Please have your rod bearings checked...

What can i say chaps. By all means don't get them changed. All i wanted was to offer some advice in order to maybe stop someone from going through what I am.

No warranty i'm afraid. The car only had about 6months from BMW UK when i got it but even that wasn't honoured here and there aren't third party warranties out here.

greddyl30pjg says that you shouldn't do it unless necessary, well i did just that and look what happened. You constantly hear people saying, I can hear a faint tick or grind or whatever and most answers usually are, "that's how the S54 sounds like". How are you supposed to tell if one weird tick is normal and the other not?
 
You could maybe do an annual, or more frequent, engine oil analysis and check for elevated levels of whatever metals indicate bearing troubles (don't know which ones without looking it up) but again nothing like that available here in CY.
 
Hey GA4- i am by no means having a go & i really do feel for you!

ga41 said:
greddyl30pjg says that you shouldn't do it unless necessary, well i did just that and look what happened. You constantly hear people saying, I can hear a faint tick or grind or whatever and most answers usually are, "that's how the S54 sounds like"
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I just think that its maybe not the best advice to have rod bearings routinely checked/ disturbed. By all means if your car is making some unusual noises defintely investigate! ..but on the flip side you cant go pulling your engine to bits everytime you hear an odd noise.

It can happen to any car. Without doing any research ive not heard that its an especially common occurance in the S54 so may be a little extreme worrying everyone by advising (as thoughtful as it is to pre warn others) that everyone should do this relatively major & labour intensive, disruptive procedure as a check.

I do hope you manage to source your parts & get it all sorted. Having had the 'its terminal' news about a 2 of my previous cars due to the same issue- i can imagine how gutted you are!

(& yep, checking magnetic sump plug for small fragments of metal will also be a good early indication of wear)
 
Gutted for you ga41
But. I don't think that this is some sort of trend. I don't recall in my 3 years of forum membership. Hearing of any engine doing this. Like most newer cars. The biggest problem area is electronics & electronic subsystems. Not the engine internals.

Oil analysis is a very good way to track the health of your engine. But. One needs to start doing this from when the engine is fairly new. So as to establish a baseline. Tin, lead, copper is what shows (mostly) for rod bearings. It can save you money. If one is easy on the car. You can lengthen the oil change intervals based on the lab results. I did this for the ten years that I owned a lorry company. In the US. It's less than a tener for a lab test.
 
greddyl30pjg, I wasn't mad mate. Was just trying to explain my reasoning. It is indeed a labour intensive and finicky job. It's not something that I'd recommend doing annually for instance because it's simply not necessary but as a rough guide every 40-50k you should have them replaced. That's what I gathered from everything i've read so far..

Not all engines/cars are susceptible to this, it depends a lot on the way its been driven in the past and how its driven in the present. Sometimes things just fall in place and the result is this. Even though mine was a BMW AUC I still do not know if it spent the first 24k miles of its life bouncing off the rev limiter or not.

I've spoken to someone who had this happen to his M3 twice in two years. And the car was not driven particularly hard and was well maintained... Freaking mystery.
 
:D No probs! You're having a bit of a shitter at the mo it seems n didnt want to wade in & rub you up the wrong way by calling your advice duff!
 
bigdog said:
Gutted for you ga41
But. I don't think that this is some sort of trend. I don't recall in my 3 years of forum membership. Hearing of any engine doing this. Like most newer cars. The biggest problem area is electronics & electronic subsystems. Not the engine internals.

Oil analysis is a very good way to track the health of your engine. But. One needs to do start doing this from when the engine is fairly new. So as to establish a baseline. Tin, lead, copper is what shows (mostly) for rod bearings. It can save you money. If one is easy on the car. You can lengthen the oil change intervals based on the lab results. I did this for the ten years that I owned a lorry company. In the US. It's less than a tener for a lab test.
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If there was anywhere here to have my engine oil analysed i'd do it.... but sadly...

pilchardthecat said:
Is the risk increased by the frequency of "max revs" moments?

If so, i'm fucked.
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Well... mine has certainly had plenty of max revs moments... also read this thread by "pal", he may be a member here too, describing his second(!) bearing replacement on his car http://www.zpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=883939
 
Revving the s**t out of your car in inevitably going to cause more general engine wear. *note to self- never by a car from pichardthecat* :P
 
Agree, no point running an M car if your never gonna exploit the power! ....but you still gotta accept the more you thrash it the strain you put on it.
 
RubyBlueZ4MC said:
pilchardthecat said:
The corollary to that is - why buy a high-revving powerful car if you aren't going to rev it?
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It looks nice :thumbsup:
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No point getting an M though if it's just the aesthetics, the non-M is 99% the same externally. In fact with the coupe the 3.0 looks better from the front
 
pilchardthecat said:
RubyBlueZ4MC said:
pilchardthecat said:
The corollary to that is - why buy a high-revving powerful car if you aren't going to rev it?
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It looks nice :thumbsup:
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No point getting an M though if it's just the aesthetics, the non-M is 99% the same externally. In fact with the coupe the 3.0 looks better from the front
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I'm only having a laugh. Everyone is very serious today. Living where I do I don't get many chances to rev it but still bought it so when I do get a chance to :driving: I enjoy it.
 
There was a good thread I started a couple of weeks ago, its not common but it happens plenty and it is a serviceable part but the advice is to have them replaced anywhere between 80-100k miles but there are cases of cars with 20k having the problem..

Depends how hard its treated, that first 1200 mile run in is critical and if the car has been abused during this time, which know one knows unless you are the original owner or you take the whole engine to pieces. Its a gamble but a new replacement engine and labour will be about 10k if not more. So that £5-600 doesnt seem too expensive now... and at the same time you can have the engine mounts done for piece of mind. £1000 tops.
 
ga41 said:
Well... mine has certainly had plenty of max revs moments... also read this thread by "pal", he may be a member here too, describing his second(!) bearing replacement on his car http://www.zpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=883939
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This guy has done over 80 track days with lots of full throttle under his own admission.

I recall reading somewhere i think it was E36 M3's that if you track them you need to upgrade the conrod bolts because if them stretching and spinning shells. Wonder if this is a similar issue with tracked S54's
 
I wonder how many M's are driven hard before properly warm .Surprised there isn't an oil temperature guage fitted as standard .At least you would then know there would be less chance of harm being caused to a cold motor.
 
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