Verb04

All of the sudden my car just broke down on the road. I had it towed to the Mercedes dealership to later find out the reason it broke down was due to the fact the my BMC air filters over time started to disintegrate causing pieces of the air filters to fall into my engine. To make a long story short, the damages to my engine was over $5,000.00 and not covered by warranty since it was an aftermarket part. I really don’t know what to do at this point. Any suggestions??

Incon306

Wow! I'm not sure what to say/suggest about getting it fixed. I don't think i've ever heard of any brand air filter doing this. Do you happen to have any pics of what the air filters look like? Have you called BMC about this issue?

hyperion667

wow that sux!!
i'd contact the filter company....good luck

djrabbi

Man that sucks. I doubt filter would do this? Don't they have that little grille/mesh on them like K&N? I doubt BMC would help you.

sikm3

A google search shows others have had similar issues with their BMC filters. What exactly disintegrated? Was it the cotton filter material or the silicone gasket molding around the filter? How long have you owned the filters?

Either way, that's terrible this has happened. If you were the purchaser of the filters, I would absolutely call whomever you purchased the filter from or BMC themselves. BMC is fully aware they had an issue with certain production runs of their filters.

55wagon

end of the day... use OEM filter only..

same as Green Filters for the 55 AMG. It warps and unfilter air goes in.

Verb04

The (RED) molding around the filter, over time started to melt with the heat creating a WAX LIKE goo that clogged up my engine. I really dont know what to do at this piont.

vdubpower

filters dont really give more than , what 10-11 hp at most right????

i remember back in the days i put a neuspeed cone in my jetta III, cool sound but didnt go any faster...

i suppose if i was gonna change filters in my car, id go with K and N, atleast they have been around....everythng else is a copycat....never even really heard of bmc

sikm3

If it were me, I'd contact BMC. Show them pictures of the deteriorated filters and the receipt for the engine repair. Their filters are covered under warranty but I doubt at this point you want replacement filters. There's always the legal route and hope they cough up some money towards your repair bill. Like I said, BMC is very aware their filters are doing this. Best of luck and let us know how it turns out!

NickE63

Yes good luck

boschk

http://www.bmcairfilters.com/warrant...g_pg747_5.aspx

7.3 Whenever the existence of a defect is acknowledged, BMC will proceed to the replacement of the defective product at no expense to the client. Nothing else will be required from BMC because coverage under warranty is limited only to the replacement of the defective material.

Sounds like you're going to have to lawyer up.

NCE500

I had BMC's on my V12 SL. Made in Italy, excellent quality, and made a big difference on a tuned blown engine. At $250 for 2 filters, I expected excellence. Cleaned them annually, never had any problems with them in 2.5 years. My BMC's came with a 2 year warranty, don't know if that would apply to filters self destructing and damaging an engine, but I'd certainly get in touch with them and raise cain if they had.

For what it's worth, I have K&N on my 07 E63, also excellent quality, but they probably amount to about 10 HP over clean OEM filters on the M156 engine. I went with K&N mostly because they were less then half of what BMC's were, and looked to flow about the same. No issues with them at all to date.

Good luck talking to BMC.

Racing Dad

Gosh.. crazy... amazing how much of a screw up that filter was! Gosh!

Good luck!

At least you got it fixed. Sucks though! I guess you'll never get another BMC! Hopefully they'll get you another car!

lunarx

Thanks for posting this.
Information like this needs to get out.

Verb04

Thanks for the help. I will try my luck sending them an Email.

cij911

Stick with OEM filters....

mdbenz4me

What about Afe Pro Dry Filters? Any horror stories... after hearing about this I am not sure I want to pay 5000$ for an extra 10 horses.

SamBoler

Sorry to hear about what happened.

Buy K&N. They are the biggest filter manufacture & probably have very good quality control.

Playing devil's advocate here. No offense but I would like to know if there is any back story before fully spreading the word. Maybe fake BMC filters on eBay? Installed improperly? The part was not for your specific model?

benzp_714

Very interesting, thank you for sharing. I run BMCs in all my cars so guess what my tech will be doing this weekend?

Again sorry for your loss, sad we can't even count on aftermarket filters these days

E-Ridium 63

e-mail will get you nowhere. Call them.

sikm3

All the complaints and horror stories I've heard with BMC revolve around the molding that holds the filter in place basically deteriorating and breaking apart sending plastic bits straight into the intake port. Some get lucky and airflow gets blocked which stalls the car/engine cuts out and the driver can salvage the problem by removing the obstruction. Others are unlucky and have small pieces that flow directly into the combustion chamber wreaking havoc with pistons, etc. There doesn't seem to be a pattern of cars this is happening to but BMC was made aware of the problem and they admitted to a faulty batch of filters that were manufactured. Warranty claims resulted in replacement filters. Not sure whatever happend to the more unlucky folks that had catastrophic engine failure.

I'm running AFE Pro Dry's as well and wondered the same. I'm beginning to wonder what the life expectancy really is on some of these after market filters especially given the high heat our engines maintain. Some say lifetime (K&N), some are rather quiet but lead you to believe that with regular maintenance they would last a long time....whatever that means (BMC, AFE, et al). Not sure if anyone can comment on the heat resistance of the plastic molding surrounding the filter.

FromM3toAMG

Old thread, don't care.

How long were the filters on the car? How would the interior of the intake get hot enough the melt the filter?!? I ran BMC filters in my M3 for close to three years and had zero issues. Could this have been prevented by proper maintenance?!? This sucks but BMC is a very high quality product, I can't see this being a question of quality had to be some contributing factors.

TopGun32

same issue with "green filter" with my c32.. they were poorly made.

Since then K&N in all my cars, including the Land Cruiser.

FYI: Airboxes from AMG M157 and M278 are the same.. hope you don't have pay premium becuase they are for AMG model.

The OEM filters are way too think.. they block air flow. While I do like OEM relialibity, the K&N are great option. They are slightly thinner and great quality.