[nilknarf]

Ok, so I'm snooping around under the hood and decide to open the cap to the coolant resevoir. There I see a brown rod sticking up. As soon as I touch it, it comes off in my hand. I thought surely it snaps back in, but it appears that it has actually broken off.

Is this thing important? Am I going to need to find a way to superglue it back it in? There's not much room to work in there.

Any info. would be much appreciated.

Frank
'07 328i Wagon

[Gavin@MMW]

I LOL'd when I read the title.. I just imagined someone holding a steering wheel for some reason..

To answer, your probably ok without that plastic part as long as nothing is flopping around in the engine bay.

[raceyBMW]

Its the level gauge for the coolant expansion tank. You would probably have to buy a new expansion tank, or try and pop the thing back in if its really not broken. Otherwise, probably not a huge deal, just be careful if filling coolant up ever...maybe compare to another full car and put a mark in the tank.

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...22&hg=17&fg=05

[nilknarf]

I was wondering if it were a gauge. It seems to be attached to a floater that goes up and down with the coolant level. I think I'll suck the coolant out and try to glue it back in place, with a rag in there to catch any glue overspill. If that doesn't work, marking the tank is a good second option. Thanks!

[ENINTY]

I think you have a warranty issue here. First off it appears by the age of your car that it is still under the 4-year warranty period. If you've not gone over the 50,000 mile portion of the warranty then I think this should be covered. It looks like to me that the coolant level indicator rod as separated from the float that is inside the coolant tank. Based on your picture, the large end of the rod, which fits into the coolant tank, still has the plastic button-snap molded into the rod, indicating it has just popped out of the float.

Not knowing the history of your car (i.e. whether you are the original owner, or a second-hand owner) I'm guessing that someone prior to you opened the coolant tank, saw the rod pop up and unwittingly pulled on it and unsnapped it from the float level inside the tank. They then just stuck the rod back in the tank. Or as a warranty issue, the rod and float were never properly assembled at the manufacturer (of the tank) and your car was assembled with a bad part in it. If it was the former, and you bought the car CPO I’d argue that the CPO inspection should have caught this issue, as the Tech when checking the coolant level as part of the inspection should have seen the separated rod just has you discovered it.

What is assured is you will not be able to "superglue" the parts back together because even if you were able to get the parts near each other after draining the tank, you'd never get all of the coolant residue off the parts to have the glue work. Worst off you mike get some nodules of dried superglue running around you coolant system wreaking havoc with the thermostat and water pump.

However, you may not be able to re-attach the rod to the float anyway. I’m not totally familiar with the design, but looking at the drawing of the tank on realOEM.com it looks like the rod and float sit in the deepest part of the tank. Also there is a coolant-level switch at the bottom of the tank which would probably get damaged if you tried to re-snap the rod into the float. I’d make a warranty claim (if you are within a warranty program).

[nilknarf]

Unfortunately, I'm over the 50k mile mark, so the warranty has expired. You're probably right...glue may not be a good idea. I'll take another look and see if I can snap it back in and if not, I'll just mark the tank for now. At least it looks like worse case, a new expansion tank is not very expensive.

[ScaredOnce]

Does the coolant reservoir cap say something like "Never ever put super glue in here."? It should.

I'd try to get the deal to fix this under warranty for sure.