Anyone ever tried prep sol to get rid of tree sap or rail dust?

Never have had the need to but I imagine it would. Pretty good **** that... I have a gallon of it too... :D

Peanut butter...

Hehehe.

All of the detailers that my old man has employed over the years at his dealership use(d) the stuff.

I have noticed ticking in several late model 325 / 328's. Some are pretty bad. I recall reading somewhere that the VANOS phasers get weak and no longer control the cam phasing perfectly, typically at idle.

Let us know what BMW says.

Another update. This one has me shaking my head a bit.

So I start the car this morning and it is still ticking. I did some research on bimmerfest.com and it seems many people have had this issue. It is something to do with the hydraulic lifters not getting enough lubrication while the engine is cold. It is a recurring problem that has frustrated many owners. The dealerships were doing a bleeding procedure because the line from BMW is that there is air in the oil and that is causing the tapping. It seems the bleeding procedure works for a few months and then the tapping is back. Some people have had their heads replaced by BMW. The good news is it doesn't seem to cause any excess wear on the engine and usually goes away once the engine is warm. Just this September BMW has put out newly designed lifters that fix the issue and are telling dealers to swap out the lifters for this issue.

So anyhow, armed with this knowledge I took the car out today to run errands. It tapped for about 3 minutes and then stopped tapping, just as predicted. While I am driving I notice this intermittent warning lamp on the dashboard. I had noticed it before after picking it up from the dealer but it was just a caution triangle with an exclamation mark in the middle. I figured that meant it was due for an inspection or something. I tried to look it up in the manual and couldn't find it. So the light is going off and on seemingly randomly during the drive. I stop the car and pull out the manual again. Go back over the warning signals and find it this time. It is the "add oil ASAP" light. WTF??? The oil level on these things is monitored by the computer so I turn over to the section where it tells you how to check the oil level. Sure enough, it is showing a full quart low. I drive over to OReilly's and buy two quarts of high grade Castrol synthetic. Put a quart in and check the oil level again...still low. Put the second quart in and oil level checks out ok.

How the hell can a BMW dealership change the oil on a car during a CPO process and fill it TWO QUARTS LOW??? I bet that's where the tapping was coming from, there just wasn't enough oil to lube the lifters until the engine was warm and oil pressure was up.

Engine purrs like a kitten now....we'll see how it does in the morning.

One thing is for sure, I am calling the pre-owned manager at Mortiz BMW in the morning and letting him know his CPO service SUCKS.

The good news is I love that friggin car!

If it was showing one quart low, it would not be a good idea to add two.

The problem is after I added the first quart the computer still read low but just not the +1 quart reading. Basically the oil meter goes (from lowest to highest) +1 quart, low, OK, and max. So if it is 5 quarts low, it will still keep saying +1 quart until it gets to "low". "OK" is actually the correct level.