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      03-28-2017, 10:10 AM   #129
pbonsalb
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Drives: 18 F90 M5, 99 E36 M3 Turbo
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: New England

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As far as I know, no replacement bearings with substantial mileage have been pulled and inspected yet. The cars just aren't old enough or driven enough. Over a dozen motors with VAC bearings have been opened up again, mostly by Malek at MRF as part of high level track car maintenance, and all have looked great. The most mileage I have read of is 13k when checked.

So there is nothing definitive at this point in time. I changed my rod bearings 3 years and 25k miles ago and don't plan to check the for at least another 3 years. Others have had replacement bearings for much longer but since they are not pulling them to inspect, we don't know how they look.

For now, I consider bearing replacement as maintenance, with the interval based on how yours looked when they came out. There is no certainty how they look just based on age or mileage. The only way to know is to change them. There is at least one car with over 250k miles on original bearings, and there has also been at least one car with failed bearings by 25k miles.
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