E9X How to Replace the Evaporator and Heater Core DIY
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- Опубликовано: 20 окт 2024
- This video is a detailed tutorial on how to replace the evaporator and heater core on an E9X. With the caveat that one takes on such a procedure at their own risk, this job presents a good DIY opportunity. It's not necessary to lift the vehicle and work underneath and relatively few tools are required to complete the job, especially if one has a professional shop recharge the car's refrigerant. Evaporator leaks are common on these cars. Most of the cost of repair is in the labour. At the dealer where I live evaporator replacement alone would have cost nearly $4,000 and for significantly less than 1/4 of that (including shipping taxes and duties; which are expensive in Canada) I replaced the evaporator, heater core, engine air filter (not shown), and cabin air filter (not shown). It also provides an opportunity to repaint plastic trim pieces on the steering wheel and gearshift lever while you have them out and give everything a good cleaning. (Sorry for the occasionally choppy audio. The original mp4 file when played on my computer is flawless. I'm not sure why this is happening.)
This is indeed a great video that helped me tremendously to do the job of an evaporator replacement. I also relied on the Milestone Motors as it is showing the work in motion. I have a couple of comments:
1. If you are going to embark on the journey, work really but it feels like an odyssey when you are doing it, be prepared for minor variations. My 2009 328i, so LCI, is manual. Some parts of the video do not apply. One notable exception was that the airbag in the steering wheel was in a different harness and had only one connector.
2. The styrofoam piece that has to be taken off before the cage comes off can not only have the plastic screw turned out of it but it can also have it turned back in. The plastic screw has a Torx head that is not too difficult to access. I made a mistake of putting it back too soon and then had to take it off again because I had not installed the plastic vent on the left side of the heater box. The styrofoam had no damage and it looked like it did after I took it out at first.
3. I broke a tab while taking off the back cover where the vents for the back seat are. There is an exceptionally high, protruding knob that the tab has an eyelet for. If you know that it is there you can see it at the bottom when the top is partly separated and pry the tab off the knob. Fortunately these cars do show up in scrap yards so it was not too hard to replace the cover.
4. I think that the wooden trim strips, one short one on the left side of the steering wheel and one long one on the right, which is on my car is of black shiny plastic should rather be attacked from the side of the steering wheel. At least the short piece can easily be taken out that way, the long one may be more difficult. The outside pins, the ones by the doors, have metal holders and they do not release easily but rather slide their heads out of the plastic trim. For reinstallation I had to extract these pins out of their metal holders.
In any case, thank you PCar Doctor for putting this video together. It is invaluable.
I appreciate the patience to make this tutorial
Fantastic video 🤘💯 thank you
Glad you liked it (despite the crummy audio rendering).
How long did this take you roughly to do . I have the same dash single hump and i want to tackle this before i swap out my ac compressor
Tough to say because I was taking pictures and had to wait for the parts. If doing it again after having studied this video I’d budget a couple of days to do it to be on the safe side.
I can tell you that BMW quoted me a full day's worth of work for the evaporator replacement and whoever is doing it already knows the switches etc. You will have to figure out every switch so you do not break them, label the wires and take pictures to help with reassembly. It took me a week to do it but I am retired and did not want to work flat out every day. But for an amateur doing it, I would say two days is pushing it.
What set are those green hand tools from? They look pretty useful.
The set includes from T10 to T50 and has a holder like a typical hex key set. I got it at Princess Auto (Canadian Harbor Freight) many years ago. I checked their website and didn’t see it so unfortunately they may not carry it anymore.
6:20, what is this bolt for? Why remove?
If I recall correctly it screws into the heater/AC box, holding it in place. It must be removed if one is going to remove the box.
@@pcardoctor5492 ah ok then there are two of this kind. I will try it myself in the next weeks. Thank you very much for this great video