From digest.v7.n558 Sat Nov 8 19:16:19 1997
From: ChrisBourk_at_aol.com
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 16:22:17 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re:Glove compartment

In a message dated 97-11-08 00:48:49 EST, you write:

<< Hello,
I have a 89 325is and yesterday in not so good a mood I slammed my glove compartment door shut since it wont close otherwise. The problem now is that I cant open it anymore even using the key. I am a spastic mechanic at best, please advice me about what to do. I remember a thread on this subject. I would appreciate if someone who had saved it could forward it to me.
Thanks in advance
Cyrus >>

Cyrus,

Sorry I don't have the post you speak of but this did happen to a friend of mine as we were on the way to the movies. She was storing her phone in the glove compartment and when I went to open it for her she said "wait, you have to pull it to the side to open it" I said, no problem I'll adjust it for you. Well, to make a long storry short, I adjusted it so it wouldn't open at all and she said "I broke it" she wanted to bring it to BMW and have them fix it so I told her I'd do it. I made4 a special jig that would protect the glove compartment from the drill bit I inteded to use to drill out the screws holding down the glove compartment latch thereby allwing it to release. NO LUCK! So I called BMW, and in their wisdom was told that "the glove compartment door has to be broken open". Well, not being inclined to break the door on my friends car (the way the experts said to do) I proceeded to remove the hinges holding the bottom of the door in place and allowing me with some degree of difficulty to access the screws holding the locking mech in place. This can be done, but it's not easy or fun (Much easier to just rip off the door and start replacing parts). anyway, as i recall it took about 2 hours and something on the order of $18.00 for the new latching mech. This is a part that in my opinion BMW should send out a service bullitin on as I believe it to be a basically defective design.

As to BMW "quality" I feel it's about the same as may products. BMW builds to a price. They build cars that are fun to drive, sound cool, look neat have a cache value and are pretty reliable. If I wanted a really reliable car, I wouldn't buy a BMW. I wanted a car that was fun to drive, sounds cool looks neat and is ok in the reliability area (oh yea, and has that cache value). That's why I put up with BMW "quality" becaue in the big items, get them pretty much right.