E46 B3 Saloon 2002 Torque Converter and Steering Wheel Judder

[Charles]

Yeah that’s the one ta
Reason I was asking is Glasgow Is 250 miles and Stephens is 150 I’ve also found a place in belton, Doncaster which is 10 miles away !! Henderson transmissions don’t know anything about them though

Stephens gave me a courtesy car, if that helps your thinking

[hashluck]

Watching updates on here with interest.

[DogWagen]

Yeah that’s the one ta
Reason I was asking is Glasgow Is 250 miles and Stephens is 150 I’ve also found a place in belton, Doncaster which is 10 miles away !! Henderson transmissions don’t know anything about them though

Stephens gave me a courtesy car, if that helps your thinking

Hap - FWIW Bill and Jason Stephens did all the work on mine. Given the support I had from them (which included courtesy car and on previous occasions lifts to/from the station) and their old-fashioned approach to customer satisfaction I wouldn't go elsewhere now for autoboxes - despite the hike south. If it helps, they have done at least 3 E46 Alpina boxes (Charles, Mine and another green B3 3.3) plus Drew's E38 B7 - I'll bet there's more.

[hap]

Good intel Mike appreciated, what was warranty btw? Did u refurb the t/c
I’ve heard good things Mackey but no real world example on alpina front
I’ll make contact with the local one to me to suss em out
Cheers

[Charles]

I think the warranty on mine was 12 months/12k miles but that was 5 years and 100k miles ago ....

[E46330]

Got the call from Mackie Transmissions today with the update. It is turning out to be more than I expected. It turns out that the TC has damaged the rest of the box and the whole thing needs an overhaul. The total price of reconditioning the entire box , including oils , filters and VAT is £2763

[Charles]

Got the call from Mackie Transmissions today with the update. It is turning out to be more than I expected It turns out that the TC has damaged the rest of the box and the whole thing needs an overhaul. The total price of reconditioning the entire box , including oils , filters and VAT is £2763

From experience, 123k miles is well into extra time when it comes to the TC needing some love and attention - so no surprise there - but early for the gearbox needing a recondition (mine was done nearer 200k miles) but related TC issues could easily bring that forward.

When mine was fully reconditioned (TC, gearbox and valve body), the all-in price was about £2.2k. This was 5 years ago so this price increase represents 4% per annum on a compound basis - which is not unreasonable.

[DogWagen]

Good intel Mike appreciated, what was warranty btw? Did u refurb the t/c
I’ve heard good things Mackey but no real world example on alpina front
I’ll make contact with the local one to me to suss em out
Cheers

The TC was warranted for 6 mths (as a repair) first time round. The Rebuild of the box was 12mths/12K miles and this included the TC. I had a subsequently repair outside of warranty period (covid did get in the way a bit) where the TC was rebuilt again (and the casing distortion was discovered on this visit) but this was covered by Bill/Jason without asking.

HTH
Mike

[DogWagen]

Got the call from Mackie Transmissions today with the update. It is turning out to be more than I expected It turns out that the TC has damaged the rest of the box and the whole thing needs an overhaul. The total price of reconditioning the entire box , including oils , filters and VAT is £2763

That's not an unreasonable quote. If the TC slips, the friction surface will wear pretty rapidly and particles can go everywhere, hence the collateral damage. It's also a reason for changing (and checking) the transmission oil and filter to catch incipient failures.

[E46330]

Right gentleman , the car is ready and I shall be picking it up on Monday. Says he’s been for a test drive and it’s running perfectly. Bed-in period is about 400/500 miles , I’ll do double that just to be safe then I’ll be thrashing her about and they’re giving me a 3year/100k miles warranty on it. I’m excited to have the girl back , will focus on getting that front end suspension issues sorted out next. Will probably need to recover some funds first as £2700 was a bit more than I had planned for.

Excited to get it back out there and drive the beast again !

I highly recommend Mackie Transmissions for your cars as their customer service and knowledge is fantastic. Also the cleanest garage I’ve ever seen , almost OCD

[hashluck]

Great to hear please do feedback on this as you put some miles on.

[DogWagen]

they’re giving me a 3year/100k miles warranty on it

I highly recommend Mackie Transmissions for your cars as their customer service and knowledge is fantastic. Also the cleanest garage I’ve ever seen , almost OCD

That sounds like an excellent result - hope you're pleased . Thinking ahead, I'd suggest a scheduled transmission oil/filter change every few years - think the ZF recc was 60k miles and 5-odd years.

[E46330]

Picked up the car today , something is still not quite right , the 2nd and 3 gears make a “grrrr” kind of noise in the low rpm , low speed range and when the speed picks up the noise goes away. I’ll have a word with them tomorrow as I picked it up at closing time.

The other issue which seems to have progressively gotten worse and worse , is the rough startup which has now moved onto a very rough idle , I’ve disconnected the MAF sensor and it runs better , and sometimes even stalls the engine when disconnecting and reconnecting the sensor. I’ve read the codes and I am getting a misfire of all 6 cylinders and “lambda regulator deviation bank 1” and bank 2 seem to have issues. I’m thinking maybe a leak and sensor clean. I have replaced the intake boot in the last 6 months so that is definitely not the issue. I’ve had vacuum hoses and leaks looked at around roughly the same time but it could be another one and the lambda errors I’m gonna go with Charles’ previous advice and replace the fuel filter and see if that goes away. It is very chokey as if it’s not getting enough air. I can definitely record a video if that’s of any use to you guys in aid of this ?

I’ll be honest guys I’m really getting disheartened in my ownership of this car , I’ve had it just over a year and I paid £5k for it and I’ve spent about £5.5k on it in the year I’ve owned it and I’m still needing to throw money at it. Don’t get me wrong I’m still in love with Alpina’s but it seems I can never seem to just be able to drive it without worrying something is going to go wrong.

Once I’ve had this idle/startup issue addressed , and the juddering suspension/steering. That will definitely have to be the end of the road and I should be clear of all major repairs for a while. If not I may drive it off a cliff , Bonnie & Clyde style haha

[hap]

Bit crap that it’s all come at once but hopefully once done it will be ok
I’m looking at a full suspension set refresh possible vanos and some body work to catch before it gets worse
Hang in pal

[E46330]

Bit crap that it’s all come at once but hopefully once done it will be ok
I’m looking at a full suspension set refresh possible vanos and some body work to catch before it gets worse
Hang in pal

Thank buddy I am hanging by a thread here , the more of you lovely people that tells me it will get better; the better I’ll feel hahaha , you guys fill me with confidence !

I’m thinking mine needs a full front end refresh , most likely everything is running from the factory which given the timeframe is expected that these things will go. Just annoying it’s all at once like you mentioned.

I’ll most likely be dropping it back to the gearbox place tomorrow to reinspect the gearbox and the little dinosaur that seems to have been born inside since they’ve had it (makes a little grr kinda rawr noise, terrible joke)

Then straight to BM Centre (Indy specialist) Glasgow , they done loads of work for me before on this beast and they’re top blokes with mounds of E46 knowledge. Head Mechanic was a Master Tech for BMW for 8 years I believe and drives an E46 M3 that he has supercharged himself and pushes 500bhp (he hates Alpinas though lol because of the notoriously difficult part sourcing)

The missus says this car is in a co-parenting situation between me and the garage , I seem to get a couple of weekdays here and there and they have custody the rest of the time.

Back the Nissan Micra for the time being it seems. Which I bought for £150 last year as a run around when the Alpina goes in the garage and it’s never had a problem. The irony !