Is $4000 the going rate for rod bearings?

[deansbimmer]

Originally Posted by Charlievee

Etc...

You make a few valid points that in any other context would be well received. I'm sure your expertise abounds in your particular area of practice, but there's a lot I think you can still learn on the topic of bearings. You're on the right track with some of your thinking, such as contamination ultimately causing bearing destruction. For example, inconsequential contamination which would in an otherwise healthy journal be embedded in a Babbit layer, does begin to be a problem as the embedability layer is worn away due to premature wear, almost exclusively caused by inadequate clearance. As the wear causes erosion to the bore shape and eccentricity, wear rate increases exponentially. Introduction of even typical contamination can fail a journal with no Babbit and compromised hydrodynamic function. We are finding the root issue to be original clearance.

People have only seen bearings as removed prior to replacement with new bearings. Who's to say the shells we see were only going to last a few more miles? Many thousands of sets have replaced original bearings (based on my discussions with reps at various bearing manufacturers, I'm adding up over 15,000 S65 sets sold, not including OEM sales). Perhaps we don't see many more engine failures because owners are being proactive and replacing their bearings?

For what it's worth, I employ Master techs who came out of franchise dealers from the S54 and early S65 days. Dealer employees were/are absolutely instructed to downplay or plead ignorance on engine troubles and bearing failures. These days, most guys currently employed at a dealer have no experience with S65's as their employee turnover is very high and the experience pool usually only goes back a few years. It should be no surprise that a dealer would respond with "What bearing problem". For legal reasons dealers plead ignorance on any failure until corporate publishes a Service Bulletin or recall, and this S65 issue is currently under litigation, so nothing will happen until that plays out. BMW has always published rebuild specs for their engines, yet it took 11 years to release official rod bearing oil clearances. That is very strange.

In the past, dealers used to groom quality self-thinking technicians. Now, dealers groom mechanics who can flag the most hours and are graded by profitability.

[SoCalRPM]

Originally Posted by Bartledoo

I'm late to the party, but Group 2 is overpriced as hell, and they will go over quoted hours for simple stuff (like subframe bushings) that they've had experience doing before.

Originally Posted by Richneerd

Got mine changed by local board members here in California Bay Area. Mine were pretty worn on original RB's when the car was built.

I got a big laundry list knocked out at the same time.

RB Replacement
Engine Mounts
Valve cover gaskets
Oil pan gaskets
Spark Plug tubs and new spark plugs
New valve cover bolts
New crankcase valve seals
Transmission flush and fix leak
Oil Change

Around 3K total for labor and parts.

Currently at 130k miles, here goes for another 130k!

See you guys on the road!

Originally Posted by shimmy23

Great price for all that work

Shoutout to the few lone souls with a valiant attempt to steer this thread back on to a targeted topic!

[deansbimmer]

Originally Posted by SoCalRPM

Shoutout to the few lone souls with a valiant attempt to steer this thread back on to a targeted topic!

Indeed. I will no longer be posting in this thread. Let it swing back to the originally intended topic.

[SoCalRPM]

Originally Posted by deansbimmer

Indeed. I will no longer be posting in this thread. Let it swing back to the originally intended topic.

Didn't intend to put you off! Your valuable and knowledgeable insight is always welcome in my book as I've found it helpful and I know others have too!

[Charlievee]

Originally Posted by deansbimmer

inconsequential contamination which would in an otherwise healthy journal be embedded in a Babbit layer, does begin to be a problem as the embedability layer is worn away due to premature wear, almost exclusively caused by inadequate clearance. As the wear causes erosion to the bore shape and eccentricity, wear rate increases exponentially. Introduction of even typical contamination can fail a journal with no Babbit and compromised hydrodynamic function. We are finding the root issue to be original clearance.

I try to avoid getting into technical discussions, however here some thoughts regarding embedment of bearing….

The babbit overlay layer of a trimetallic bearing is typically 0.0005 – 0.0008” thick[1], this is on top of an extremely thin nickel barrier which prevent diffusion of the tin from the overlay into the intermediate babbit layer (made of copper-lead). Considering the thickness of the babbit overlay, and that most trimetallic bearings removed for replacement do not show wear down to the intermediate copper layer, how significant is the wear of the babbit overlay really to consider any real effect on bore shape and eccentricity?

It should be noted that the copper intermediate layer has conformability[2] that allows it to adapt to errors in geometry as part of its design. So it may be the case that the wear pattern observed has allowed the bearing to conform to the geometry/operating conditions of the crankshaft and that no further progression in the wear will be observed once this happens. By removing and replacing the bedded bearing with a new one (that are treated or have harder properties), you risk introducing new third-body abrasives (from new component bearing wear), or you may now be transferring forces that were once normalized by the geometry correction into other parts of the engine (such as main bearings), which more than likely is increasing the risk of engine failure.

Typically the embeddability properties of bearings are relating to the potential abrasion damage that can be caused to the crank journals[3] (particularly true for particles of 0.0005 – 0.0008” if you’re concerned with just the overlay). Embeddability indices of tri-metallic bearings that are overlay plated are about four times better than bimetallic bearings[4], this is due to the soft phase lead in the intermediate copper/lead layer of the bearing. Considering this, embeddability is not a concern with the partial loss of the babbit overlay, as there is no measureable or visual effect of wear on the intermediate layer. This is especially true when considering any benefit is outweighed by the potential risk with the introduction of third-body abrasives and creating an imbalance that was corrected by the application of the conformability.

1. http://kingbearings.com/files/Engine..._Materials.pdf

2. https://www.mahle-aftermarket.com/me...l-brochure.pdf

3. Daniel W. Gebretsadik, Jens Hardell & Braham Prakash (2019) Embeddability behaviour of some Pb-free engine bearing materials in the presence of abrasive particles in engine oil, Tribology - Materials, Surfaces & Interfaces, 13:1, 39-49.

4. Spikes RH, Davison CH, MacQuarrie NA, et al. An Assessment of dynamic embeddability relating to automotive bearing materials in thin oil film conditions. In: Dowson D, Taylor CM, Godet M, editor. Developments in Numerical and experimental methods in tribology. Proceedings of the 10th Leeds Lyon symposium on tribology; 1984 Sept 6-9; Lyon: Butterworth Co Ltd; 1983. p. 197–201.

[pbonsalb]

Looks like the new guy has googled a text book or article and cut and pasted for us, while working in his own alternative opinion that changing rod bearings is detrimental. Maybe we could give him our “broken in” used bearings and he could sell them to people who have changed their bearings.

[Charlievee]

Originally Posted by pbonsalb

Looks like the new guy has googled a text book or article and cut and pasted for us, while working in his own alternative opinion that changing rod bearings is detrimental. Maybe we could give him our “broken in” used bearings and he could sell them to people who have changed their bearings.

Do you have any experience with how new scientific and technical ideas are presented? Have you ever read or written a report? I've responded directly to what was said regarding embedment and bearings. I'm not here to make a dollar, so you can keep your old bearings. If you understood what I wrote, you'd have known that any broken in bearings would have been suitable for your specific engine anyway....

Edit: Just so it's clear. I wrote my reply, but referenced texts where I've used information to suppport my ideas. I think with that response, you clearly have no familiarity with Harvard style referencing or have experience readng or writing academic texts.

I'm not saying deansbimmer is completely wrong with the embedment comment, but yeah, he's pretty much wrong.

[JayR_e92]

If you are willing to make the 3 hour drive, try AR Auto Service in Lake Oswego Oregon. You can get it down to around the $3k mark I was quoted about $3500 and that was with all labor, parts and extra oil to drain it once over after install (basically fill and refill twice with fresh oil).

Anyway, they said without 1 or 2 of the options that they listed as extra items you could do without if trying to save money- it would be closer to $3k.

I also have the original quote in my email I'd just have to look for it.

Jay

[Vuu]

Got my bearings done at MRF.

To be honest, he's probably the only person I'd allow to do maintenance on the car. If you visit his shop, you'll know why.

All in all, bearings, bolts, gasket, hardware, oil change, coolant flush, engine mounts, and an alignment for $2500.

You could ship your car to him and get it back for under $4k

[chutak]

Originally Posted by Vuu

Got my bearings done at MRF.
All in all, bearings, bolts, gasket, hardware, oil change, coolant flush, engine mounts, and an alignment for $2500.

That's a good deal. Just got my BE bearings, bolts, and mounts done for about $2500 at RRT. Coolant flush and alignment would be about $400 extra.

[elvism]

Originally Posted by PACarGuy

Here in Philly I paid about $2,350 for RB job, including oil pan gasket, BE bearings, ARP bolts. Labor was $1,250 for the above. Motor mounts were an additional $200 or so in parts and labor was included in the $1,250.

Just curious did you get a quote from a BMW dealership for the same job in the surrounding area?

[ItsGary]

Originally Posted by MaximusB

If you're in seattle, you can easily make a 4 hour drive up to Vancouver. I paid $1300cdn for labour and supplied my own parts. $1300cdn is like what, $500usd?

I can vouch for the shop also. They did my rod bearings. $3kCAD

[PACarGuy]

Originally Posted by elvism

Just curious did you get a quote from a BMW dealership for the same job in the surrounding area?

No, I didn't as I assumed no BMW dealer would install aftermarket bearings, and with what my local dealership charges, I assumed it would be probably double the rate of the indy just for OEM bearings.