It is always a guess with those things. The thing is, these cars become older and older and more stuff becomes in need of replacement. Replacing everything with original BMW stuff would be the best of course, but for most people it is just too expensive. I replaced these pipes on both of my cars with aftermarket stuff (Febi, Gates, NTY). I hope it is going to last, but you never know.

 

Replacing everything with original BMW stuff would be the best of course, but for most people it is just too expensive.

Agreed, there is definitely no need to replace everything with genuine BMW. Its way too expensive and not really needed either for many if not most things. But for the hard coolant pipes, the labor and hassle involved in removing the intake manifold to redo the job makes using genuine more cost effective in the long run.

Things like radiator (Nissens), water pump (Saleri), thermostat (Wahler) and soft hoses (Rein) can easily be inspected and replaced if needed should a cheaper part fail early.

 

Lasted a good 8 years tho in the hot California climate. Not great but... not an absolute catastrophy either.

 

In the video Jason mentioned that the e46 has been a garage queen because he's been driving the e90, so the 8 years is overstating things.


More importantly, this Topaz pipe spilt and dumped coolant quickly enough to cause an overheat, so while not an absolute catastrophe it was pretty close. At least the genuine pipes seem to fail by slow leaking where they plug into the head & block. I don't recall seeing reports of this type of failure with genuine. (They might be out there, I just haven't seen it.)

At minute 5:00, you can see on Jason's e46 there was no 'green waterfall' on the block behind the oil filter housing that gives advanced warning without an overheat on the road.

Typical genuine BMW hard coolant pipe failure, slow leak onto the engine block that evaporates and leaves the green water fall:

 

For a few dollars more the OE part would last much longer and not require the time, money, hassle of replacing it.
My rule is if it is critical or a pain to replace, I use the best quality part I can buy.

 

Is there even an OE version available of those? What was the OE brand for those pipes?

 

Lasted a good 8 years tho in the hot California climate. Not great but... not an absolute catastrophy either.

By his own admission, Jason’s E46 is a garage queen and not seeing a lot of use..he might have 15k miles or less on this car..he says he’s been driving the E90..

And the California climate is not that hot…not as hot as Texas or Arizona and not nearly as hot as engine coolant..

 

To add to the difficulty, the formerly- good brands are not guaranteed to still be any good.

The last BMW expansion tank I bought was branded Modine, but there's no guarantee even that
will continue to be true. Since the Modine parts have apparently disappeared from the aftermarket...

Rein and Conti used to be very good- now Rein's less so, and Conti isn't even available.
So we'll find out as we go.

But no- name parts like 'Topaz?' Now that's just asking for trouble.

t

 

To add to the difficulty, the formerly- good brands are not guaranteed to still be any good.

The last BMW expansion tank I bought was branded Modine, but there's no guarantee even that
will continue to be true. Since the Modine parts have apparently disappeared from the aftermarket...

Rein and Conti used to be very good- now Rein's less so, and Conti isn't even available.
So we'll find out as we go.

But no- name parts like 'Topaz?' Now that's just asking for trouble.

t

For a lot of those brands, it wouldn’t surprise me that they all come from the same factory. Here we also have a lot of brands that don’t produce anything themselves, but just rebrand Chinese stuff. To be honest, I think that is also the same with the pipes from Gates and Febi.

But on my cars, it looks like they perform so far pretty well. It is a gamble I took, knowing it can be shit in the long run. And yes, it is a lot of work to replace those pipes, especially if you have to go in there knowing it is your own fault, but on the other end it is also not that much work that it completely makes you crazy. The biggest issue would be when something like that what happened to 50skid car happens.

 

I kept thinking while watching his M54 engine rebuild videos, 50sKid must really not mind redoing car jobs.
Great quality video, questionable choice of parts, like the ebay pistons...

 

I kept thinking while watching his M54 engine rebuild videos, 50sKid must really not mind redoing car jobs.

lol

 

FWIW when the upper radiator hose went on my e46, it was the OE hose still on the car 22 years later.

I think any gen you whine part is going to worth the time and labor to not replace it again later. Will an “OE” part today last as long as the one stamped 2001? Not for sure, but is definitely a safer bet than running cheap AE hoses on a known weak point for the platform.

 

Considering the work involved to replace the coolant pipes I didn't try to skimp and got genuine parts. I hate doing a job like that twice and cheap parts can cost you more in the end. Save money on parts that are easier to change if they they end up giving you trouble.

I recall seeing aftermarket aluminum pipes that claimed to be an upgrade and didn't even want the chance those.

 

I've always been curious about these coolant pipes, why plastic? And is it plausible is upgrade to superior material that wont spontaneously combust or am I giving in to the hype about these parts being so unreliable. Design choice?

 

I agree. Someone should extrude them out of aluminum instead of ABS plastic and sell that as an upgrade. Replacing an expansion tank is a minor chore. Replacing coolant hard pipes is a lot more serious. If I'd had the option to put in proven aluminum hard pipes, I'd have done that and also sent away for the reengineered GAS CCV replacement, then I could've said goodbye to ever pulling my intake again. I already replaced the knock sensors, crank angle, even the starter while down there because I work on my cars out of necessity, not for fun.

 

Plastic due to cost mainly. There's no reason to make relatively expensive parts out of metal when a plastic part design will satisfy the performance and service life requirements the car maker has set. The cooling system on these cars is full of plastic parts, and some last longer than others.

 

I used febi and had to re-do, which is so frustrating. The fittings are not to tolerance and they leaked. Put in genuine about 14,000 miles ago and no leaks.

It is a lot of work to replace these, and I agree that Jason did not make a good choice.

 

I did a little research on just that question last summer, and I found that:
Gates is actually sourcing pretty good hoses and ends, and crimping them with Oeteker
branded clamps. The ends had marks that made me think they were name brand.
FEBI sources their own parts. The quality was good. The fit was not. The label was 'Made in China'
Gen-yoo-whine parts were NOT as impressive as I'd hoped- the hose itself was Turkish
(think Rein from a few years back) and the ends were better. But while they were
good, they were no more impressive than the Gates. And yet, everything was noticeably different.
Maybe it came from the same industrial complex, but it came out of different machines.

So as of last summer, I've been ordering Gates hoses if I don't use BMW. Until that changes.
Which it might already have done.
E46es are going away, as will the parts.

t
not yet Amish

That is some interesting info! I think it also really depends on the product. Especially with FEBI it really depends. Sometimes they sell pretty decent stuff, and sometimes it is crap. Gates always was a brand which I highly valued, but after some time I found out they also have their own budget stuff as well. But to be honest, i’ve had less issues with Gates then FEBI (I really even need to think about finding one), but I use FEBI a bit more on general, since their range of products is a bit more diverse.

 

Real talk... using anything aftermarket for the two pipes under the manifold is foolhardy. If you are trying to repair the car with a "fix & flip" mentality so be it, but you'll end up revisiting the repair later if you intend to keep the car. The question is the timeline.

FEBI is a brand I generally avoid in the shop unless I know for fact the product in the box is OES repackaged. Flex disc couplings is a prime example that comes to mind, as there is always a German made SGF unit inside with the roundel dremeled off.

Rein cooling system hoses are to be avoided, very high warranty rate on those. They always seem to weep and seep under the stainless band at either plastic connector end. Genuine hoses don't have this issue, and are a must buy IMO.

 

I've always been curious about these coolant pipes, why plastic? And is it plausible is upgrade to superior material that wont spontaneously combust or am I giving in to the hype about these parts being so unreliable. Design choice?

Plastic due to cost mainly. There's no reason to make relatively expensive parts out of metal when a plastic part design will satisfy the performance and service life requirements the car maker has set. The cooling system on these cars is full of plastic parts, and some last longer than others.

In addition to cost, you also need to engineer the entire system holistically and not just a coolant pipe. You need to take into consideration thermal expansion of mating parts (need them to expand and contract similarly), mechanical vibrations and movements (plastic gives, metal doesn't), corrosion (no iron due to liquid coolant), and galvanic reaction (engine is aluminum so mating material need to be selected properly). I would love to see the engineering decisions that were made when they designed the car.

 

I would venture that galvanic corrosion is a bigger consideration than thermal expansion for this application, since each hard pipe is attached to a rubber hose on one end that will absorb any additional thermal expansion that occurs using aluminum rather than ABS. I would definitely not use copper pipe because the engine isn't copper.

In fact, if I was proficient at TIG welding, I'd be tempted to weld aluminum pipes into the head and block respectively, and call it a day. Who needs sealing o rings?

Metal fatigue would also be only a minor concern since the pipes have plenty of support as they are constructed now. The block pipe in particular has a beefy bracket to hold it in place. If you replaced the single piece pipe/bracket that exists now with a metal pipe, metal bracket, and two rubber bushings holding the bracket to the pipe, you'd be good for a decade at least.

 

so i bought a set of febi hoses to do this job in 2018 and never did it. i still have them, the longer one is made in china. need to double check the shorter one.

I completely forgot about this job and my e46 has 141k miles, with the rest of the cooling system completely replaced. Ive driven up steep grades in 100+ heat and havent had issues, but after seeing Jason's video last night, im thinking it might be time to do this job.

To your guys' point, my e46 is a forever car. maybe i should sell these hoses and just get OE before I tackle the job... Thoughts?

 

yes, sell your Febi pipes and buy the genuine BMW part…OE a is a different term..

I have looked at a lot of M54 coolant pipes - Genuine and aftermarket - and I don’t think whoever made/makes them as the Genuine BMW part, makes them for the aftermarket..at least not in the US…

in other words I have never seen an aftermarket pipe with the quality of the genuine pipe.

 

is it true the OE pipes, even original dont blow up like jasons?

 

To your guys' point, my e46 is a forever car. maybe i should sell these hoses and just get OE before I tackle the job... Thoughts?

But what is OE for these pipes? I don't think there is a clear reference for that. Since 2016 that I've been working e46s I've only seen genuine and then cheap aftermarket as options here. Its not Febi (many report fitment issues) and I wouldn't trust Rein at this point.

Despite the discussion here, genuine BMW is the best bet for the hard coolant pipes for the time being. At FCP Euro, one of the genuine pipes (11531705210) is $50.99 and only $3.30 more than the Febi, while the expensive one (1537502525) is now only $96 (I think I paid $120+ a few years ago) while the Febi is $38 cheaper.

Especially for a forever car, $40 savings isn't much compared to the risk of needing to redo it or the pipes not fitting in the first place.

is it true the OE pipes, even original dont blow up like jasons?

From what I've seen online, genuine tend to leak slowly as shown in post #6 above. Maybe eventually they do crack and dump everything, but the green waterfall seems to give a warning first.

I'd love to hear about any reports otherwise ...

 

Turns out one of his hard coolant pipes cracked without warning. This is unusual.

After seeing the leaking pipe, I am thinking about getting some copper water pipe at HD and shape it into form then I will have coolant coper pipes

 

When I did the hard lines on my E46, I looked for some kind of metal replacement. ECS tuning sells a kit that replaces only one of the hard lines with an aluminum one made by URO. Reviews are very bad on fitment and only having one metal line doesn't make much sense, plus I've had nothing but bad experiences with ECS.
As the original plastic hard lines on my E46 lasted 230k miles and 23 years (and were not leaking when replaced), I felt confident using original plastic ones again.

50's kid may have made a silly choice, but it was a choice he made 8 years ago, and he's consistently put out some of the highest quality E46 repair videos on YouTube, so I can't fault him much. I also appreciate that he owns his mistakes, and now we know of a different failure mode that can show up in poor-quality hard line replacements.

 

...My factory ones are at 301k miles with 40 track days. 🤭 I should probably replace those hm.

 

The hard pipes lasted the BMW life time of the vehicle which was 100kmiles i believe

 

On a related note, Turkish and Slovakian subcontractors to the majors seem to do good work.

 

Not sure why y'all are hyping up the severity of the job of replacing these. Intake out-in is like half a day's work.

 

If you’ve done it before yeah, why waste the half day if you don’t have to?

 

I’m on original coolant hard pipes at 21 years and 108,000 miles. Safe to say they’re on borrowed time. Genuine will be going back in, that’s for sure.

 

I've had terrible luck with Febi parts, to the point I'd never willingly buy them again.

• Metal coolant temp sensor that plugs into the side of the cylinder head sheared in half as I was screwing it in. It thought it might be a nightmare getting it out, but it failed under so little torque that I was able to just put my finger tip on the piece screwed into the head and turn it out by twisting my wrist!
• Plastic coolant temp sensor snapped in half as I was pushing it in to the lower hose
• Breather hose from valve cover to CCV simply didn't fit at all, smoke test showed a big vacuum leak down at the CCV valve end
• Upper intake boot has to be massaged back into place on the MAF every time I take the air filter box off. It's slowly changing shape and getting easier, but the very first time I was convinced it wasn't going to fit at all

Unfortunately my two hard coolant pipes are also Febi branded. No leaks yet, but fitment was pretty poor (bolt holes didn't line up well with the holes on the engine), and I feel like it's just a matter of time. It's just not easy finding better quality parts at reasonable prices in Australia, and the best online store here (Clickable Automotive) seems to be stocking more and more Febi stuff lately.

By the way the original hard pipes lasted 22 years and 200,000km on my car. They weren't leaking, but they'd definitely deteriorated. When I pulled them out the tips of the pipes broke off and stayed behind in the head, anchored in place by the o-rings. I had to painstakingly pick them out, taking care not to let any debris fall into the engine as the aged plastic just crumbled to pieces. Not a fun job!