I just replaced my leaking oil cooler a month ago and purchased new o-rings at the time. They look nothing like the ones in your photo...they were thin and silver in color. Exact match to the original rings and sealed perfectly. I will look at my receipts and get the part number for comparison.

All that said, if the cooler is no longer leaking and the fit was good on the o-rings I won't worry to much. Worse case is they might not last as long as the originals.

 

1hotm5, Thanks. The dealership confirmed there is only one part number for the original O-Ring: 17222245358. I had looked it up myself to be sure, and both the UK and US reference the same part number:
RealOEM.com   BMW E60 M5 Engine oil cooler/oil cooler line
BMW genuine parts order online www.online-parts.co.uk/bmw

The black one in the photo is the original. You're correct, it is thin and silver colour; it only appears black in the photo because it was oil stained. The surprise was that the O-Ring my indi removed is thicker than the original. It could be that the Oil cooler is after market. No more leaks for now even after hard driving; I've kept the original O-Rings; if it leaks again I will just replace the Oil Cooler------I hope it does not leak during my yearly autobahn/Europe run this summer

 

I just had my o rings replaced and no effect, i.e still leaking same place. So I was going to go for the thinker rings.
Question I have is are you still having no problems from the thicker rings ?

 

hi, sorry may have already asked this, I don't usual use the site. I also had exact same problem, just had the original o rings replaced (B17222245358) while I had no oil gushing out and the dealer said the tested the system and no leaks oil is weeping already from the same area. My dealer does not seem to have a clue as they originally just quoted me a whole new oil cooler which is very expensive. Then I went to this thread and found out about the o rings. We cleaned the area up and there are no leaks from anywhere else and it is clearly visible that it is coming from the end of the pipe where the o rings are. So my question is have you had any trouble from the large rings (64538375742) that you installed since I imagine you have driven more than 100 miles by now ? Cheers

 

Hmmm, mine is leaking oil as well, you can see it towards the top of the oil cooler. Originally from searching these forums I concluded my stock oil cooler was cracked, I guess I'll have to inspect further once the M5 is out from winter hibernation...

 

Hi JC, No leaks since I fitted the thicker rings, I've now driven almost a thousand miles.

 

Hi thanks for getting back, did your oil leak look like this one, the reason I ask is that the leak seems further down than an o ring leak would be.
i.e it seems at the weld, /Users/johnsavage/Desktop/iphone 060.JPG

 

I had this exact leak as in the photo. The pipes that go into the cooler are press fitted into the connection block and over time develop hair line cracks, thus the seeping leak. Get a new cooler and new oil rings.....that will solve your problem. A couple of members have had success in having the cooler line welded to repair the leak.

 

JC, 1hotm5 makes a good point but the photo of your leak is the same as mine and I didn't have to replace the cooler. I was ready to order a new cooler but took the advice to first replace the rings, then the inlet or outlet pipes. It was a good advice and a good elimination process: 1. If it had been a crack, the thicker seals would not have solved the problem. 2. If it had been a damaged pipe the thicker rings would not have solved the problem. 3. If the rings and pipes had not solved the problem I could have used the them with the new cooler if I had bought one. 5. If I had bought a new cooler, I might still have needed to buy pipes if the old ones had been damaged.
The great thing about this forum is that the experienced guys can give advice that allows one to do some inexpensive elimination process before throwing cash at a dealership. I say you have nothing to lose by trying the thicker rings first; only a couple of dollars each. I say this especially because the photo of your leak looks like mine. If that fixes the problem, it means there is no crack and no need to buy a new cooler. It worked for me; I went back to get some spare rings. I went on a long trip and pushed the car hard, M all the way and no leak. Regular driving since then and still no leak. BMW could not explain why the original ring did not fit, they only said that different parts could fit different models: whatever that means! They also said that once the thicker seals are in place, and it doesn't leak immediately, it won't leak forever or until after the usual 50/60/100k mile wear and tear. The rings are easy to fit, you will lose some oil during fitting but I was advised not to top up until the car asked me to. It was a good advice, I always have spare oil, I topped up when the beast asked me to do so. Hope it works out for you: whether rings or a new cooler is what solves the problem, at least not so bad, we're not talking about major engine issues here

 

Hi, Great advise I think, the problem is I got the dealer to do the rings, which was 30 units of labour ($360 NZD) and then straight away with in a day the seeping leak returned, I don't think I would replace the inlet and outlet pipes as they clearly are sealed at the end by the o rings (no oil coming over the top just on the bottom weld. So if I asked the dealer to do the larger o rings thats another $360.... then testing and then if still leaking (if it is cracks) another $360 for labour to take out cooler and possibly weld or get a new cooler which of course is now over a $1000 for just labour. Their original advise (based on nothing) was replace cooler which with parts and labour was $1650. SOoooooo if I could do it myself that all would not be a problem. So is it easy to take off front bumper ?? do you know of a you tube video of instruction on this site maybe as otherwise I may get them to do the job four times and that get to expensive.

 

Don’t spend that money if you don’t need to, man. If after fitting the thicker rings you still get a leak, already knowing it’s not the pipes, then weld or buy the cooler. I say this because the cost of fitting the rings is almost nothing. I used my local tech but I was there helping out.

1. My bumper didn’t need to be removed, only the grill was taken off.
2. With the grill off, we gained access to the cooler and unbolted the screw. Oil was gushing out but this normal.
3. We had the rings ready, fitted it, bolted back the screw. As the seal on the other side was worn, we changed that too. It all took 15 minutes, he didn’t even charge me for it.
4. Not necessary but as a precaution, we removed the undertray at step 1 and jet washed the cooler after fitting the rings. We did this so I can see oil drops at my parking spot----no oil leak. I refitted the undertray after a week.

Perhaps I should have made a video clip of it, but I was told it was easy and it was. If you or your local tech can’t get access to the rings, the bumper is easy to remove. Sure you can get to the rings by removing the grill, though. Let me know if you need more information. Good luck, curious to know how it goes for you.

 

wow thanks, ill do it, I know the bolt your talking about, Ill order the o rings and give it a go. Thanks. (not sure how to take off grill but can't be that hard any tips ?)

 

Pls keep us updated!

To confirm, this is the part # for the thicker rings correct? 64538375742

Also, how many do I need, I'm assuming 2, one for each hose correct?

Thanks!

 

The grill has clips behind it. If the grill has not been removed for a while, the clips may be a bit tight to unclip so be careful not to break them. The grill just clicks back in place with a push when you're done. If you can, get another pair of hands to help but not absolutely necessary. I say this so you don't lose too much oil in between removing the bolt and fitting the new rings.

 

THX man

 

yep two

 

Hey Guys, Curious to know if the seals worked out for you?

 

Hi, I tried the new rings and no luck, after cleaning down all oil, it started leaking and was definitely the oil cooler (top of pipe) I considered getting it wielded however as my dealer gave me a deal on the labour and the cooler was only $200 more than if I ordered it off pelican parts I got a new cooler. If you want to save money get the OEM cooler on pelican parts as it is exactly the same cooler and much cheaper.

 

Oh just search pelican parts with same part number and you will get two coolers coming up, one the BMW original and the OEM one

 

I guess it was worth a try, good to know it's sorted out. FCS5, did the rings work for you?

 

I haven't had a chance to do this yet, our winter in Chicago has just been brutal 50 degrees today, and then we'll get snow tomorrow.

Will update here once I get a chance however....

 

I noticed some droplets of oil after coming back from last weekend's epic runs. The o-rings on the oil cooler are only a year and a half old. After I removed the RPI oil cooler late in 2012, I put back my stock cooler and new o-rings. There was zero leaks up until this weekend. We were doing some hard driving, at least 120 mph avg. over 40-50 miles, and hitting 150 mph on ocassion. Over the whole weekend almost 1,000 miles wringing out the V10. I'm wondering if vibrations have loosened up the bolt that secures the lines to the cooler. Will find out soon enough, ordered new o-rings, maybe next weekend will change them out, for the 4th time!!!

Horrible design by BMW by the way, they could have done a better job "over-engineering" this union, a compression fitting would have been leakproof.








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I had the same leak, thought it was o-rings at first. The indy shop changed out the rings to see if that was the issue, but it still leaked. We then proceeded to remove the oil cooler to investigate and found that at that joint area (sorry, didn't take a picture), we found a crack on the backside after cleaning it. The indy shop then applied epoxy on that area in order to cover the crack. Problem solved. Quick and easy fix.

 

Randy, hopefully your luck is better than mine with the epoxy fix. It ended up leaking again a few weeks later. I bought a new OEM cooler and had a race shop weld a reinforcement bead around that pathetic press-fit joint. I tried to talk Troy into pulling the coolers from his cars, welding them, and selling them, but no luck.

 

Lol Dammit jcolley jinxed me. I checked my car this morning and saw my car is leaking oil again. The crack we found was in the back so you can see the epoxy in the picture to cover it.

Gonna just get a new oil cooler. They're cheap anyways. Don't want to keep having to root cause the problem and applying a bandaid. I'm kinda debating the RPI one, but being in California and having not tracked my car once yet (although I will start this year) I can't really justify it.

 

Just an update to my leak, I was able to pull the bumper last week and found a crack in the cooler, ordered an RPI cooler and installed with the new o-rings, no leak

I was also debating whether buying a new oem one vs RPI, from my understanding the oem will crack again. I figured I'll pay more for the RPI cooler and never have to worry about this one cracking, its really well made and I also get a lot of looks when I'm driving lol.

 

Hey FCS5, I was looking out for your post, good to know you found the root cause. Ya cooler gets good looks, it is red colour? I want one It seems I was lucky that mine was not cracked, though new original O Rings did not stop the leak.

Hey M5 Jed, The thicker O Rings I used are still holding up nicely---after over 3,000 miles including hard driving. You can try them, only a couple of bucks each. I can't find a theory or explanation about why the thicker O Rings worked for me but the original thinner rings did not. BMW only said, "The thicker rings can be used for other models including E60 M5".

 

Finished changing out the o-rings. There was some seepage and sprayed over to the ac condenser, that's the worst of it. When I got the new oem o-rings, they looked so thin. So taking the advice of others here, I looked for thicker ones. Went to Autozone and found an assorted collection of green o-rings for AC. There was a pair that was perfect, slightly larger than the oem ones.

Put everything back together, so we'll see it this works good.

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