Blown motors, Rod Bearing failure S65 Registry.

[Rich150001]

Originally Posted by 335m

Very useful information thank you. I am curious to know if there were any pre-lci failures that were showing healthy blackstone reports.

If 100% of the time the wear will show a few oil changes away from failure I will wait to replace mine.

Yes, there is. I think the guy IIAPTX (mispelled his username) had a failure with a clean Blackstone report. Most of the time though the blackstone reports do seem to show wear/trends, but not always.

[G80indy]

Blackstone won't catch the large metal shaving or rogue fragment that kills one bearing.
That's all it takes

Apparently

[aus]

Originally Posted by BostonS65

Well my 13' crapped out. 3100 miles on the clock died in slow traffic. new motor. bone stock.

Sorry but you've been added to the registry.

Could you please take a few minutes to file a complaint here with NHTSA since it happened while you were driving? It's really the only way to get BMW to acknowledge the problem now.

https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/VehicleComplaint/

Originally Posted by Doc Oc

Wow that sucks. Do they know what happened? Seems that for every car we see with 150k + miles we see one that dies young. BMW should be ashamed.

I don't know man. Seems like there's a lot more blown motors than ones with 150,000 miles.

.

[CSBM5]

Originally Posted by Rich150001

There is conflicting information from the manufacturer of the OEM bearings bebearings (https://www.bebearings.com/) saying the older 2008-2010 bearings are more reliable than the 2013s.

"Newer factory bearings (2010.5 and later) are made from tin-aluminum, not lead-copper. Tin-aluminum bearings are 4-times harder on the surface than lead-copper bearings. This extra hardness shows signs of doing more damage to motors as there seems to be more bearing failures with 2010.5 and later vehicles. Tin-aluminum bearings also don't show the same signs of premature wear in Blackstone oil analysis due to lack of lead and copper."

Note that information is *not* from the manufacturer of the bearings but from the company marketing their own bearing design. It is also supposition that hasn't been supported by actual data. Also note that the later factory bearing design has slightly more clearance along with significantly increased eccentricity -- both good things for the rod bearing in this case versus the original ones.

[thekurgan]

Originally Posted by Rich150001

There is conflicting information from the manufacturer of the OEM bearings bebearings (https://www.bebearings.com/) saying the older 2008-2010 bearings are more reliable than the 2013s.

"Newer factory bearings (2010.5 and later) are made from tin-aluminum, not lead-copper. Tin-aluminum bearings are 4-times harder on the surface than lead-copper bearings. This extra hardness shows signs of doing more damage to motors as there seems to be more bearing failures with 2010.5 and later vehicles. Tin-aluminum bearings also don't show the same signs of premature wear in Blackstone oil analysis due to lack of lead and copper."

I don't see the conflict. You don't want a hard metal as the babbitt layer. They are trying to elude to the fact that wear determination is more difficult as well as being of a hard material.

[Sneaky Pete]

Thats 4 times harder as in cheese is 4 times harder than butter when comparing lead-copper bearings against tin-aluminium bearings in the context of a hardened crank journal.
The latter BMW bearings with more clearance have a similar reliability to the older bearings.

[BostonS65]

Originally Posted by aus

Sorry but you've been added to the registry.

Could you please take a few minutes to file a complaint here with NHTSA since it happened while you were driving? It's really the only way to get BMW to acknowledge the problem now.

https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/VehicleComplaint/




I don't know man. Seems like there's a lot more blown motors than ones with 150,000 miles.

.

That was the first thing I did. Unfortunatly I already knew about that link from all the previous research I had done on this car... Just didnt expect to be posting in this thread so soon.

[BostonS65]

Originally Posted by 330indy

Wow is right!
What did the dealer say? BMW NA?
I assume you did the 1200 mi break in service, so the oil had ~2000 mi on it....
DCT or MT?
Any serious revs prior?
We're there any strange sounds or telltale symptoms or just abrupt?

There were no symptoms at all I would always let the car idle for a few minutes before I would even put it in gear. I would wait for the car to be fully warmed up before revving it out (oil temp to normal). no serious revs just the occasional on ramp blast. I didnt rev the car past 4k the the entire trip when it happened. DCT

[Obioban]

Originally Posted by BostonS65

There were no symptoms at all I would always let the car idle for a few minutes before I would even put it in gear. I would wait for the car to be fully warmed up before revving it out (oil temp to normal). no serious revs just the occasional on ramp blast. I didnt rev the car past 4k the the entire trip when it happened. DCT

Letting it warm up at idle is actually bad for it, as different components warm up (expand) at different speeds. The e46m manual actually explicitly states NOT to do that. Gentle driving immediately is the best way to warm up a car.

Not that that caused your failure, just for your general information going forward.

[Rich150001]

Originally Posted by CSBM5

Note that information is *not* from the manufacturer of the bearings but from the company marketing their own bearing design. It is also supposition that hasn't been supported by actual data. Also note that the later factory bearing design has slightly more clearance along with significantly increased eccentricity -- both good things for the rod bearing in this case versus the original ones.

You are right, they aren't the same manufacturer, but are manufactured in the same place. I misinterpreted the following statement on their site.

"BE Bearings have brought a custom rod bearing solution, manufactured in the same Clevite facility as the OEM bearings"

[Green-Eggs]

Originally Posted by Rich150001

There is conflicting information from the manufacturer of the OEM bearings bebearings (https://www.bebearings.com/) saying the older 2008-2010 bearings are more reliable than the 2013s.

"Newer factory bearings (2010.5 and later) are made from tin-aluminum, not lead-copper. Tin-aluminum bearings are 4-times harder on the surface than lead-copper bearings. This extra hardness shows signs of doing more damage to motors as there seems to be more bearing failures with 2010.5 and later vehicles. Tin-aluminum bearings also don't show the same signs of premature wear in Blackstone oil analysis due to lack of lead and copper."

Originally Posted by CSBM5

Note that information is *not* from the manufacturer of the bearings but from the company marketing their own bearing design. It is also supposition that hasn't been supported by actual data. Also note that the later factory bearing design has slightly more clearance along with significantly increased eccentricity -- both good things for the rod bearing in this case versus the original ones.

• Newer factory bearings (2010.5 and later) are made from tin-aluminum, not lead-copper.

This is correct. The original lead-copper trimetal bearings are made by Clevite. The newer tin-aluminum bimetal bearings are made by Glyco.

• Tin-aluminum bearings are 4-times harder on the surface than lead-copper bearings.

This is correct too. The newer tin-aluminum bearings are 3.81 times harder at the surface than the older lead-copper bearings.

• This extra hardness shows signs of doing more damage to motors as there seems to be more bearing failures with 2010.5 and later vehicles.

I think this refers to the data collected by Senor Funky Pants or however you spell it. He's the guy who originally made that claim I think.

• Tin-aluminum bearings also don't show the same signs of premature wear in Blackstone oil analysis due to lack of lead and copper.

I think this is absolutely correct too. Blackstone report isn't going to give you the same tracking and early warning signs on the newer bearings as they do the older ones.

[pbonsalb]

Stop start may be responsible for some damage to newer bearings.

[Sneaky Pete]

Originally Posted by Green-Eggs

• Tin-aluminum bearings are 4-times harder on the surface than lead-copper bearings.

This is correct too. The newer tin-aluminum bearings are 3.81 times harder at the surface than the older lead-copper bearings.

They are still ultra soft metals compared to the crank surface

Originally Posted by Green-Eggs

• This extra hardness shows signs of doing more damage to motors as there seems to be more bearing failures with 2010.5 and later vehicles.

I think this refers to the data collected by Senor Funky Pants or however you spell it. He's the guy who originally made that claim I think.
.

Its was BE people who spuriously claimed that the new bearing hardness was a factor in the data that showed that even with more clearance the failure rate remained the same.

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by BostonS65

Well my 13' crapped out. 3100 miles on the clock died in slow traffic. new motor. bone stock.

Do you have any updates about the cause of your failure ?
Would love to know more..

[vsix]

Originally Posted by pbonsalb

Stop start may be responsible for some damage to newer bearings.

Yep, ongoing heat, cold, heat circles is just an modern day hippy- Bull shit, that causes alot of damage in our cars.

[serranot]

Originally Posted by Obioban

Letting it warm up at idle is actually bad for it, as different components warm up (expand) at different speeds. The e46m manual actually explicitly states NOT to do that. Gentle driving immediately is the best way to warm up a car.

Not that that caused your failure, just for your general information going forward.

It's not "bad" for it. Idling pollutes more and wastes fuel, but there is no evidence that warming a car up while idling is any worse for it. And I would argue that idling for 30 seconds to 1 minutes lets cold things that are now hot thermally stabilize.

That being said, I agree with you that gentle driving will get it to temp much faster and is not wasteful or hurtful.

[thekurgan]

Originally Posted by serranot

It's not "bad" for it. Idling pollutes more and wastes fuel, but there is no evidence that warming a car up while idling is any worse for it. And I would argue that idling for 30 seconds to 1 minutes lets cold things that are now hot thermally stabilize.

That being said, I agree with you that gentle driving will get it to temp much faster and is not wasteful or hurtful.

O/T, but this is one of the most used phrases in all of internetland.


Carry on now.

[Obioban]

Originally Posted by serranot

It's not "bad" for it. Idling pollutes more and wastes fuel, but there is no evidence that warming a car up while idling is any worse for it. And I would argue that idling for 30 seconds to 1 minutes lets cold things that are now hot thermally stabilize.

That being said, I agree with you that gentle driving will get it to temp much faster and is not wasteful or hurtful.

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-idling-your-car-in-the-morning-is-doing-to-your-engine-and-its-not-good-2016-1

[serranot]

Originally Posted by Obioban

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-idling-your-car-in-the-morning-is-doing-to-your-engine-and-its-not-good-2016-1

And he states exactly what I said--30 seconds to a minute.

[serranot]

Originally Posted by Obioban

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-idling-your-car-in-the-morning-is-doing-to-your-engine-and-its-not-good-2016-1

It is a good article. Would like to see actual data as opposed to this theoretical possibility. But I would not discount it as being wrong.

[Sneaky Pete]

Its surely a bit of a trade off between putting more energy into a cold engine block to heat it up quicker by driving against the increased damage done by using above idle engine revs when engine wear is at its highest.

[jcolley]

Originally Posted by serranot

It is a good article. Would like to see actual data as opposed to this theoretical possibility. But I would not discount it as being wrong.

Would like to see someone familiar with the mss6x filling regulator warmup subroutine chime in with the adjustments provided by the compensation vs TMOT equation. My gut tells me BS.

I will say I would be hard pressed to get my seatbelt on and situated in the car to safely drive away before the engine was above 40 deg F. In Maine.