[SnapCoupe]

UPDATE: See post #16 for my plans with the car.

After having a knock that recently started to occur checked out by a few tenured techs at my work, the verdict is in, I spun a bearing. Further confirming this was the sight of copper flakes hiding within the oil filter and oil itself. Car only has 82,000 miles on it and I have only had it for a little over 6 months.

Great.

Now I have to proceed with the next step and it seems like I have 3 options.

Option #1: Have a new short block installed in the car with a fresh BMW 2 year unlimited mileage warranty. This will run me around $13,000 and is my safest bet.

Option #2: Install a used motor that would be in the ballpark of 60-80k miles and come with a 6 month unlimited mileage warranty. I am hesitant on this as I have kept up with ALL maintenance and preventative maintenance on my car and this still happened. I would hate for it to happen again. This will run me around $8,000-$9,000

Option #3: Considering I caught this pretty early and my car runs/drives fine I may be able to save the motor. This is the option I would like to hear some insight on. Would it be worth it to try to open up the motor and replace the bearings if it means I could be all in for $3,000 or so?

[xxMike61]

Wow this happened even with you doing strict maintenance? We really need some answers here. I know this isn't a common issue but people need to be more aware of this.

[SnapCoupe]

Originally Posted by xxMike61

Wow this happened even with you doing strict maintenance? We really need some answers here. I know this isn't a common issue but people need to be more aware of this.

I have spent about $3,000 in maintenance and preventative maintenance to make sure my car was running perfectly. Oil changes every 6k miles. Despite my best efforts the motor decided to shit the bed.

[FireBlaze]

Originally Posted by SnapCoupe

I have spent about $3,000 in maintenance and preventative maintenance to make sure my car was running perfectly. Oil changes every 6k miles. Despite my best efforts the motor decided to shit the bed.

Sorry to hear about your bad luck. It sounds like you bought used 70k mile car? I think its fair to question how well the previous owner kept up with maintenance. You've only owned the car for a small fraction of its lifespan.

[qball]

Do you think this is related to you 2A80 code?

[Mean E92]

This is absolutely fucking crazy I also had mine fail at about 82k...... I'm not sure if you have seen my post but I had the same issue. I still don't know if the reason was connected to a belt slipping but I don't think so since it happened about 4 months after fixing my belt issues.

Honestly, if you can somehow get rid of the car I would unless you find a used engine with less than 20k on it. I was lucky enough to find a used engine with 18k on it and I verified to make sure it only had 18k by looking at the donor car myself. It's not worth it to risk it if you can only find motors with 60-80k because at that point those engines might have a high risk of failure too.

BMW of San Francisco quoted me something like $25k for my swap and I was going crazy. I'm still financially affected from this situation too. I payed 5.5k for the engine and 3k for labor. It came out to be around 10-11k$ after replacing other stuff because the car was already apart.

I doubt you can save the engine with new bearings. I also wanted to do this but several engine re builders told me it would be very risky and costly. 15k for the rebuild because of so much machine work. Also, the new bearing would be too big because the old one scorched the crank so you also need a new crank. It's just a whole fucking hassle and it really stressed me out. If you really can get the shortblock with 2 year warranty from BMW for 13k$ then I would say that's fair. Your turbo might be compromised too. Sorry man. I was in the same boat as you and I'm still stressed about the whole thing and it's been almost a year.

[xxMike61]

Originally Posted by Mean E92

This is absolutely fucking crazy I also had mine fail at about 82k...... I'm not sure if you have seen my post but I had the same issue. I still don't know if the reason was connected to a belt slipping but I don't think so since it happened about 4 months after fixing my belt issues.

Honestly, if you can somehow get rid of the car I would unless you find a used engine with less than 20k on it. I was lucky enough to find a used engine with 18k on it and I verified to make sure it only had 18k by looking at the donor car myself. It's not worth it to risk it if you can only find motors with 60-80k because at that point those engines might have a high risk of failure too.

BMW of San Francisco quoted me something like $25k for my swap and I was going crazy. I'm still financially affected from this situation too. I payed 5.5k for the engine and 3k for labor. It came out to be around 10-11k$ after replacing other stuff because the car was already apart.

I doubt you can save the engine with new bearings. I also wanted to do this but several engine re builders told me it would be very risky and costly. 15k for the rebuild because of so much machine work. Also, the new bearing would be too big because the old one scorched the crank so you also need a new crank. It's just a whole fucking hassle and it really stressed me out. If you really can get the shortblock with 2 year warranty from BMW for 13k$ then I would say that's fair. Your turbo might be compromised too. Sorry man. I was in the same boat as you and I'm still stressed about the whole thing and it's been almost a year.

Man this is one of my worst fears. Like its not that probable but its happened to so many people that I can't not think about it. I did an oil sample last December and it came back clean. I've been using 0w40 every 5k ish. I don't ride it that hard at all. It just seems like unfortunate luck? I've seen a lot of PS2 guys have this problem as well so maybe there's something with that.

[Diox]

hey why don't you find a good mechanic and get your engine built?

that's what I'm doing with mine, I went through two or three (it's been 6 months) donor motors which gave problems once installed (never left the shop) and then I requested to just build the engine cause fuck n55

[Pladi]

Do you have any recent logs id like to have a look at your engine performance if you have any MHD logs even before this happened.

[Pladi]

Here is the answer to your rod bearing issues and what i fear will happen to anyone who is running these "safe" tunes with low octane shitty gas.. should be a lesson to all that timing corrections ARE NOT GOOD AND SHOULD BE DEALT WITH. Timing corrections means the ecu has already detected a knock.... do that over and over and over something is gonna give. Yet somehow you think that has something to do with oil changes..

In your case seems like the HPFP failure contributed.

Originally Posted by SnapCoupe

Also curious about this. I have the shadow code and very long cold starts along with timing corrections on almost all of my tunes.

[SnapCoupe]

Originally Posted by Diox

hey why don't you find a good mechanic and get your engine built?

that's what I'm doing with mine, I went through two or three (it's been 6 months) donor motors which gave problems once installed (never left the shop) and then I requested to just build the engine cause fuck n55

I thought about doing this, but when I spoke to a guy I know that can do it he mentioned it would be way too involved. He said there is too high of a probability that the crank is ruined and the everytime he has seen a N55/54 rebuilt after bearings it never balances out quite right

[SnapCoupe]

Originally Posted by Pladi

Here is the answer to your rod bearing issues and what i fear will happen to anyone who is running these "safe" tunes with low octane shitty gas.. should be a lesson to all that timing corrections ARE NOT GOOD AND SHOULD BE DEALT WITH. Timing corrections means the ecu has already detected a knock.... do that over and over and over something is gonna give. Yet somehow you think that has something to do with oil changes..

In your case seems like the HPFP failure contributed.

The HPFP was confirmed last week to be perfectly fine. The shadow code and long crank issue I was experiencing was from my LPFP losing pressure over night.

As for the timing corrections, I do not know enough about timing to comment on their effect to this. I can say I did replace the plugs and coils with the OE Bosch/Delphi kit from FCP euro a week and a half ago. I am also unsure if this might have contributed.

[Jeyoller]

OP can you update the information of your car in this post: http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1423517

Extra info:
Please enter the millage you got the vehicle at and the millage the vehicle failed

[ANMVQ]

Seems this is becoming a little more common. My car started burning @62K then by 68.5k there was metal shavings in the oil. I did my oil changes at 3k. I was told the bearings and rings were need replacement. I had a warranty the dealer sold me, and they still wanted 6k out of my pocket for used motor and 12K+ the 18K vaule left in warranty. 30K for a motor!!!

I traded out of the car.

if you wanna keep the car rebuild the short block.

[Pladi]

Originally Posted by ANMVQ

Seems this is becoming a little more common. My car started burning @62K then by 68.5k there was metal shavings in the oil. I did my oil changes at 3k. I was told the bearings and rings were need replacement. I had a warranty the dealer sold me, and they still wanted 6k out of my pocket for used motor and 12K+ the 18K vaule left in warranty. 30K for a motor!!!

I traded out of the car.

if you wanna keep the car rebuild the short block.

Were you stock ? Running any tuning ?

BMW has this motor on almost every platform including F series....

We need to find out how many stock cars are failing.. a thread with 10 cases doesn't say much about the " reliability" of the N55 motor

[SnapCoupe]

Originally Posted by Pladi

Were you stock ? Running any tuning ?

BMW has this motor on almost every platform including F series....

We need to find out how many stock cars are failing.. a thread with 10 cases doesn't say much about the " reliability" of the N55 motor

Mods in sig. Car is my daily so 80% of driving was freeway cruising

UPDATE Decided to go ahead and replace the short block given the fact that I bought the car with the intention to hold on to it for a while and its in perfect shape besides the motor. With my employee discount my all in motor installed price is just under $13,000. I was able to score a new short block for just over $10,000 with a 2 year unlimited mileage BMW warranty.

My used motor options were a 45k mile motor with a 90 day warranty for $6,000 and a 56k mile motor with a 12 month warranty for $7,600. These warranties are both 3rd party. Considering I do not know the history of these motors and I will probably have to reseal them, the new short block seems well worth the extra few $$$ just for the peace of mind.

I plan on swapping over my bolt-ons to the new motor, but running the stock map during the break-in period or until I get confident enough to run a tune. Anything I should upgrade or do while the motor is being swapped?

[Ozzie335i]

SC, you are just getting a "short block," as in they will be using the head from your existing motor?

[SnapCoupe]

Originally Posted by Ozzie335i

SC, you are just getting a "short block," as in they will be using the head from your existing motor?

That is just BMW's terminology for the motor. It's the whole shabang assembled and everything.

[Ozzie335i]

Originally Posted by SnapCoupe

That is just BMW's terminology for the motor. It's the whole shabang assembled and everything.

Dig. I am an old timer where a short block included the block, crank, pistons... the long block used to include the heads as well. I hope the new engine works out ok. Look at it this way, your engine will be at day uno. Don't worry about the tune. Build it as you see fit, and drive it like you stole it.

[dleccord]

How can the OP figure out if the previous owners had the tune on the car?

[xxMike61]

Originally Posted by dleccord

How can the OP figure out if the previous owners had the tune on the car?

My guess would be to do an oil analysis. It wouldn't necessarily show that it was tuned but that it was maintained poorly / pushed hard

[northbranchroad]

Does anyone know what causes things like copper, or metal flakes to get inside the oil and how to prevent that?