New cars are pretty annoying to work on for a lot of reasons. There isn’t much space to get your hands into places you might need to reach, and there’s always a mess of wires and hoses to get through to fix the thing you need to fix. Plus, with today’s tech, there are more onboard systems you have to worry about than ever.
Some brands make things even more difficult by incorporating fasteners with unusual screw heads. Whenever I work on a Volkswagen Group product and come across a triple-square screw in place of a normal hex bolt for no discernible reason, I want to chuck my wrench across the room.
BMW, in my experience, isn’t nearly as bad when it comes to stuff like that. All of its bolts use pretty straightforward head designs. But if this patent is any indication of future products, it might soon become a lot more annoying to work on the company’s cars.
I Feel Like This Is a Gag Made Real
A patent published to Europe’s IP office last week and first discovered by CarBuzz shows a new type of screw head design from BMW that feels comically self-centered. It incorporates the automaker’s famous “roundel” right into the screw head, with the same four quadrants that, on the logo, are colored in white and blue. Hilariously, designers went as far as to emboss the letters “BMW” on the outer edge of the head to drive the point home.
BMW easily could’ve made its logo into a Phillips-head screw head, given its natural circular quadrant shape. Instead, it decided to invent an entirely new type of fastener. In this case, two of the four quadrants in the logo are recessed to accept a fastener tool. It’s similar to a 2-hole (above) or spanner-type screw head, in that you have to insert two prongs into some holes to get a grip on the screw. In this case, though, the prongs have to be in the shape of BMW roundel quadrants.
The patent provides drawings for two types of recesses: One where the recess is squared off at the bottom, like a slice of cheesecake, and another with a sloping shape, like a slice of a baked Alaska. There’s also a third design, which raises two of the quadrants while keeping the other two flush with the screw head base.
The idea is admittedly pretty clever, and CarBuzz argues this could be a way to further deter people from working on their own cars, which automakers are known to do. But this also feels like something a few engineers came up with at a bar one night and decided to follow through on the next day.
Please Stay A Joke
As fascinating as it would be to see a bunch of BMW fasteners holding my car together, I really hope this patent doesn’t go any further than concept drawings. To CarBuzz’s point, dealing with the errant Torx bolt while working on a car is annoying enough, but coming across one of these would be extra-lame.
Imagine getting halfway through a job, discovering a BMW fastener, and realizing you have to go to a hardware store just to buy a specialized fastener tool to remove it? I’ve been in that situation before, and it really sucks. The more standardized bolts a car has, the better.
There are certain situations where more niche screw heads are useful, sure, but the world doesn’t need another design like this. It’ll just mean more barely-useful tools I have to pay for that’ll mostly just take up space in my toolbox.
If anything, I think this would be a fun fastener to use in a build-it-yourself toy car or replica, just for the quirkiness of it all. So long as the fastener tool is included with the kit, of course.
Top graphic images: BMW
Fuck those 2-hole screws. Also this logo head thing.
But mostly the first one, since I’ve actually come across them before.
One of the two common ones in office and public restrooms for the stall hardware.
“Imagine getting halfway through a job, discovering a BMW fastener, and realizing you have to go to a hardware store just to buy a specialized fastener tool to remove it?”
I imagine you’ll be told you’ll have to buy it from a dealer who will say they aren’t allowed to sell it, it has to be bought directly from BMW. Then you’ll have to contact BMW who will tell you to buy it from your local dealer. Round and round you’ll go. Weeks pass. Finally you’ll find a mysterious knockoff on Alibaba which you’ll buy out of desperation even though you know what’s going to happen. And of COURSE the crap tool not only breaks but damages the fancy roundel so you end up trying to drill it out. Then you find out BMW hardened the shaft of the fastener so its impossible to drill out. Because they hate you.
All intentional of course so you’ll never attempt DIY again.
Honestly given the likely ubiquity of the product, you’ll have a hundred (crappy) options that Amazon will deliver to your door.
left handed drill, job done
Yeah, drill it out and retap it. 😉
Only if you want to break your bit, or take a chance of slipping into whatever the fastener is fastening.
You’ve mistaken me for someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing is seems..
Well good luck:
“Then you find out BMW hardened the shaft of the fastener so its impossible to drill out. Because they hate you.”
Right.. That’s not how you do it.
True. I suppose overinsuring the car and setting it on fire would solve the problem too.
This is more pompous that the Cadillac Celestiq having “Standard of the World” stamped on all it’s visible fasteners.
I can forgive them a bit if they are standard fasteners.
I think that was supposed to be a call out to how cars were made in 30s, when it was common for high end car makers and coach builders to make their own fasteners.
Oh, that button head is just asking to be rounded off and stripped out. The Cap Screw version instead will break the tool clean off after a warranty period worth of galvanic corrosion and Midwest Salt.
Cool, another random weird bit to go into those massive packs of odd-ball screw tips, that you buy, because you only need like one or two of them, and the other 40+ never come out of the case, even once in their lifetimes.
Edit: Also, they are almost the exact same as “Type G Clutch” bits, which already have the same shape. (Example: https://www.amazon.com/OHIY-Clutch-Vintage-American-Steel/dp/B0CN529HD7/ )
I love when I have a dozen plus Phillips bits, and ALL of them strip the screw I’m trying to remove. I recently threw out a bunch of Phillips screwdrivers I had because they never seemed to actually work on anything.
The world needs to convert to Torx
They might have actually been JIS screws, a Phillips driver will strip a JIS screw, meanwhile a JIS driver will not strip a Phillips head screw.
Phillips is garbage. The cross-head that actually works is PoziDrive, which has parallel, non-tapered faces on the head and the driver. Those are the phillips-looking screws with the extra four litt in-between lines radiating from the center.
Phillips were conceived early in the use of power screwdrivers in factories, as a shitty way of preventing overtorquing the screw and breaking off the head. The idea was that with the powerful and unregulated power screwdrivers in a human hand, the tapered flanks of the bit and socket will force your hand back once a “reasonable” torque is reached. Who cares if the head is mangled! Who cares if the bits wear out quickly, and mange the screws eeven faster! At least we stopped breaking off screw heads — good enough!
iFixit will be the first third party to sell these screwdrivers and bits. They will be a fraction of the price of the OEM tools.
I don’t mind fasteners which are not Phillips head or flat head – because we’ve all dealt with stripped heads, haven’t we?
Mercedes uses Torx head screws in many locations – and yeah, I had to buy a set of screwdrivers to do some work on my car.
It’s surprising but not surprising that BMW designed a proprietary way to screw.
Fuck this bullshit. They would have been better off switching to Canadian-designed Robertson screws.
The whole world would be better off having used Robertson screws for anything except machine screws.
Why not machine screws? I’m curious what your thinking is
Torque transmission and cam-out is vastly improved with (internal) Hex, Torx, and other modern fasteners. Where torque is critical, such as machine components (cars, too), they’re far superior – and when you want to remove them. But even for non-stressed components in a vehicle – I’d much rather have to use an allen key than any Philips/JIS style.
But you don’t need all of that when fastening lumber with your impact driver – you just want to load the damned screw directly on the bit, and have it stay there and drive it home.
Ok, got it! You’re not saying that Phillips is better than Robertson for machine screws; you’re saying that torx, etc. are better than Robertson for machine screws, which I’d agree with.
I think Torx can be better than Robertson for wood screws, too, but it depends on the quality of your bit. The contractor I worked for last summer pretty much just used fancy GRK Torx screws, and those were awesome as long as you used GRK bits with it. Generic bits wouldn’t hold the screw at all. Robertson definitely does have higher screw-to-bit retention in most cases, but when you get a bit with proper tolerances, Torx can be pretty good for that too.
Counterpoint: Allen should have been taken behind the woodshed and had the tar beat out of him for designing the tool he did.
Whoa whoa!! Heresy! In the time before the Allen head, there was only the external hex which had limitations (it can’t be flat, or counter bored below a surface) and the slotted head which
wasis garbage. The Phillips is arguably only marginable better than the slotted (in that at least it centers the tool) and didn’t come around until 23 year later. (1933). The Allen headed screw is still excellent at torque delivery without camming, and the shear strength of some smaller sized tools better than Torx. In addition the tools are dead simple and cheap to make, even a cheap set of Allen keys will out perform good screwdrivers. Cheap Torx drivers or bits are horrible, as the star shape leave so little cross section, they distort or break..I’ve been stuck at the side of the road on a motorcycle with a cheap set of “emergency” allen keys which decided to complete round themselves off on a critical bolt I needed to remove.
I have now several sets of decent allen keys for this purpose.
Ahhh but how good was your Phillips screwdriver?
Unfortunately the Allen is also great at stripping out the bolt head at high torque. Torx is great at just breaking the tool at high torque. Automakers are great at specing both at torques 1 ft-lb below the failure point, and then when a bolt has any sort of torque increase necessary upon removal, you get one of the two aforementioned rearing their ugly head. I actually have had the least problems with the triple square – once you figure out that you’re dealing with it.
I wonder if Ikea ever named one of their products Allen. It seams like the should of. I mean what the fuck is a Billy key?
The main drawback of Robertson is the head has more material removed from it, making it weaker. Especially deep in the bottom corners of the cavity. Another lesser drawback is the tools has to be inserted at one of four 90 degree angles which in some cases might be hard to get clearance to do, though most ratchets will solve that. TBF, Phillips has the same issue. Torx and other star patterns provide for more insertion angle resolution.
I like them for pocket screws, because the driver engagement is great, but I don’t use them anywhere else, unlike a lot of woodworkers. Low torque for sure
That is some Apple levels of bullcrap. And I work in a place that has had to purchase Apple specific tools for decades (looking at you, T0 screwdriver that I can’t even see the splines on).
Yeah, this design looks very prone to camming out under very low torque. I have an idea, why not add the recessed lettering to the head design? Better grip and better branding! Of course, if it’s an M car, then you will need the special “M-head” bits.
Hopefully Koenigsegg doesn’t get the same idea, that would be one hell of a tool to turn that.
Hell, all of the animal logo’ed manufacturers would have such challenges.
“Is that a Porsche or Ferrari horse tool?”
“Neither, It’s a lion. Get the Peugeot sockets.”
Eww, I used to have to deal with what we called hi-torques (not sure the actual name) that were like standard screws but with the slot wider as it got closer to the od. Once they slipped 1 time they were destroyed and usually tore up the tool too. Then the tool damages any others you’d use it on. Torx bits do it sometimes too but not as bad
At my old company, engineers could get a $2000 bonus for patent filings. You’d get $1k at the initial submission, and another $1k when it was granted (usually around two years later). It was fairly common for engineers to put our heads together and submit patent filings every couple of months in addition to our normal duties, which gave a steady stream of small bonuses on top of our normal bonus targets. All of them were pertinent to the company in some fashion, though many never saw the light of day as direct products and were used instead to bolster the company’s overall portfolio strength.
This seems exactly like one of those kinds of projects.
Same, I think it’s more than that at my company now.. In fact at one point every member in my group needed to be on a patent.
I was an “engineering tech” at the time so was able to leach onto a few, due to testing and modifications.
This seams somehow adjacent to the Ignoble Prize.
Likewise, except I work in software so the patents people submit are usually complete garbage.
So the same company that cheapened multiple parts of the i3 as detailed by David to save cents at a time is looking at reinventing a commodity item that will likely result in a per item cost multiplier. Got it.
Triple-square exist for a very good reason – they ae designed for VERY high-torque applications.
This, however, is just stupid. I guess as others have pointed out if they are just used in cosmetic places. Still stupid.
People get mad because they have to go on Amazon and drop $25 for a set of triple squares without considering there might be a very valid reason for the fastener being a triple square.
They’d be a whole lot angrier if it was an allen that stripped out while trying to give it 250ftlb of torque.
Very much agreed, having said a silent prayer as I torqued sundry very high-torque allen head bolts (The Devil’s Work, there). E-torx or triple square are just massively better.
We’re mad because we disassembled 45 hex screws worth of parts just to find four triple-square fasteners need to be removed so that you can continue.
Made worse that non-German automakers would have just used one size-up of allen key (using an M8 rather than M6 for example).
I bought my set at my FLAPS a long time ago and never have had any problems.
Like how it feels removing a Mk5 GTI flywheel?
I’ve used them on door strikers and maybe a couple suspension bits.
The complaints aren’t invalid, but over time they feel like whining. In my adult lifetime we’ve gone from overpaying at Grainger to being able to find cheape, one-time-use tools at HF or Amazon. As long as you know what you need ahead of time.
In terms of all the serviceability issues modern cars have, fasteners are pretty low on my list.
Also very much agreed.
He who dies with the most tools wins!
The tool to unscrew these fasteners comes with the subscription to heated seats.
Just one of many ways BMW has come up with to… screw us.
I’ll show myself out.
I can’t wait for the Harbor Freight version. They need to start a new line with a German-esqe name for Euro car tools, like “Gehabrecht” or “Ausgimmel,” maybe “Geltschmeckel”…
Scheisswerkzeug.
Fickenverdammtescheisse!
It’s not a concern! There’s a BMW tool kit in a tray in the trunk where they surely will include it!
There’s still a tool kit in the trunk, right?
Wait there’s still a tool kit in the trunk, right?
(insert Anakin and Padme here)
updated now with actual gif!
https://imgflip.com/i/afb9p6
Another investment in tools that’s only as good as the time you own the car. I have a set of triple squares that are now useless to me after getting rid of a VW. These BMW fasteners do seem a bit ridiculous. God forbid you have to approach one from a weird angle.
Yeah, good luck getting one of these drivers down at Ace Hardware. This is online order only and wait a week for it to show up or go pick up the Pentagon priced version down at the BMW dealership, assuming the parts dept is open on weekends and they will even sell you one.
I don’t mind this for exposed screws to give them a brand identity…say on the transmission casing or other functional but decorative screws on a motorcycle. This is what I see this for and not the radiator supports under the hood on a 3 series.
I’d expect them to be holding only the fairing, maybe also the fuel filler cover on a K1600 or some such.
In other words, keep the Beemers out of the Bimmers?
Just doing my first inspection of my BMW air filter a couple weeks ago, I ended up with 3 sizes of wrench, a flathead, and two sizes of Torx, plus 20 minutes of labor across more than a dozen fasteners, just to get a look at it. While those weren’t specialty fasteners, they definitely spoke to the needless sadism inherent in the company. On brand.
Assuming you are dealing with an e9x or e8x, the hilarious part is that stupid air filter housing design is only used on US-spec cars. The rest of the world gets one where you can just take the lid off and change a round filter with the housing in place in the car. I assume this has something to do with the extra charcoal filter that only US cars had for evaporative emissions purposes. But it sure seems like they could have made the whole thing easier to service.
For the most part I find BMWs quite logical and easy to work on, but this is one of their dumber design decisions for sure.
A little newer, G01 X3…of course the airbox is directly underneath the diagonal braces and, unlike any of our prior cars, can’t just be opened with spring clips. I wouldn’t mind any of this if it wasn’t for the use of multiple bolt/screw sizes within the same assembly for no obvious reason. It’s just an extra layer of hassle to jump back and forth between T20 and T25 constantly.
I used to moan about working on my B5 Audi/Passat, but not any more. But on the plus side, that older car needed a lot of attention. It’s all relative.
It does sound a bit egregious. On my cars, you need a 10mm socket plus IIRC aa t25 torx driver. It’s just a LOT of fasteners holding the thing together, plus you have to disconnect the MAF electrical connector, the wrestle the whole giant thing out of the car to get the filter out. Sounds like you have more stuff in the way first that has to come out before you can even get to the airbox.
The European E9X also has a bastard of an air filter, as a punishment for buying the 4 cylinder diesel.
I would have thought the rampant timing chain issues would be punishment enough. 🙂
But at European fuel prices, that is the one I would have bought too. Filling the tank on my 328i in Munich for the first time was a bit of an eye-opener in 2011. Back then they delivered the car with about a gallon in the tank.
This was on the M47 cars. I begrudgingly put up with having to take half the plastic out of the engine bay every year in exchange for not having the timing mechanism made of the finest chocolate that the N47 has.
Details, details.
And I thought VW was bad for making you undo 6-8 Torx screws just to check the air filter.
Mine always had spring clamps, but the last VW I owned (still own) is a MY2001.5 so it’s possible things have changed for the worse.
While I agree with your point about the proprietary BMW stuff, I am not sure I follow on the Torx side. Lots of euro cars can be almost entirely disassebled with 10/13/17/19mm sockets and a set of torx/etorx bits. I actually quite torx, it rarely strips out, seems to gunk up less than a straight hex, and handles a lot of torque since it has more surface area and rotational torque faces.
Triple squares are designed for a ton of torque are often single use. For example, the head bolts on my audi were triple square and needed 175lbs plus 45 if I remember right, with the correct sequence.
This BMW design looks like it won’t take a whole lot of torque and is just a vanity design like you’d see in a bathroom stall.
I thought the bathroom stall ones were to stop people from tampering with it. I’m sure at least one person during a building’s life would have the genius prank idea to unscrew the bathroom stall. If it’s one-way and has to be drilled out, the prank is harder to carry out with only pocket tools.
I recently learned that the first Gen Escape hybrid uses these bathroom stall screws on the high voltage battery cover. Late night scramble to the hardware store.
Interesting, the 2009 I replaced the cooling fans in used hex bolts to secure the cover.
That’s exactly what I was doing! Easy job became a pain.
I figured that was what you were doing too, since that seems to be the only common failure point on those cars. We purchased it with the battery fan code
Now that I think about it more they were security Torx screws, so not a super common tool but thankfully one that I had.
This is true. Especially the one way “ramp” style heads.
It’s really something that the only way anyone would have invested the r&d into a tamper proof screw is if disassembling bathroom stalls was a real problem.
Torx are definitely superior to Phillips which should be banned from the known universe.
Phillips-head screws exist for a simpler time when factory workers with the grip strength of three saltwater crocodiles and just as much training used to fasten ground wires, brackets, trim and everything else not strictly structural directly to the sheet metal with self-tappers, when it was easier/cheaper to let the driver pop out of the screw, stripping it a little, rather than risk stripping the car’s body. Of course, they were also totally ok with screwing directly to the newly-painted body, creating 101 starting points for rust the moment the car saw its first rain.
Get a JIS screwdriver and use it on all of your Philips screws. It never cams out. I got on on Amazon that has 4 different inserts with 2 sizes on each, it’s the screwdriver I use on everything 99% of the time. Only exceptions are if I need something shorter or longer.
Yes, JIS is a totally different animal than Phillips which is really unsurprising as, you know, Japanese. In fact I’d argue the problems people have with “Phillips” head screws is not that the are bad but they aren’t actually Phillips, but JIS. I have one, and honestly it works 60% of the time every time.
The triple-squares are usually stretch bolts, with the idea being that twelve faces can handle the tightening torque, but six might not.
If I ever have to work on a car and the roundel strips out of the bolt head, I’m driving the car straight into the fucking ocean.
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