Please Help!!

A

AndrewZ4MC

Member
Hi all,

I really need some Help and advice and I know everyone in here is great.

I recently got back from a Euro trip in my M coupe which I have had since December. It has 51,000 miles on it now. When i got it it had 45,000 on it.

I got the dreaded ticking sound on the way back from the trip (bout 1200 miles in total). Took it in to BMW to diagnose and had an insured warranty on the car.

Long story short is the car is seriously messed up. Needs bearing shells and oil pump (already done) new camshaft and followers and head (as is worn as well).

The warranty have said that they won't cover it because one of the services was 8 months out (although within mileage) and they say that the eventuri isn't covered - it also had a modified oil filter apparently as well.

The bill is now 2,700 but to fix everything will be around 9-10k. I really can't afford it and need to find a way to limit the amount lost - does anyone have any ideas - please

Andrew
 
Whoooaa this is getting alarmingly regular !
What do they mean by "modified" oil filter ? Is it a wrong one made to fit ? Possiby restricting flow ?
There are many more brains on here to help but all i can say is you can have it repaired for a lot less than the figures you mentioned . I appreciate that is little comfort right now :wink:
Can i ask how far off the next service the car was & more importantly when & who carried out the Ins 2 ?
 
DPG said:
[quote="mr wilks said:
Whoooaa this is getting alarmingly regular !
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Agree, which is why mine will not be modified.
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Pretty irrelevant for those running the cars with no warranty :oops:
Assuming thats what you meant Dan ? I don't see the mods being the cause
 
I would be pulling it out and fitting a good second hand unit..Thats the most cost effective way to sort it..


"Modified" oil filter is unusual,you need to find out what they mean by that... I think its just "bullsh!t to be honest.


As soon as they see mods like the Eventuri they will just void the warranty...... Thats the risk you take..
 
mr wilks said:
DPG said:
[quote="mr wilks said:
Whoooaa this is getting alarmingly regular !
Click to expand...

Agree, which is why mine will not be modified.
Click to expand...

Pretty irrelevant for those running the cars with no warranty :oops:
Assuming thats what you meant Dan ? I don't see the mods being the cause
Click to expand...

Yeah sorry, for warranty reasons.
 
Which is why mine wasn't modified whilst it was still under BMW Insured Warranty.

Cheapest option if you're going to pay for it yourself is to fit a 2nd hand S54 engine. Either way I'd remove it from the dealer on a recovery truck and take it to a trusted specialist - otherwise the dealer will be charging you £120+ per hour for diagnostics/labour.

When I had my new engine at 23,000 miles, I was given all sorts of crap (read as lies & guesses) as to the issue, and the diagnostic cost (which BMW wouldn't cover) was rising at about £500 a day. At one point they told me my exhaust cam was 'excessively scored' - but a quick trip to see this (with my specialist at hand) resulted in nothing more than a soot smudge on one lobe. Every time they came up with a plausible diagnosis we would go and visit them and shoot it down - fecking knobs :thumbsdown:

In the end they gave up looking for a reason and asked (and were granted) a new engine from BMW. Still tried to get me to pay the diagnostic costs of about £3500 - which I negotiated down to £1500.
 
Was the car an AUC? If it was and you purchased it with an AUC warranty intact, despite the late service, I would be playing merry hell with them. I'm not a lawyer but there is a legal principle of past performance or something like that - in other words if they were (by they I mean BMW) prepared to issue warranty cover to you on a car with that service history then they can not now argue that the same service history is a right to refuse a future claim. I know the BMW insured warranty isn't provided by the same people but they are agents of BMW and it is a BMW warranty product. The Eventuri I wouldn't expect to be covered because it isn't an OEM part but it has got naff all to do with the other issues.

I've kept my OEM air intake so I can return mine to stock in no time.
 
Sounds like there is some serious shirt lifting going on here! 50K miles is low mileage in anyone's book. You've got to take it to a proper garage and not one owned/operated by clowns.
 
original guvnor said:
Was the car an AUC? If it was and you purchased it with an AUC warranty intact, despite the late service, I would be playing merry hell with them. I'm not a lawyer but there is a legal principle of past performance or something like that - in other words if they were (by they I mean BMW) prepared to issue warranty cover to you on a car with that service history then they can not now argue that the same service history is a right to refuse a future claim. I know the BMW insured warranty isn't provided by the same people but they are agents of BMW and it is a BMW warranty product. The Eventuri I wouldn't expect to be covered because it isn't an OEM part but it has got naff all to do with the other issues.

I've kept my OEM air intake so I can return mine to stock in no time.
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Problem is the dealers selling the cars are only franchises. They can also bend the rules regarding AUC as they see fit as it is at their descretion. Which is why I rejected the car I bought as the service was overdue by 8 months (also on a ///M)

The reason I forced the rejection was I phoned the warranty company (Modial) who advised they might not honour a claim. THe dealer offered to warranty the car themselves for two years but I passed.

Not sure where this leave the OP, with the mods probably very little comeback :cry:
 
Get it out of BMW and taken to a decent M specialist for at least a second opinion before you spend a penny on having any work done.
 
CornishRob said:
Get it out of BMW and taken to a decent M specialist for at least a second opinion before you spend a penny on having any work done.
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X2. Try to argue the warranty, although the oil pump issue could give BMW a legitimate reason....if true of course.

Else, take it to an Indy and save yourself a bundle.
 
StevenH72 said:
CornishRob said:
Get it out of BMW and taken to a decent M specialist for at least a second opinion before you spend a penny on having any work done.
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X2. Try to argue the warranty, although the oil pump issue could give BMW a legitimate reason....if true of course.

Else, take it to an Indy and save yourself a bundle.
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x3 - unfortunately the warranty has proven to be no use, either through your fault or their inflexibility. Therefore there's no point maintaining it - cut your losses, cancel the warranty and get someone honest who knows what they're talking about to look at it.

And take a deep breath Andrew - it may not be as bad as you've been led to believe, and if it is then it may be much more cheaply fixed than the numbers you have now.
 
Not sure I believe that the bearing shells and the cam lobes / followers all went bad at the same time. My money's on them dropping the bottom of the engine expecting to find the cause of the problem based on the propensity of the early E46 M3s to spin bearings. When they failed to fix it, they kept on searching and found the shagged cams.
The rubbish excuses for the warranty not covering the repair could be because they knew that BMW would request evidence for all the work done which they would be unable to provide if the bearing shells were fine.
Have you asked for all the old parts back so you can have them independently analysed? I would suggest you do so - I bet they've conveniently misplaced the failed parts they removed.
If you have a full BMW service history and a modified or inappropriate oil filter was fitted to the car, then the servicing BMW garage fitted it. Either the filter caused the problem and by extension BMW are to blame, or the filter is irrelevant so the warranty remains valid.
Also, as said earlier, if the out of schedule service predates your ownership and you bought AUC, then they cannot negate the warranty based on that prolonged service interval. I wouldn't take this lying down.
Where are you in the UK?
 
It sounds like it's spun a rod bearing, and may have done the oil pump drive at the same time.. Then the engine has suffered low oil pressure ..
The nut on the oil pump drive can undo itself on the S54, especially if the crank has " jolted" and then the drive drops off the pump... No oil pressure... Not uncommon on the S54...
That said if the op was driving it with a light tapping for miles on miles with no warning lights or heavy knocking then maybe just the odd cam follower has worn..

Main dealer or not, no one would be tearing the bottom end out of the engine for no reason, especially if the noise was a small tap from the top end..

Doesn't make sense...
 
I don't understand why suddenly in the last few months, there seem to have been a few cars all with the same problem. I haven't ever noticed this in the previous few years of being on this site.

It doesn't seem to effect any particular mileage etc either?

Any ideas?

Am I correct in thinking if the Cams/Followers become worn, it wont damage anything else in the engine during the failure. It is just a new set of Cams/Followers to sort the issue? And a ton of cash....
 
Z4M-2006 said:
It sounds like it's spun a rod bearing, and may have done the oil pump drive at the same time.. Then the engine has suffered low oil pressure ..
The nut on the oil pump drive can undo itself on the S54, especially if the crank has " jolted" and then the drive drops off the pump... No oil pressure... Not uncommon on the S54...
That said if the op was driving it with a light tapping for miles on miles with no warning lights or heavy knocking then maybe just the odd cam follower has worn..

Main dealer or not, no one would be tearing the bottom end out of the engine for no reason, especially if the noise was a small tap from the top end..

Doesn't make sense...
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I'd presumed a ticking that developed whilst driving but allowed him to complete his transcontinental journey was unliky to be a spun bearing. I thought that would wreck the engine almost immediately?
Where's the nut on the oil pump that can become loose and should we be checking this routinely? My paranoia levels increase with each reported engine rebuild!
 
Land Rover Had a similar issue on their oil pump on the Td5. Apparently they didn't use Loctight, so some nuts fell off and shagged the engine :headbang:
 
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