needs to be collected here.
Don’t get me wrong I’ve had Fluidamper Parts on cars before and they are good quality but I just haven’t seen compelling data to support the extra cost. |
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01-21-2018, 06:26 PM | #5 |
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Let me clarify the reason for this thread. I’m just looking to see opinions on whether replacing the balancer now makes sense and if anyone has had experience with the mentioned value repair kit. Not looking to start a long debate between Fluidamper and OEM as I personally don’t see the added value vs cost difference for my application.
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01-21-2018, 06:48 PM | #6 | |
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If you're worried about the balancer I was recommending you take a look at the clutched alternator pulley people are putting on their alternators to try to get the max life out of the stock balancer. The logic behind it makes total sense and for $40 + belts is much cheaper than the $410 you're talking about spending to switch out everything now. Was just a suggestion though. |
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01-21-2018, 09:08 PM | #7 |
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I know it wasn’t however I don’t want this thread to get derailed. It’s all good buddy.
That being said I don’t think you’ve read my original post all the way through. The original plan was to replace the tensioner, pulleys and belts due to a whining noise I have developed. At about my mileage or more this has always been common practice for me on my vehicles. So upon putting together a parts list I stumbled upon the repair kit which includes the OEM damper. If you were to price out a balancer by itself on ECS it would be $558 whereas I’m getting what I originally need amounting to about $200-$250 in OEM parts plus a damper! That’s like getting the OEM damper for ~$200. That is why I’m leading towards just replacing the damper while I’m in there. However, if this clutch pulley for the alternator is only $40, then that would make sense to add to my parts list as well. |
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01-22-2018, 09:54 AM | #8 | |
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Previous Affairs: 2011 335i Msport, 2007 Honda Pilot:, 1991 316i R.I.P
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01-22-2018, 01:27 PM | #9 |
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Well your in their so might as well. I did mine. It was fine but I know I'll have the vehicle for many years.
If it matters my harmonic dampener on my Mini Cooper s is nearing 20 years old and has well over 200k miles on it. They don't go that often and you will have bad vibrations before failure but like I did I was in their changing pulleys and belts so just added a nice fresh one for the hell of it. Your call and your money but nothing wrong with swapping with new. |
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01-22-2018, 08:00 PM | #11 |
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I think pretty common is subjective as with a lot of things on the 35d. I have only seen a handful of cases of people having an actual damper failure. It seems that 35d vehicles that live most of their life on the highways have less issues and I’m definitely a believer that there is some correlation. It would be interesting to document mileage and driving style (highway vs city) for those with failures. Has anyone noticed a trend with the 335d folks?
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01-25-2018, 03:18 PM | #13 |
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01-25-2018, 10:42 PM | #14 |
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That’s a good list. I’d like to see information on how the car is driven. I suspect the lower mileage cases were from city driven vehicles.
Just a quick update, the repair kit is not in stock anywhere so looks like special order from BMW. 2-3 weeks from delivery. |
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04-11-2018, 07:10 PM | #15 |
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Just wanted to provide a follow up. I’m just about done getting all the parts together. I ended up purchasing the repair kit for $480 delivered which is a great deal considering you get a belt, tensioner, pulley and balancer with hardware. Just need to get a couple more things and will start the refresh.
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02-10-2021, 03:48 PM | #16 |
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As a newbie to x35d cars I found this thread interesting.
Chalk me up as having one where the harmonic balancer went south & because I (& all the other mechanically inclined guys I work around) didn't realize what I was feeling/hearing for a month or so we didn't know my HB was failing until it failed. Ended up costing me a lot more $s than it would've if I'd had realized what was going out before it crapped the bed. Car had a healthy mix of freeway & city driving its whole life & the HB gave up the ghost around 125k mi on the odometer. |
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02-11-2021, 03:06 AM | #17 | |
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02-12-2021, 01:49 PM | #18 |
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I started hearing a difference in the exhaust note on idle as well as a slight vibration on idle. I drove the car for weeks (maybe a month) with this going on. I couldn't figure it out but wasn't overly worried about it...car was driving fine other than the slightly strange sounds & vibes at idle.
Fast forward a couple of weeks & I had a couple of very mechanically proficient guys I work around look at the car with me, including crawling up under it. None of them could even really hear what I was hearing (of course I'm in the car 5-7 days a week so I'm in tune to the normal sounds). When the HB finally crapped the bed I got warnings dealing with the charging system, could smell what I thought was hot electrical (which was really the belts tearing themselves up), & got intermittent power steering. Oh, also the car seemed like it went into limp mode a couple of times trying to get home (3-4 miles at the time). I really thought I had developed an exhaust leak by the sounds of it (prior to the HB lunching itself) but couldn't find any leak. In hindsight if I'd been educated from the forum here or was apt to go to the repair shop every time one of my older used cars made a weird noise (which I'm not), it would've been caught & saved me some money. |
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