[BMelchner]

Thought I would share. Had some of the common symptoms... Fan was running abnormally loud and often. On highway, under a load, the car would throw an alert that it was overheating. If I didn't stop, it would go to red alert and start shutting down. Motor never went above 230 degrees (based on my visual of the gauge).

Turned out that the water pump failed. I changed the water pump and thermostat at the same time to be safe. All better now.

A few things to note if you run into this problem.

It does seam to be a difficult job, however when I got into it, it wasn't all that bad. Jack stands in the garage and I was good.
Save the anti freeze... I was told by a buddy who worked at BMW, to NOT use any anti freeze other than BMW brand. Apparently it will gum up the internals eventually. So get a bucket and save what you can!
There was no drain, so I put a bucket under the car and removed the hose from the pump. That drained MOST of the fluid.
Pulling the front of the passenger wheel well helped get to the upper bolt on the water pump. It also allowed for light to be placed in a good position.

Hope this helps the next person that finds their car overheating and wants to fix it themselves. Not saying this will be your problem, but it was for me. Fan is back to normal now and no temp alerts. Cost me around $550 for parts at the Local auto parts store.

[Sedoy]

Great info thanks! Can you list the parts and tools you used?