Driving sedately yesterday a couple miles from home and I get 'low coolant level' warning pop up saying I need to top it up as soon as possible. I carefully get home, open the bonnet and a little steam comes out from the bay, not from any place in particular but I can see wet spots in various places and it hasn't been raining.... Looking under the car I see lots of dampness on the undertray, but no gushing or dripping as such so definitely not a full coolant dump.
I let the car cool and topped up the coolant bottle with about 1.25L of distilled water, and decide to 'get ahead of the possible logistics issue' by driving it to my local independent BMW garage on the sunday, less traffic, no sat in queues etc. and only about 4miles away. I got the low coolant warning about 2 miles into the drive, but the car never faltered and the temp only slowly got up to temp and never went above the normal position.
Now, I haven't had the verdict back from the garage yet as it obviously wasn't booked in so they didn't get to it today, but I'm half expecting it to be the new EGR Cooler that's failed which seems the most common reason for 'rapid' coolant loss with BMWs. Either that, or when BMW did the EGR Cooler replacement they screwed something else up like leaving off a jubilee clip and a small hose has finally worked loose.
I suspect that because I had an electrical issue after the recall work which was tracked back to a loose earth point my indy thinks they'd have to have removed to swap the exhaust manifold they had to replace because they sheared a bolt off, so if this is down to the EGR recall I will not be happy as since then I've had multiple issues.
If the EGR cooler has cracked or such I'll be demanding BMW recover the car from the Indy (as this failure was the point of the recall and a fire/engine loss risk) and recoup any costs from the Indy for inspecting it, and provide a courtesy car again.
