Rod bearing failure - what to do?

Hi guys,

Been a bit quiet from me on here lately as I've been enjoying trouble free miles until now. Suddenly got a knock while driving the other day with no funny noises before hand. Recovered the car to CPC, who are saying it is rod bearings after seeing sparkly oil in the filter housing. They reckon £5-8k to fix.

For note - the car has always been serviced by the book (by BMW), and treated gently in my ownership - for the last 60k (under 2500rpm until 75 degrees, never tracked). Car is currently on 91k - had its inspection 2 two weeks ago.

Not sure what to do next to be honest - pretty gutted.
Sell as is?
Part out?
Get it fixed?

Question, would you still get another //M Coupe or vert?

If yes, better the devil you know though I’d ask for a second opinion over costs, as these aren’t cheap to repair.

Where in the country are you - there’s a list of trusted garages / indy’s circulating on here so maybe give one of them a call.

Good luck

I feel your pain

I’d really be questioning the service you’ve just had, I’d be tempted to get an oil sample tested to see what oil it has in it. I’m sure other people have had the same happen and the repair cost has been a lot less. Hopefully the guys on here should be able to point you in the right direction.

The other option is to delete this post and go and have a “car accident” write the car off :wink:
But that’s probably not a great idea :!:

What are they saying is needed for that £5k-£8k?

I'm guessing it's a full strip & rebuild?

Can they not check the oil further up the chain (from around VANOS or cams) to see if there's any particles there. If there isn't, you may get away with a flush & bearings.

I'm not sure any garage routinely checks the oil/filter for metal particles during an oil service or inspection though (although it would be easy to cut the filter open to check).

mmm-five said:

What are they saying is needed for that £5k-£8k?

I'm guessing it's a full strip & rebuild?

Can they not check the oil further up the chain (from around VANOS or cams) to see if there's any particles there. If there isn't, you may get away with a flush & bearings.

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Strip/rebuild +/- rods, +/- crank, + oil cooler. I sent it to CPC as they are widely recommended for M car work - I thought they would be the most trustworthy place to go.

When I read of Rod bearing failures , does it mean the small ends or big ends ?
I think you could do big ends with sump off the bearings will cost £100 and a good flush and say three oil changes another £200, gaskets and sealant £50 . Its quite a bit of work I have done it before albeit with the engine out .

Do they mean big ends , (shells) or small ends around the gudgeon pin( needle sleeve type in the piston ?
I cant see you could diagnose without a strip down and in terms of crank grinding or re profile , you could only see when you had the sump off .
I have done a couple on big Yank engines and got away with shells, it is highly unusual for the small ends to fail

David

Davidcliff said:

When I read of Rod bearing failures , does it mean the small ends or big ends ?
I think you could do big ends with sump off the bearings will cost £100 and a good flush and say three oil changes another £200, gaskets and sealant £50 . Its quite a bit of work I have done it before albeit with the engine out .

Do they mean big ends , (shells) or small ends around the gudgeon pin( needle sleeve type in the piston ?
I cant see you could diagnose without a strip down and in terms of crank grinding or re profile , you could only see when you had the sump off .
I have done a couple on big Yank engines and got away with shells, it is highly unusual for the small ends to fail

David

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They mean big ends.

Price to me sounds like worse case scenario if crank and rods are required.

Its not an unheard of failure and BMW say they are a "service item" on the S54... Even though you will never find a replacement time or mileage.

Some can get away with shells and a flush,but it sounds like it needs a crank too.

This is where all the money is,it may be financially viable to get a second hand S54 and put in new shells and go in that direction.

Sorry to hear op. 2nd hand engine probably a cheaper option but of course there's always an unknown with them.
My friend's m3 just had a similar issue, infact it managed to crack a shell in 3 places. 3 new rods, oil pump, reground crank, full clean later he was about 5k in at non London labour prices. It's expensive when they go wrong like that

You can buy a kit or send away an oil sample and the simplest measure is copper parts per million, see if they have actually gone . Given it big ends the price £5-8 is quite wide , I would have thought you could totally rebuild one of these engines for £5k . I just rebuilt old TVR Speed 6 engine, with my son, with all new parts , all made of chocolate metal from India originally , for about £3500 in parts . I did not replace the block . Appreciate that its not everyone's desire to get dirty or perhaps your thing, but I would get a second opinion. Does make me wonder about BMW long-life oil and service intervals . Also did you say just serviced , with oil change , does that get the alarm bells ringing .

Have the oil check on the right weight, although I can't imagine that they fucked up if it was done at bmw and that its just a coincidence that it took place so soon after a service.
The advice from independant s54 specialists to change rodbearings at 50k miles isn't a hoax. Never cheap out on that, as per mile it's just a penny or so.

This is stuff of nightmares, especially if you have to pay someone to do the work too (as its a lot of work)

Z4M-2006 said:

This is where all the money is,it may be financially viable to get a second hand S54 and put in new shells and go in that direction.

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I’m in the same position, but hadn’t mentioned it previously until I’d decided what I was going to do (strip & rebuild with new parts, or scrap the car, or wait for a low mileage S54).

It was driving normally, and we stopped to refuel, but sounde a bit noisy as I went to move off. Stopped and revved it slowly to about 1500rpm, and heard the bottom end knocking, so turned it off straight away & got it trailered to a specialist. They got me to start it and rev it slowly again and told me to turn it off immediately.

We took the oil filter out and could see a fair bit of metal, and to see if the filter had caught it all or if any had gone further into the engine we cut the filter apart...only to find as much inside as out. We then took the valve cover off and we could see ‘glitter’ :thumbsdown:

The difference I suppose to your’s is that mine is on 163,000 miles and has done a fair few track days and Ring trips...BUT it has been well over-serviced - some times 3 oil & filter changes in a month.

Murphy’s Law is that I had mine booked in for shells, vanos & CSL style carbon airbox & alpha-n during winter, to be ready for spring.

————————

Once we decided what to do (whilst I was in bed recovering from a fractured hip I injured skiing) I found it quite difficult to get a good Z4M S54 engine...they were either around 100,000 miles - and probably in need of shells & vanos too, or they were out of a crashed car and couldn’t be seen running. I finally got one after 3 months of looking and almost settling for an M3 S54.

Ultimately I only paid 10% more for Z4M version over an M3 version, but it makes the engine swap easier, as the Z4M S54 is slightly different to an M3 S54.

If you get an M3 version, then check that an earlier ones have the recall done on the bearings. You'll also need the loom to connect to the MSS70 ECU in the Z4 (M3 has MSS54).

Manifolds, MAF, airbox, dipstick, sump, etc will all need to be changed over from the Z4 engine to the M3 engine - but if there’s a lot of contamination you’d want to be raplacing bits instead to avoid leaving crap everywhere.

What you’ll save on an M3 engine, you might spend on replacement parts and extra labour to swap everything.

this all makes for a shite read. :thumbsdown:

Jaheeeez mmm5 , more gloomy news after all your previous issues if you crack on with it then surely THE triggers broom of ZMCs

mr wilks said:

Jaheeeez mmm5 , more gloomy news after all your previous issues if you crack on with it then surely THE triggers broom of ZMCs

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I'm using man-maths to lessen the pain (zmaster007 can't unfortunately), as I would have spent about £5k getting all the winter work done anyway - and would still have had a 163,000 mile car.

I'm hoping his engine just needs the bearings & possibly a crank regrind - and will be fine after a good flush of the system - rather than a complete strip & rebuild.

If I'm lucky (unlikely) the ECU from the 43,000 mile donor engine will reset my odometer to 43,000 miles too - which will still probably be older than most of the other parts I've replaced

At least it should be good for another 100,000 miles then

[ref]zmaster007[/ref], really sorry to hear the bad news. I can only imagine what an unwanted suprise this has been!

If i get any useful conclussion is the fact that a car comes with full service history is not as important or whorthwhile as a car that has proof of the required work and checks being done.

Have you got back to your local BMW dealer to explain how afyer an Insp. 2 the engine failed like that? Im sure that Insp. 2 wasn't cheap and should've picked up of something like what was to come.

I have just checked my invoice from BMW. It simply states BMW LL-04 oil. Does the 10w60 come under LL-04 or have they put the wrong oil in my car??

LL-04 is an approval, it isn’t grade specific, but saying that I don’t think any of the LL-04 grades are 10w-60 which was originally what the S54 was specified to use. Either way, I can’t imagine the wrong grade oil being responsible for bearing shell failure. The M isn’t particularly special in that area.

Sure looks like it doesn't it
LL-04 seems to usually be 5w 40 or 0w 30.
Definitely take a sample of oil and send it for analysis. Good luck!
https://blog.opieoils.co.uk/all-posts/15-bmw-ll04-oils/