[Jamison99FRC]

First of all, I am so thankful I bought a CPO. Now onto the details. It's a 2011 335d. It had 48k miles when purchased, currently at 53k. I'm about four hours into a six hour trip, cruise set at 75. Between songs I hear a tapping sound. I turn the radio off and listen. Sure enough I definitely hear something. There were zero warning lights. I pull into the nearest parking lot. I open the hood and immediately tell my wife to kill the car.

It sounded like rod knock to me. There was no oil on the ground so I didn't think it was a completely broken rod that took out the block. I checked the oil and it was full. I didn't notice any metal on the dipstick. I'm 60 or so miles away from the nearest BMW dealership. Again thankful for CPO and BMW assistance.

They send a rollback to pick the car up. The next day I get a call saying it will need a new motor. The service advisor said the tech found metal in the oil pan. I was not told a cause but I'm about to go by the dealership to pick up my loaner. I will try to find out more info in person.

It was not under any heavy loads at the time I heard the noise. Cruise set, driving through central Texas.

I'll update as soon as I can.

[Lexx.md]

Wow, it would be nice to know the reason, as we are driving older diesels and no waranty left.

[Jamison99FRC]

Met with service manager. No cause yet. Said they pulled the oil filter and found metal. BMW wants them to pull the pan (I thought they already pulled it) to see how bad it is. I'm assuming it will take a while before I'm told a cause for the damage.

[brycerichards]

Originally Posted by Jamison99FRC

First of all, I am so thankful I bought a CPO. Now onto the details. It's a 2011 335d. It had 48k miles when purchased, currently at 53k. I'm about four hours into a six hour trip, cruise set at 75. Between songs I hear a tapping sound. I turn the radio off and listen. Sure enough I definitely hear something. There were zero warning lights. I pull into the nearest parking lot. I open the hood and immediately tell my wife to kill the car.

It sounded like rod knock to me. There was no oil on the ground so I didn't think it was a completely broken rod that took out the block. I checked the oil and it was full. I didn't notice any metal on the dipstick. I'm 60 or so miles away from the nearest BMW dealership. Again thankful for CPO and BMW assistance.

They send a rollback to pick the car up. The next day I get a call saying it will need a new motor. The service advisor said the tech found metal in the oil pan. I was not told a cause but I'm about to go by the dealership to pick up my loaner. I will try to find out more info in person.

It was not under any heavy loads at the time I heard the noise. Cruise set, driving through central Texas.

I'll update as soon as I can.

My story is almost identical. Bought at 47k miles and at 53k miles at about 80 miles per hour I had a check engine light and it seemed like a loss of power. No noise immediately. A day later - there was no mistaking the loud knock. The first owner transferred their 100k mile warranty to me - so the long block replacement was paid for with $50 deductible.

They never told me exactly what when wrong. I believe that it was either a rod bearing or collapsed lifter.

The long block swap took forever because the dealership somehow ended up with an x5d long block that had to be converted piece by piece to a 335 d long block. (I'm not sure what this entails.)

The engine swap ended up being valued at $25,000. I bought the car for $18,500.

Now what?

Sorry to threadjack.

Regards, Bryce.

[Hoooper]

Sounds more like a spun bearing than bent rod. If it happened while driving on the freeway, it was probably caused by something else letting go and then shredding a rod bearing or two through either blocking the passage to the bearing or actual contamination that made it onto the bearing surface. Its possible that its a bent rod but normally I would expect a bent rod to show other symptoms rather than knocking.

[Hoooper]

Originally Posted by brycerichards

The engine swap ended up being valued at $25,000. I bought the car for $18,500.

Lol, the cost of incompetence in the service bay when the crap gets deep is staggering. A complete new engine is "only" $12k which would require maybe a full 2 days for R&R, yet they charged more than 11 days. A complete short block is $3500 and would take no more than a week working at a snails pace to install. I assume the dealerships run up the cost since its on BMWNA's dime

[Jamison99FRC]

Bryce,

Were the turbos replaced as well? I'm concerned about potentially contaminated oil damaging the turbos.

[torqueisking]

Originally Posted by Hoooper

A complete new engine is "only" $12k which would require maybe a full 2 days for R&R, yet they charged more than 11 days. A complete short block is $3500

Thanks for sharing these numbers.

Worst case scenario for those that can R&R the short block isn't so bad!

[kbsilver]

I believe this type of failure is rare and nothing specific with the diesel. Engines do simply fail from time to time with no apparent reason. Of course there is one but is not worth their time to figure it out unless it happened unusually often.

[Hoooper]

Originally Posted by torqueisking

Thanks for sharing these numbers.

Worst case scenario for those that can R&R the short block isn't so bad!

Yeah, really that shortblock price isnt so bad, I would have expected double. Not sure how they get from $3500 for that to $12k for the complete engine. Maybe its just the cost of assembly combined with not wanting to give away hard to acquire parts. I dont think engines are exactly flying off the shelf.

[brycerichards]

Originally Posted by Jamison99FRC

Bryce,

Were the turbos replaced as well? I'm concerned about potentially contaminated oil damaging the turbos.

There was no mention of turbo replacement. I also did not read through the ream of paperwork carefully.

[Jamison99FRC]

Update: still no cause given nor exact damage but the car is on the lift and they are pulling the engine.

Side note, The X1 loaner feels so small. The complete opposite powerband was frustrating at first.

[007_e350]

I thought this diesel was reliable as hell been running for 10 yrs or so... guess not

[007_e350]

http://www.bmwforums.info/general-gu...irl-flaps.html

Could it be this ??

[Hoooper]

Has anyone reported any swirl flap ingestion on a US car? If that's what this is it would be the first I've heard. Also would initiate a run on swirl flap blocks in the US

[kbsilver]

Originally Posted by Hoooper

Has anyone reported any swirl flap ingestion on a US car? If that's what this is it would be the first I've heard. Also would initiate a run on swirl flap blocks in the US

My understanding is on this engine, the port geometry will not allow a swirl flap to pass through, it will just get stuck in the port. But a tiny screw/rivet that holds the flaps would pass.

[Hoooper]

Originally Posted by kbsilver

My understanding is on this engine, the port geometry will not allow a swirl flap to pass through, it will just get stuck in the port. But a tiny screw/rivet that holds the flaps would pass.

Yeah I had the same understanding, that article seemed to indicate otherwise though. I can imagine if the flap came off the rod, sooner or later it would be able to arrange itself in a way that it could get in. The idea that a flap itself makes it out of the intake, through the curved port, and perfectly under a valve that is going up and down as many as 75 times per second is tough to imagine, but if it comes off and you keep driving it for thousands of miles its bound to find its way at some point. The screw coming out though would easily roll down there and into the cylinder. I concur with one of the posts on that site that showed the screws being peened out to resist threading out, mine appear to be like that as well which makes it pretty much impossible for a screw to just come out.

Why they didnt just go to a captured flap once they knew there was an issue is beyond me, but there are a number of known issues on the old motors that they obviously didnt consult me regarding the solution

[007_e350]

I'm still curious what happened to Ops car shd one more guy above. ... If it's swirleys I'll just go in and remove em or start planning to

[Jamison99FRC]

Originally Posted by 007_e350

I'm still curious what happened to Ops car shd one more guy above. ... If it's swirleys I'll just go in and remove em or start planning to

I was told I would get a call yesterday but no luck. As soon as I hear anything I will post up. For the brief time I had the hood up and engine running I could only hear the knocking.

I'm not sure I would be able to hear a swirl flap bouncing around inside a cylinder, if that turns out to be the problem.

[Lexx.md]

About swirls, as i read somewhere from 2009 they were not installed on diesels anymore.
Did anybody took intake and have physically seen those swirls?

[kbsilver]

Originally Posted by Lexx.md

About swirls, as i read somewhere from 2009 they were not installed on diesels anymore.
Did anybody took intake and have physically seen those swirls?

They are most definitely there. They are what make cleaning the intake manifold so time consuming. The are a critical part of making the emissions requirements as well as giving a few more MPG.

[Lexx.md]

Agree, just took off my intake and confirming they are in there.