Major oil leak on Z4M

Sorry for the lack of updates guys, work got in the way - been in Germany all week.

UPDATE:

I have my car back!

600053_3974149585742_1357941650_n.jpg


:D

What was the issue?

Oil line from cam cover to VANOS unit, as predicted in this very thread! It turned out to be a very small hole in an area you can't see unless you remove stuff from the engine. Here is a picture of the 3mm hole...

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It cost £320 total to fix and clean up the car. The car had lost 2 litres of oil total therefore I predict no issue with big end bearings, scouring of bores or warping of the head.

All in all, I am one very relieved man and have my baby back!
 
That's a good result! :D :thumbsup: I'm sure you'll have done no damage to the engine.

This happened to the S54 engine in my Z3MC 4 years ago with no warning and with no loss of oil. I got a brand new engine from BMW FOC 8)

48bearing_shell.jpg
 
Ouch, big end failures are what I fear.

I totally forgot how....visceral my M was until I drove it. It had only been on the road for 1 week out of the 3 I've owned it :(
 
glad its sorted forget vanos problems on the later engines they are solid and so relieable. my son works at bm and has only ever replaced repaired early vanos on e 36 models. :driving:
 
GroundEffect said:
Ouch, big end failures are what I fear.
Click to expand...

BMW sorted this problem for all cars with the S54 engine except the Z3 MC/R. If you look at the engine parts list for those cars, there are a lot of them which have since been discontinued and replaced with revised parts. I think the worst culprit was the conrod bolts which stretch at high RPMs allowing the camshaft to operate within an oval-shaped aperture within the bearing shells, and smashing them to pieces. I wouldn't worry about it with the Z4Ms.
 
jeepers, that little escapade must have aged you a bit, can imagine the stress of not knowing for so long, here's wishing you trouble free "M" otoring now for the life of the vehicle to make up for it . enjoy .
 
Glad it's not hurt your wallet too much. It's the biggest nightmare in the weeks after buying a car - having something like this go wrong. I hope you can forget it now and start enjoying the ///M.
 
Pleased to hear you're back on the road, and that the damage to your wallet wasn't too bad :-)


Sent from my iPad
 
exdos said:
GroundEffect said:
Ouch, big end failures are what I fear.
Click to expand...

BMW sorted this problem for all cars with the S54 engine except the Z3 MC/R. If you look at the engine parts list for those cars, there are a lot of them which have since been discontinued and replaced with revised parts. I think the worst culprit was the conrod bolts which stretch at high RPMs allowing the camshaft to operate within an oval-shaped aperture within the bearing shells, and smashing them to pieces. I wouldn't worry about it with the Z4Ms.
Click to expand...

Camshaft?

I presume you mean crankshaft?

Conrod bolts stretching is a fairly fundamental problem with an engine!
 
Lower said:
Camshaft?

I presume you mean crankshaft?

Conrod bolts stretching is a fairly fundamental problem with an engine!
Click to expand...
Of course I meant crankshaft - I was watching the Olympics at the same time and all that Gold was distracting me! :)

The S54 engines in the Z3 MC/R were the only engines BMW didn't do a recall to fix: they recalled over 48,000 E46 M3s though. They claimed that bearing shell failure couldn't occur because the redline was set at 7600rpm but this is utter bollox! I know of at least 8 that have gone bang in the UK, but the upside is that I've now got an uprated S54 engine in my Z3MC. :D
 
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