Major engine damage - advice please

MAH · 6th March 2006, 22:17

All,

I had to start another thread because I cannot believe what I have been told. In another thread I told of an issue where I was having a noise problem and I will not go back into the entire issue again. Well the leak down test and compression test have revealed that I have not one valve issue, but 4 valve issues. They believe I in fact have at least 3 rods that are bent, but without tearing it down they will not know for sure. Of course to tear it down is no inexpensive task. I have around 180lbs in the 4 bad cylinders and 220lbs to 250lbs in the 4 good cylinders.

My car is a year out of warranty and I have 60,000 miles. The dealer is going to call BMW and try and get them to cover a significant piece, but that is not certain. All in all I am very dissappointed in this turn of events. If this is what BMW calls reliability, they are sadly mistaken.

If I have to pay for this repair it will be in excess of $20,000!

In fact I may just dump the car at that point. This is just so wrong that this kind of failure would occur with fairly normal driving. Now maybe BMW will make it right, but I am afraid to hold my breath for too long.

If you ever wondered if you need an extended warranty, the answer is yes. The problem is the warranty will one day end. I have not heard of anyone here having water injestion issues. If you have please let me know.

Some people here have sold their cars for other cars, some have had unfortunate accidents, there may have even been a couple stolen, but I have not heard of anyone having to give up their car because it was too expensive to repair!

Well I certainly would be very dissappointed to leave the board with no car, but to put $20k into a car that has a value of $40k to $45k would be insane.

Any ideas here?
Mark

wilsodh · 6th March 2006, 22:44

Ouch Mark, what a disaster.

I assume this car has been your baby for quite a while and you know its running history. The first thing that comes to mind if you can't get help from BMW is to consult the post entitled "Blown engine" from last year. Some guy from Florida blew his engine during an extreme downshift. In that thread were some potentially much more cost-effective options for engine replacement than leaving it up to the dealer. You might get BMW to cover half the cost, which I think was Tranck's experience after spinning some bearings.

Good luck,
Dave

Ag Surfer · 6th March 2006, 22:46

Sorry to hear about your predicament. While litigation should always be a last resort, I would recommend consulting with an attorney if BMW refuses to help (AFTER you have confirmation from BMW). Good luck and please keep us posted.

tranck · 6th March 2006, 22:54

Can't be $20,000 Mah - if you've been following my threads, I turned a bearing which messed up a connecting rod which then put the crankshaft out of spec.

My car was never tracked and the maintenance was beyond the recommended intervals.

My tech at Leith BMW in Raleigh, NC replaced 8 bearings, 16 connecting rods and the crank for $9500 total AND despite my car having over 100,000 miles on the clock, BMWNA paid for half.

They basically replaced the entire lower part of the engine including all gaskets, seals etc.

As other NC members will attest, Leith's service dept. is very honest and more than fair.

If they want to charge you that much, they're very obviously taking you for a ride.

I absolutely agree with you as far as to the reliability or lack thereof - even at over 100,000 miles, this should not have happened to me and CERTAINLY not to you with 60% of my miles.

There are some obvious weakpoints in the car - clutch etc.

Further, when my engine was apart, my tech said that the pistons, rings and cylinder walls were like brand new but, other parts of the engine simply wore out - I saw two of the bearings.

One MORE thing for all of the carbon buildup threaders - my heads were replaced at 89,000 miles - everything cleaned up etc - when they had the engine apart this LAST time, my tech said that there were tons of carbon buildup on top of the freakin' pistons.

Nice.

mottati · 6th March 2006, 22:55

if it can be determined that it was water ingestion, go to you auto insurance. Other's here have had this covered by they're insurance.
Mike

bayerischemotor · 6th March 2006, 23:00

Uuuh, is this the same guys that thought it to be a clutch/gearbox issue?!

I would take my car away from them and get a second opinion. If there in fact is a problem similar or as stated above, get BMW to fix it, or atleast get you the parts on "goodwill". But hey, 20K? A new complete engine costs 20K.

I don't know about you, but I would go with the new engine in that case, and pay a good tech to install it. Installing an engine is not rocket science

But I feel bad for you

Hope you will get it fixed at a reasonable time and price

hudson · 6th March 2006, 23:22

Mark,

Can you explain this noise a little clearer? Is it a rotation noise? Is it there all the time, part of the time? How in the world did they determind 3 bent rods? Water ingesting will bend rods but not hurt the valves. I have question marks about the whole diagnosis. The cylinder pressures are off but not to the point of engine missfire or noise.

Joe

Lscman · 6th March 2006, 23:46

Sell it now or find an independent shop to affordably fix it. The route you've chosen (BMW Dealership) is unwise. The work you need can not be affordably done by BMW Shop Tech's. They will empty your wallet and do a minimalist repair for way too many bux.

Someone with some skill can throw a used $6K M5 motor in it. Such a motor can be installed in about 15 hours by a skilled independent mechanic without issues. It is not much harder than a clutch job. Your old motor would sell as-is for $1500 any week on ebay. Folks want the heads and intake etc for track spares.

I have been noticing that engine tranny combos from low mile wrecked cars are going for around $11K as-is. I'd take a motor like this over one that had multiple bent rods. It sounds like a parts motor to me.

MAH · 6th March 2006, 23:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by tranck

Can't be $20,000 Mah - if you've been following my threads, I turned a bearing which messed up a connecting rod which then put the crankshaft out of spec.

My car was never tracked and the maintenance was beyond the recommended intervals.

My tech at Leith BMW in Raleigh, NC replaced 8 bearings, 16 connecting rods and the crank for $9500 total AND despite my car having over 100,000 miles on the clock, BMWNA paid for half.

They basically replaced the entire lower part of the engine including all gaskets, seals etc.

As other NC members will attest, Leith's service dept. is very honest and more than fair.

If they want to charge you that much, they're very obviously taking you for a ride.

I absolutely agree with you as far as to the reliability or lack thereof - even at over 100,000 miles, this should not have happened to me and CERTAINLY not to you with 60% of my miles.

There are some obvious weakpoints in the car - clutch etc.

Further, when my engine was apart, my tech said that the pistons, rings and cylinder walls were like brand new but, other parts of the engine simply wore out - I saw two of the bearings.

One MORE thing for all of the carbon buildup threaders - my heads were replaced at 89,000 miles - everything cleaned up etc - when they had the engine apart this LAST time, my tech said that there were tons of carbon buildup on top of the freakin' pistons.

Nice.

Thanks for the quick feedback. Of course at this point I do not have BMW's viewpoint on the issue. Thank you for your feedback on what you have experienced. It is nice to know that I might not be looking at anything as expensive as I was 1st led to believe.

Are there 16 rods or just 8? The dealership said that the only times they see damaged rods is with water injestion or fuel injector leak down.. They also mentioned that this more than likely will be an insurance issue with my insurance carrier because of the issue of the water. The insurance company would then deal with the issue of how extensive a repair they would take on. Long block or part replacement. Does this make any sense?

The dealwer figures it will take 20 hours to pull the engine, tear it down, replce the likely parts and put it back into the car. Why do I not have a good feeling about this?

The olriginal noise was a tapping that increased with the engine rpms but was not apparent at higher rpms, but most pronounced under load.

Mark

Anita · 7th March 2006, 00:02

Mark,

So sorry this is turning from bad to much worse!!

OK operating under the theory that there ARE bent AND water injestion, then maybe this is a post for you to review-
Help....possible flooded motor....please advise I would feel comfortable PM'ing RRoberts for more info.

I wish I had the tech knowledge to help out, but I think any additional info you can give about your symptoms/tests/whatever would be helpful to all those reading.

Now please understand that this is just my personal opinion and not based on what test info/symptoms you have provided, okay? If this were me, and looking at this kind of major work estimate, I would very likely extract my car from the current dealership as politely, but as firmly as possible. Have they given you a time when the rep will look over your car? I'm under the impression you have not had any other work done at this dealer before or don't have confidence in them, is this right? If you feel the need to offer reasons, use anything get you car so you can take it to another BMW dealership w/o them fussing about the "free" clutch work they already did (like it's closer to home, or work, I need to get another estimate or my spouse will kill me, I always get second opinions, whatever). The rep's ruling should be good at any BMW dealership anyway, I would think. Maybe I'm panicking here, but I think you need to get as much info as possible before the repair?

Good luck!

Anita