Bearings - Ruining Your M3 Experience

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by SinfulM3

I am new to this forum but have owned my M3 for about 9 months now.
Unfortunately, I have been reading allot about the bearing issues these cars have.
Honestly, It is kinda putting a damper on the excitement of owning a M3.
Is the fear of a blown engine causing me to emotionally increase the probability of engine failure or is this a concern I should truly have?

This car is amazing, fast and beautiful. However, the M3 is not cheap, and for this price I am starting to ask myself is it worth the premium price to own this car when there are other performance cars that are more reliable and cost less?



Anyone else having these conflicting love and fear issues?

Saw your comment also in the other thread,and for some of us who like and care their ///M3 it's normal bacause we are afraid to lose our dream...our car !
But i'm sure the S65 will not explode from one seconde to another , i've learned a lot of this engine and know how to listen to it !
I mean before things (bearings go wrong) there will be sounds like ticking noise or rattle noise,at that moment it's time => stop driving,don't start it and take a decision.,but when not it's for sure this engine will blown !
So the message is....learn to listen to your engine , what is right or wrong !
Think this is even better than Backstone , also because saw good reports and after things went wrong,same thing with replacing bearings=> for how long !
Sure I realy hate the mistake of BMW but it's to late...the damn bearings are f@cked up ,saw on here blown engine built end 2013 with only 6,700 Miles on it , but also with 154,158 Miles on it => 248.086 KM and still running strong !!!
I also said on here => Who's next ?!?! Sadly with a reason...because need to hear the first person on here who dares to say=> My bearings will never blown !
Conclusion is...Listen to it !

[dj_dub]

Originally Posted by Jexter

You don’t open up a factory sealed engine and start swapping out internals for preventative measure or peace of mind.

If you have solid evidence through an engine knock and/or a history of black stone reports to support doing that, then yes.

I don't see why not? It's already been shown that it's not always the case a Blackstone report will catch signs of bearing failure in time. Like I said, to me and many others...spending the money do preventative maintenance on these bearings is well worth the money. I'm not gonna wait around for engine knock and even worse, my engine failing and having to deal with BMW to fix this for me.

[pbonsalb]

That is great you are able to just listen and will know whether you need to replace your bearings before they do any damage. If my hearing was that accurate, I would not have changed mine as preventative maintenance. This hearing stuff could put an end to expensive preventative maintenance of all sorts.

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by pbonsalb

That is great you are able to just listen and will know whether you need to replace your bearings before they do any damage. If my hearing was that accurate, I would not have changed mine as preventative maintenance. This hearing stuff could put an end to expensive preventative maintenance of all sorts.

Damn I just knew it ?!?!
Do you ever heard the slight ticking noise on here in videos and are you able to recognize the ticking or rattle noise ?
The first video posted on here with the slight ticking noise I listened about more than hundreds of times....houres and houres....days ,and always with Sennheiser headphone on with different volumes !
And now i've seen and heard them all I even requested a Google alarm for the word "Bearing failure" so do you know what this means and what i'm receiving ?
So actualy I can recognize it , I received 6 videos from members on here via PM , 5 ok and 1 nok and so it was !
Also one with 2 videos and one with 4 !
The nok case asked me to not talk over the forum about the failure because he don't wanted other people know about it => it turned out in trade-in value ! ( Do you understand ? )
My only target was to learn how my S65 not should sound !
The reaction of my wife is when I start my car is...one day you will get paranoia, that's normal because also this is not a normal reaction,other people have no idea of what we know or trying to hear or thinking about the damn bearings !
And I knew in advance to read comments like yours=> normal reaction !
If you don't believe me that's ok...than I will PM some people as proof that I listened to their videos with engine cold and warmed up as confirmation for you !
If you have more questions....feel free and we can talk about it i'm here !

[dj_dub]

^I guess robots/machines don't make mistakes then...LOL! Anyways...

[Sinful]

Thanks for all the comments guys. Sometimes you just need to hear it from others and see a new perspective. My plan of action is to get an extended warranty. I have USAA and they offer some good programs, change the oil out myself every 6 months. Blackstone every year or so, and keep my ears open. Recognize the real probability and risk and most of all stop worrying (man up) and simply enjoy the car !!! Nothing in life is forever, so might as well enjoy the intoxicating V8 as long as we can!!

I also realized with what I put down and paid into this car that all I owe now is around 39k. I really could not find a car near this amazing for around 39k. Hell the original sticker was over 70k in 2011! What car could I possibly buy for 39k that comes close to the M3??? On top of that I got under 20k miles on the car!!!

Thanks everyone !!

[dreamspeed]

Thing is, when you replace your bearings you are replacing them with OEM beatings that could just have the same tolerance issues, albeit with a coating /treatment that supposedly helps.

[BPMSport]

Originally Posted by Jexter

Change your oil every 7500 miles.

Start off early with the blackstone reports. Establish the baseline and then continue to assess against that baseline. If something needs doing at some point, you tackle it then.

In the meantime enjoy your car.

The unfortunate thing is that I've seen failures on well maintained (2x the factory interval), properly warmed up S65's. They did have track use, but still. The whole bearing debacle irks me and definitely takes away some pleasure from owning such a fantastic machine.

[pbonsalb]

I am very comfortable with how I addressed the potential rod bearing issue given the presently available options. For others, the comfortable approach may differ -- the odds are it won't happen to me, the black stone report tells me everything I need to know, I'll hear it before anything bad happens, don't change bearings preventatively because you might screw something else up, sell the car and buy something else, run thinner oil, etc .

[jimk]

There are other alternatives. I use Liqui Molly Ceratec, it coats the internals with ceramic nano size particles to decrease friction. Research it, a good alternative in my view.

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by jimk

There are other alternatives. I use Liqui Molly Ceratec, it coats the internals with ceramic nano size particles to decrease friction. Research it, a good alternative in my view.

If so why a brand such as BMW is not using it, if it's that good ?

[jimk]

I don't expect any car company to endorse non OEM products, same reason for not endorsing brand X coated bearings or using another brand of of say tires even if they are better. But that doesn't mean that they are not effective.

[Harry Da Hamster]

The rod bearings scare the shit out of me. How often do you see a tear down thread with good bearings that don't need changing? Seems to me that every one of those threads shows some sort of abnormal wear. Catastrophic engine failure, maybe not. But this leads me to believe bearing wear is more significant than what people downplay it out to be. I still run it hard though, LOL.

[pbonsalb]

Originally Posted by jimk

There are other alternatives. I use Liqui Molly Ceratec, it coats the internals with ceramic nano size particles to decrease friction. Research it, a good alternative in my view.

There is always one of those miracles in a bottle on the market. I am old enough to remember when Slick50 came out. These days I see the ads for Xado or something like that in the car magazines. I did not consider any of these products, but perhaps they make others feel more secure.

[M3 Esq]

I'm not worried about it. Like I said in the other thread, I've never heard of a case outside of these forums. Seems like internet paranoia to me.

If my engine blows I'll do an S85 swap and call it a day.

[FormulaMMM]

As of July, 2013 there were over 57,000 E9X M3's manufactured. http://www.m3post.com/forums/showpos...17&postcount=1

The up to date registry here indicates between 60-70 failures, and that's supercharged included. http://www.m3post.com/forums/showpos...32&postcount=1 Thread has been active since 2012.

Let's say we've heard about only 10% of the failures out there -- yes, I admit that's a stab in the dark -- that's a fail rate of ~1.2%. If we've heard about 5% of the failures out there (unlikely imo), then we arrive at a ~2.4% fail rate, etc.

In reality, I think we've probably heard about notably more than 5 or 10% of the total failures.

So I like my odds. Not ruining my experience.

All of this is not at all to minimize the very real consequences of the failures experienced by responsible owners, or dismiss the idea that BMW didn't get these bearings right.

[Sinful]

Originally Posted by FormulaMMM

As of July, 2013 there were over 57,000 E9X M3's manufactured. http://www.m3post.com/forums/showpos...17&postcount=1

The up to date registry here indicates between 60-70 failures, and that's supercharged included. http://www.m3post.com/forums/showpos...32&postcount=1 Thread has been active since 2012.

Let's say we've heard about only 10% of the failures out there -- yes, I admit that's a stab in the dark -- that's a fail rate of ~1.2%. If we've heard about 5% of the failures out there (unlikely imo), then we arrive at a ~2.4% fail rate, etc.

In reality, I think we've probably heard about notably more than 5 or 10% of the total failures.

So I like my odds. Not ruining my experience.

All of this is not at all to minimize the very real consequences of the failures experienced by responsible owners, or dismiss the idea that BMW didn't get these bearings right.

Wow if these percentages are correct then that is much better than the forums and my anxiety led me to believe. I am not unrealistic I expect more engine problems with a performance engine, and a 90% chance of no failure is more than enough for me. Based on the percentages above seems like its more in the 95% chance it wont happen to you range and along with a warranty, diligent oil changes, and avoiding superchargers etc. and excessive tracking/racing these cars seem allot more reliable than I thought.

[FormulaMMM]

Originally Posted by SinfulM3

Wow if these percentages are correct then that is much better than the forums and my anxiety led me to believe. I am not unrealistic I expect more engine problems with a performance engine, and a 90% chance of no failure is more than enough for me. Based on the percentages above seems like its more in the 95% chance it wont happen to you range and along with a warranty, diligent oil changes, and avoiding superchargers etc. and excessive tracking/racing these cars seem allot more reliable than I thought.

The manufactured figures are accurate. That's before E93 production concluded as well, so it's probably more around 58,000 total E9X's manufactured.

If the 60-70 cases documented on the forum represent only 2.5% (1/40) of the total failures worldwide (no way), then you still have your 95% chance it won't happen.

A much more likely scenario might be that we've heard about 1/3 of the total failures worldwide, or 210 failures. That would be a 0.3% failure rate. And again, this isn't taking into account stock vs modified.

[jimk]

I think a better ratio of determining the probability of failures is to use the statistics of this forum alone. Not all owners that have experienced bearing failures are members of this forum and at the same time not all M3 owners worldwide are members here either. So if we stick with what we know based on this forum stats, the ratio of failed S65 may represent more closely the reality globally. So if we get the M3 failures listed in this forum and divide them by the total number of active E9x M3 members we may get better real world numbers. Since we also know how many SC owners are here and how many failed bearings we have seen from SC cars, we can determined the ratio of failures based on if a SC is installed or not. I'm on my iPhone to look up these numbers but I could come up with something later.

[Amirsm3]

Originally Posted by jimk

I think a better ratio of determining the probability of failures is to use the statistics of this forum alone. Not all owners that have experienced bearing failures are members of this forum and at the same time not all M3 owners worldwide are members here either. So if we stick with what we know based on this forum stats, the ratio of failed S65 may represent more closely the reality globally. So if we get the M3 failures listed in this forum and divide them by the total number of active E9x M3 members we may get better real world numbers. Since we also know how many SC owners are here and how many failed bearings we have seen from SC cars, we can determined the ratio of failures based on if a SC is installed or not. I'm on my iPhone to look up these numbers but I could come up with something later.

There's one really important, but unknown variable, though. Any calculations you do are moot because no one knows how many motors worldwide have failed due to the bearings. Taking incomplete data and then formulating some sort of "real world" snapshot is a misinterpretation.

We know how many total cars have been produced (I think it's a sticky in this sub forum) so all you would have to do is find the number of all the motors that have failed to rod bearings and divide it into the amount of total cars produced. It's not rocket science, but finding the correct data may just be.

[FormulaMMM]

Originally Posted by jimk

I think a better ratio of determining the probability of failures is to use the statistics of this forum alone. Not all owners that have experienced bearing failures are members of this forum and at the same time not all M3 owners worldwide are members here either. So if we stick with what we know based on this forum stats, the ratio of failed S65 may represent more closely the reality globally. So if we get the M3 failures listed in this forum and divide them by the total number of active E9x M3 members we may get better real world numbers. Since we also know how many SC owners are here and how many failed bearings we have seen from SC cars, we can determined the ratio of failures based on if a SC is installed or not. I'm on my iPhone to look up these numbers but I could come up with something later.

Not aware of any way to actually determine how many members are E9X owners, but I agree that would be ideal. Mobile indicates >200k members on this forum. I'm all ears if you can find more relevant stats than what I've referenced.

Originally Posted by Amirsm3

There's one really important, but unknown variable, though. Any calculations you do are moot because no one knows how many motors worldwide have failed due to the bearings. Taking incomplete data and then formulating some sort of "real world" snapshot is a misinterpretation.

We know how many total cars have been produced (I think it's a sticky in this sub forum) so all you would have to do is find the number of all the motors that have failed to rod bearings and divide it into the amount of total cars produced. It's not rocket science, but finding the correct data may just be.

I think we can reasonably conclude that the failure rate is very low based upon the statistics I've already quoted in this thread (including how many total E9X's produced). That's probably as good as it's going to get, and for most good enough to quell hysteria on this subject.

Around 60-70 reported failures on the forum -- stock, supercharged, and everywhere in between.

Go to the extreme and postulate the real world failures are 40x what has been reported on the forum, and you're at a fail rate of 5%.

I think that's probably wildly inaccurate though. That would assume that reasonably affluent, (mostly) technologically capable M3 owners with failed motors wouldn't be online researching, reporting, asking questions about their $25k loss. In a world where people can't stay off Yelp if they get the wrong sauce for their mcnuggets.

[nvlarchitect]

Originally Posted by M3 Esq

I'm not worried about it. Like I said in the other thread, I've never heard of a case outside of these forums. Seems like internet paranoia to me.

If my engine blows I'll do an S85 swap and call it a day.