Blown motors, Rod Bearing failure S65 Registry.

[TX]

I am completely amazed at these ~ year old cars with engine failures. I'm approaching 40K on my 09. I have high lead readings on the last oil change. No odd noises. tick, tick, tick at idle. I've had the single loud clunk vanos gear/chain rattle noise for about 2 years on the first start after it sits overnight. Otherwise the engine is smooth all the way to redline.
I'm shocked BMW has looked the other way this long, but it seems they did the numbers and decided it was cheaper to fix a few engines, deny a few claims, and totally skip a recall on the issue.
Some say 0W40 is the end all fix, but others ran 10W60 for 100K+ miles with no problems.
Some failed on 10W60 in 12K miles. Anyone run 0W40 from the beginning and have blackstone reports to compare with the rest of us? That would be very interesting.
I guess we will never know.
10W60 on my next refill until my engine blows...22ppm lead on the last report, ugh.

[swartzentruber]

Originally Posted by 4corners

115000 miles and it runs better all the time. Below is a Blackstone report for 111000, I was slow sending it in.

$1,000,000 question! What is the difference between this car and others that fail with less miles? Assembly technique?

Not to revive old speculation, but based on the failures that SenorFunkyPants has compiled, the only "rough" correlations seem to be with either states with 91 octane (CA has by far the largest number of true failures, though I don't think anyone knows how many more M3s there are there vs other states) or warmer weather states, though there's no real credible explanation as to why either of those factors would be linked to failure. I notice with some optimism (for myself) that there are still no Illinois failures, though there are single failures in Michigan, NY, and VT, so it's not like the northern states are completely unrepresented (not sure if those were original owner cars though). The most interesting trend is for the newer models to fail with lower mileage, though from an owner perspective, it's certainly far better for the failure to occur under warranty. I keep sort of hoping the failure rate will pick up enough that either a) BMW will figure it out and decide to recall or b) it will at least become more obvious what factors are leading to the failures. So far the rate of actual failure is staying low enough that neither have happened.

[kawasaki00]

Originally Posted by TX

Some say 0W40 is the end all fix, but others ran 10W60 for 100K+ miles with no problems.
Some failed on 10W60 in 12K miles. Anyone run 0W40 from the beginning and have blackstone reports to compare with the rest of us? That would be very interesting.
I guess we will never know.
10W60 on my next refill until my engine blows...22ppm lead on the last report, ugh.

No one said the 0-40 is a fix all, because it is not. The fix all is the proper bearing clearance and oil mated to that clearance. Simple as that.

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by thekurgan

BMW's solution appears to be the S55, or so they want you to think Until something catastrophic is discovered with that puppy anyway.

That's an expensive solution !

[Morally Gray]

You can add mine to the list.

70k, cracked block, main bearings stuffed.

[SenorFunkyPants]

Originally Posted by swartzentruber

Not to revive old speculation, but based on the failures that SenorFunkyPants has compiled, the only "rough" correlations seem to be with either states with 91 octane (CA has by far the largest number of true failures, though I don't think anyone knows how many more M3s there are there vs other states) or warmer weather states, though there's no real credible explanation as to why either of those factors would be linked to failure.

Back when we started logging engine failures I was pretty convinced that the data would show a higher failure rate in cooler states - seemed logical, a relatively high viscosity oil in a cold climate would be far more likely to cause bearing problems because of a poor flow rate and/or an insufficient warm up period. That the opposite is the case infers that the OEM oils viscosity is not a significant cause of the problem.
Understanding why the failure rate is significantly higher in warm/hot states and why the bearing wear pattern predominantly shows high wear in only one or two bearings is the key.
Myself I don't think this is simply a clearance specification problem, otherwise the problem would be far more prevalent and the wear pattern far more even. If its a bearing quality control issue (some bearings out of thickness spec) then the failure rate should be even across all states.
4 warm/hot states account for nearly 60% of failures with California alone with 34% of failures - that should tell us something.

[SenorFunkyPants]

Originally Posted by Agent_Orange

You can add mine to the list.

70k, cracked block, main bearings stuffed.

I already added your car noting that your car was supercharged - is that correct?

[TX]

Ouch, was his car SC? Hmm
Also, you cant really base any figure on a particular state unless every state had an equal percentage of ownership. For all we know, California, as you mentioned might have around half of total US ownership of M3s. Actually that number wouldn't surprise me. The stats would be bogus then. Not to mention that not all M3 owners post on this forum, including failed engine owners.

[SenorFunkyPants]

I've been using the map of M3post owners
https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=1061097
to get an idea of ownership by state. California looks like it accounts for around 24% of owners.

[TX]

Originally Posted by SenorFunkyPants

I've been using the map of M3post owners
https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=1061097
to get an idea of ownership by state. California looks like it accounts for around 24% of sales.

Senior, no disrespect, but
the map is only based on members of the forum so it's hardly something you can use as a figure which is exactly my point. That said, I would totally agree that the largest M3 sale %s are west coast Cali and each coast NY hands down based on income level or maybe douchebaggery types?? Although there are a good number of us in SE FL not to be forgotten as good owners, but we're excluded from the douchebaggery statistic of course ;-)

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by SenorFunkyPants

I already added your car noting that your car was supercharged - is that correct?

Correct ! The car was supercharged >http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthr...=918784&page=8
But damn another one !

[TX]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

Correct ! The car was supercharged >http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthr...=918784&page=8
But damn another one !

I think there have been way more than enough non supercharged engine failures, some brand new cars in the first 15K to allow us to consider the fact that supercharging should not be considered as a root cause for their engine failure. clearly they are pushing the engines into areas beyond design limits, but if a SC engine runs 70K miles and a non SC engine dies in 12 to 15K miles maybe we should reconsider the blanket assumption SC is to blame for the engine failure.
TX

[SenorFunkyPants]

Originally Posted by TX

the map is only based on members of the forum so it's hardly something you can use as a figure which is exactly my point.

Hmmm its not going to be exact but I think its going to be fairly accurate for states with a lot of entries.
We are dealing with M3post members who post a failure and a map showing where around 190 USA M3post members live - I don't think its unreasonable to correlate the two.
On supercharging - a while ago when I did the numbers it looked like a supercharged M3 was 4 times more likely to fail than a stock car. Currently its 7 failed supercharged cars - thats quite lot considering the low number of cars that have been supercharged.

Current list of failures (without Maleks car and 1 S/C car):

[TX]

I'll fully respect your findings. I just think it's quite possible that in this case supercharged owners are much more likely to be members on this forum than your average owner. This could easily skew the results.

You have to consider
the total number of owners
the total number of owners on this forum
the total number of owners who reported failures here
the total number of owners with SC who reported failures here
the total number of owners with SC who did not report failures here(but I suspect most SC owners read this site)
*** since most SC failure owners read here, it may greatly skew the figures.
the total number of owners who are not members who had failures.
Any polling date needs to be adjusted based on the sampling pool, which could be rather hard to do.

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by TX

I think there have been way more than enough non supercharged engine failures, some brand new cars in the first 15K to allow us to consider the fact that supercharging should not be considered as a root cause for their engine failure. clearly they are pushing the engines into areas beyond design limits, but if a SC engine runs 70K miles and a non SC engine dies in 12 to 15K miles maybe we should reconsider the blanket assumption SC is to blame for the engine failure.
TX

I know , worst bearing failure on here is a built of end 2013 with only 6,700 miles on it and 100 % stock !
Foolio2 > # 204 on this page >http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthr...786615&page=10

[V1.47fan]

Whatever numbers senior funky has, dont mean much, a good number of registered members dont come here to report their engine failures.

They come to get info on mods etc., they dont need advice from people to tell them, "take it to the dealer".

Also an erroneous assumption is that all M3 owners are M3post members, in reality, we represent a small fraction of owners.
And out of this small fraction of members, most dont report their engine problems especially if they plan on selling the car on here later.

I find it very misleading to take the number of engine failures here versus all E9X M3 built and go," jeez that's such a small number".

Another example:
To date, I've only heard of one or two reported stock N54 major failure on E90post. It'd be silly to assume that's the failure rate of the stock N54.

[SenorFunkyPants]

Originally Posted by TX

I'll fully respect your findings. I just think it's quite possible that in this case supercharged owners are much more likely to be members on this forum than your average owner. This could easily skew the results.

You have to consider
the total number of owners
the total number of owners on this forum
the total number of owners who reported failures here
the total number of owners with SC who reported failures here
the total number of owners with SC who did not report failures here(but I suspect most SC owners read this site)
*** since most SC failure owners read here, it may greatly skew the figures.
the total number of owners who are not members who had failures.
Any polling date needs to be adjusted based on the sampling pool, which could be rather hard to do.

True there are no definitive numbers to work with....and verifying the ones I have is quite a ball ache - having to go through a candidates post history to see if it all makes sense and to discover the important information.
As well as searching Google with every possible search combination looking for cases that haven't made it onto M3post.
As regards supercharged engine failures I don't normally pay much attention to them as it would be expected (at least to me) that their failure rate would be higher than for stock cars and therefore doesn't add to solving the mystery of the cause of S65 engine failures.
A few minutes search reveals that in addition to the 6 I have logged there are fails for:
One that RG noted ages ago but with scant details
mpowerauto
Filin M3 (twice)
Edit also: MCHM3
Thats at least 10 for how many kits fitted 500? 1000?

[SenorFunkyPants]

Originally Posted by V1.47fan

I find it very misleading to take the number of engine failures here versus all E9X M3 built and go," jeez that's such a small number".

Thats a fair comment and this was addressed in the Cumulative data on S65 engine failure thread in this post http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthr...7#post15365497
where Swamp looks at data back from M3post admin regarding membership numbers.

[aus]

Originally Posted by Agent_Orange

You can add mine to the list.

70k, cracked block, main bearings stuffed.

Originally Posted by TX

I'll fully respect your findings. I just think it's quite possible that in this case supercharged owners are much more likely to be members on this forum than your average owner. This could easily skew the results.

You have to consider
the total number of owners
the total number of owners on this forum
the total number of owners who reported failures here
the total number of owners with SC who reported failures here
the total number of owners with SC who did not report failures here(but I suspect most SC owners read this site)
*** since most SC failure owners read here, it may greatly skew the figures.
the total number of owners who are not members who had failures.
Any polling date needs to be adjusted based on the sampling pool, which could be rather hard to do.

This is totally true. I have 4 friends who have E9x M3's and NONE of them are on the forums, even after I told them about it.

Originally Posted by SenorFunkyPants

Hmmm its not going to be exact but I think its going to be fairly accurate for states with a lot of entries.
We are dealing with M3post members who post a failure and a map showing where around 190 USA M3post members live - I don't think its unreasonable to correlate the two.
On supercharging - a while ago when I did the numbers it looked like a supercharged M3 was 4 times more likely to fail than a stock car. Currently its 7 failed supercharged cars - thats quite lot considering the low number of cars that have been supercharged.

Current list of failures (without Maleks car and 1 S/C car):

Great info. Do you have a link to all your engine failures. I'll just reference your info on the front page since you're list seems more complete than what I've gathered.

.

[SenorFunkyPants]

Originally Posted by aus

Great info. Do you have a link to all your engine failures. I'll just reference your info on the front page since you're list seems more complete than what I've gathered.

.

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=935368

A lot of info comes from this thread which is far more active than mine.

[0-60Motorsports]

5 blown engines in Bahrain and none of them are on the forums.....I think.

[M.Hagen]

I mentioned this in one of the other threads (or this thread...), and this could offer a potential explanation to SFP's data collection on failure rates by state trending towards the southwest...

In my experience with 'tighter' bearing clearances, knock control can play a huge part in longevity. We know the S65 DME uses a different type of knock control, and is always trying to reach the target ignition values which are not achievable with 91 AKI fuel. At high engine loads, the S65 DME is detecting pre-ignition, and is retarding timing.

It is plausible to reason that there is enough pre-ignition allowed with the S65 DME on 91 AKI fuel to cause repeated, although minor, 'pounding' of the rod bearings.