Official S65 Rod Bearing Condition Example Thread

[Hondaman23]

BE bearings and the ARP bolts from BE. Can’t wait to see a couple more people with some decent mileage on them and they pull them for inspection and post some pics. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy that I have it done, and it will not be needed again. That was a pain in the ass.

[Bubbles]

Attached are my 2011 rod bearings after 113k miles. Oil change every 3k-5k with Castrol 10W-60. 1200 mile service completed in Germany, followed by 4 tourist days at the Nurburgring. Car was tracked on average twice a month (1-2 days with 30-60 minute sessions - Sebring, VIR, Homestead, Road Atlanta, Daytona). I also attached my oil analysis for the last 60k oil change intervals.

BE bearings and ARP bolts put in, waiting on an oil pickup tube bolt before buttoning up.

[Assimilator1]

Yeah they look quite rough!
Thanks for pics & oil reports , I don't suppose you've got oil reports going all the way back have you?

[Space Fox]

Just had mine taken out today.

2012 e92 46,630 miles. I'm the third owner. Second owner only put 1,100 miles on the car. I only just got the car in September and am responsible for close to 4,000 miles. Tracked once under my ownership at Sebring. I let the car warm but do tend to use the full rev range when I'm in the driver's seat.

I should also add that I've had two Blackstone analyses done under my ownership. Both came back with flying colors, no sign of wear.

[Bubbles]

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

Yeah they look quite rough!
Thanks for pics & oil reports , I don't suppose you've got oil reports going all the way back have you?

I do back to 30k. I just need to look.

[Pig Farmer]

Originally Posted by Bubbles

I do back to 30k. I just need to look.

I few questions.

1) Did you take that picture of your bearings with a B&W camera?
2) Why does your car have lead bearings? Liar!
3) Can you lower the speed bumps in your neighborhood?
4) Did you take my advice and name your new pup “Covid”?
5) Why aren’t you done yet?

[Assimilator1]

Yea I was going to mention about the lack of colour (but forgot), very odd.

You seriously calling him a liar!? Apart from that being out of order, he's posted the photos showing so! The 088/089 are the earlier bearings!
Some later 2010 built engines did have them, & theirs been at least one case where a later car had an earlier replacement engine.
Maybe you know him & are joking?? (in which case you should make it a little clearer ).

brantp
Yea their rather worn for such low mileage.
Btw, AFIAK oil analysis is no use for tracking bearing wear when you have the LCI (alu/tin) bearings, unless BlkSt are claiming they track/relate the alu sn levels to bearing wear?? (would be new to me if they did).
Would you be able to take a close up photo of one(some) of the black spots of one of your bearings? The reason I ask is because deansbimmer took a close up shot of one , and it turned out it was blue not black, which showed that it wasn't embedded carbon but embedded steel! I'm wondering if that's the case with all of them!?

What bearings did you have fitted?

[IamFODI]

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

Btw, AFIAK oil analysis is no use for tracking bearing wear when you have the LCI (alu/tin) bearings

This is commonly said but likely overstated.

What you can't do with the new bearings is discern rod bearing wear from a one-off oil analysis report or a few widely-spaced ones. But that's true of basically any mechanical issue on any part with any metallurgy. The only sorta-kinda exception is that with the old rod bearings, one-off or infrequent oil analysis rate seemed to have a low false positive rate -- but it also had a fairly high false negative rate, as you know.

However, if you are doing oil analysis frequently, regularly, and consistently -- which, again, you should be doing anyway if you intend to get any use out of it -- you can watch the Al and Sn numbers and see if they rise together from baseline. You should still expect a high false negative rate, but the false positive rate should be low as these engines almost never show significant Al or Sn on oil analysis.

Also, repeating for emphasis: we don't really know what 702/703 bearings are made of. It's almost certain that they contain Sn, and a safe bet that they contain Al and Cu. Per my correspondence with Glyco, if Al and Sn show up on oil analysis at all, it should be in a (VERY) roughly 9:1 or 10:1 ratio. Other than that, we're in the dark.

[Space Fox]

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

Yea I was going to mention about the lack of colour (but forgot), very odd.

You seriously calling him a liar!? Apart from that being out of order, he's posted the photos showing so! The 088/089 are the earlier bearings!
Some later 2010 built engines did have them, & theirs been at least one case where a later car had an earlier replacement engine.
Maybe you know him & are joking?? (in which case you should make it a little clearer ).

brantp
Yea their rather worn for such low mileage.
Btw, AFIAK oil analysis is no use for tracking bearing wear when you have the LCI (alu/tin) bearings, unless BlkSt are claiming they track/relate the alu sn levels to bearing wear?? (would be new to me if they did).
Would you be able to take a close up photo of one(some) of the black spots of one of your bearings? The reason I ask is because deansbimmer took a close up shot of one , and it turned out it was blue not black, which showed that it wasn't embedded carbon but embedded steel! I'm wondering if that's the case with all of them!?

What bearings did you have fitted?

I'm picking up the car today and requested the old bearings. I will take some better pictures.

I had BE bearings fitted.

[Assimilator1]

Originally Posted by IamFODI

This is commonly said but likely overstated.

What you can't do with the new bearings is discern rod bearing wear from a one-off oil analysis report or a few widely-spaced ones. But that's true of basically any mechanical issue on any part with any metallurgy. The only sorta-kinda exception is that with the old rod bearings, one-off or infrequent oil analysis rate seemed to have a low false positive rate -- but it also had a fairly high false negative rate, as you know.

However, if you are doing oil analysis frequently, regularly, and consistently -- which, again, you should be doing anyway if you intend to get any use out of it -- you can watch the Al and Sn numbers and see if they rise together from baseline. You should still expect a high false negative rate, but the false positive rate should be low as these engines almost never show significant Al or Sn on oil analysis.

Also, repeating for emphasis: we don't really know what 702/703 bearings are made of. It's almost certain that they contain Sn, and a safe bet that they contain Al and Cu. Per my correspondence with Glyco, if Al and Sn show up on oil analysis at all, it should be in a (VERY) roughly 9:1 or 10:1 ratio. Other than that, we're in the dark.

Ok, so it would be fair to say then that 'oil analysis is almost of no use for LCI bearings?'.
I thought the LCI bearings had no copper in them?
I wonder how much it would cost to have an LCI bearing itself analysed to determine material make up??
Re 9-10:1 ratio, is that if LCI bearings wear excessively?

[IamFODI]

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

I thought the LCI bearings had no copper in them?

This was based on the assumption that they were bimetal bearings, which we now believe is not true.

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

I wonder how much it would cost to have an LCI bearing itself analysed to determine material make up??

I contacted a highly recommended lab about this a while back. IIRC it was somewhere between 200 and 300 USD.

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

Re 9-10:1 ratio, is that if LCI bearings wear excessively?

Yes. And for emphasis, it was a VERY rough guideline. They could not give me the exact number.

[Assimilator1]

Eek, quite expensive then! - Crowd fund anyone?
You mentioned you spoke to Glycol, did you ask them if they could tell you the LCI bearing make up?

[IamFODI]

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

Eek, quite expensive then! - Crowd fund anyone?

Was actually thinking of doing this a while back but I figured there wouldn’t be an appetite for it. Let me know if you’re interested.

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

You mentioned you spoke to Glycol, did you ask them if they could tell you the LCI bearing make up?

I did, and the answer was a polite no. It’s proprietary.

[Bubbles]

Originally Posted by Pig Farmer

I few questions.

1) Did you take that picture of your bearings with a B&W camera?
2) Why does your car have lead bearings? Liar!
3) Can you lower the speed bumps in your neighborhood?
4) Did you take my advice and name your new pup “Covid”?
5) Why aren’t you done yet?

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

Yea I was going to mention about the lack of colour (but forgot), very odd.

You seriously calling him a liar!? Apart from that being out of order, he's posted the photos showing so! The 088/089 are the earlier bearings!
Some later 2010 built engines did have them, & theirs been at least one case where a later car had an earlier replacement engine.
Maybe you know him & are joking?? (in which case you should make it a little clearer ).

brantp
Yea their rather worn for such low mileage.
Btw, AFIAK oil analysis is no use for tracking bearing wear when you have the LCI (alu/tin) bearings, unless BlkSt are claiming they track/relate the alu sn levels to bearing wear?? (would be new to me if they did).
Would you be able to take a close up photo of one(some) of the black spots of one of your bearings? The reason I ask is because deansbimmer took a close up shot of one , and it turned out it was blue not black, which showed that it wasn't embedded carbon but embedded steel! I'm wondering if that's the case with all of them!?

What bearings did you have fitted?

Pig farmer is a a$$hat and I throw pennies at his slammed m3 when he is stripping copper from vacant houses.
I didn’t realize the pic was b&w. Here is the color photo.

My oil pickup bolt is scheduled for tomorrow- the wait is incredibly painful.

[Assimilator1]

Lol, that's better pics .
Maybe he should strip the copper from his bearings instead? (assuming the later ones).

[Space Fox]

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

brantp
Yea their rather worn for such low mileage.
Btw, AFIAK oil analysis is no use for tracking bearing wear when you have the LCI (alu/tin) bearings, unless BlkSt are claiming they track/relate the alu sn levels to bearing wear?? (would be new to me if they did).
Would you be able to take a close up photo of one(some) of the black spots of one of your bearings? The reason I ask is because deansbimmer took a close up shot of one , and it turned out it was blue not black, which showed that it wasn't embedded carbon but embedded steel! I'm wondering if that's the case with all of them!?

What bearings did you have fitted?

Here are some close up pictures as requested. I'm not seeing any blue. All appears to be carbon but I'm no expert.

[Assimilator1]

Thanks , good qaulity photos, but not as close as I was thinking , check out deansbimmer thread about it.

[deansbimmer]

A couple from the last week.

The 92k 2011 set had the 088/089 bearings and some wiping evidence towards the rear journals that we don't usually see on the lead bearings which was interesting.

The other 2011 set was typical wear to later style bearings. That car has an ESS 625 SC kit on it.

[drwankel]

All,

Just recently had my bearings done.

Car is a 2012 E92 M3, about 54K miles on it. Car has never been tracked. Daily driven. I don't move the car an inch until the cold start cycle is complete. I use BMW M Power 10w60 Oil. Oil changes every 5k miles.

Changed to BE Bearings and ARP bolts.

[Pig Farmer]

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

You seriously calling him a liar!? Apart from that being out of order, he's posted the photos showing so! The 088/089 are the earlier bearings!
Some later 2010 built engines did have them, & theirs been at least one case where a later car had an earlier replacement engine.
Maybe you know him & are joking?? (in which case you should make it a little clearer ).

Your right, sarcasm doesn’t always translate in writing, but Bubbles got it. In another post, someone was arguing that lead bearings were not installed in the 2011s.

[nkautz]

It's funny that sometimes the answer is so obvious that no one see's it. The s54 , s65 , and s85 all have too tight of rod bearing clearances for 10w60. But by the time BMW caught wind of it , there were too many failures (and plenty more to come) to suggest a different oil without admitting guilt in the process and being on the hook for the replacements.

[Assimilator1]

Good photos guys, OK for S65 bearings

Deansbimmer
Wiping, as in the smeared streaks? Is that down to oil starvation too?
In the LCI bearings, the left hand one bottom row, are those black dots actually blue if you zoom in? (like in your thread that I linked just before those photos you posted).