glitter, flakes, magnetic material in oil after some high RPM driving

[bmwm3s65]

just wanted give closure to this thread. I sold the engine. The person i sold it to, confirmed that main bearing 1 failed cracking the saddle and causing rod bearing 1 to spin.

[spammysammich]

Brutal, thanks for the follow up!

[Assimilator1]

Ditto, thanks for updating us (and the excellent quality photos too).
I'll update the blown engine list.

RIP the S65 .

[charliev68]

Thank you for sharing!

[sergbaja5t]

I was looking this thread and realized that this might have been the same failure i experienced. My motor let go out of town in 2018, lucky me I had extended warranty, it was covered (new engine). My front 2 rod bearings spun, maybe from main bearing failure? That's in the past now, I'm on my first set of BE's on the new engine(140k now).

[BimmerMan33]

Went thru the entire thread..
There just seems to be no way to definitively prolong rod/main bearing life with these motors.. seems like a roll of the dice as some motors last over 200,000 on original rod/main bearings & others don’t even make it to a 100,000 inspite of taking proper care..
Wonder what the M division does differently that the bottom end of S65, S85 & S54 don’t last while you never hear such stories with AMG or RS or other marquees..

[Assimilator1]

I thought the S54 was fixed with the bearing update/revision by BMW?

S65 main bearing failure is much rarer than rod bearing failure, we can at least sort the the latter out relatively easy and cut the risk significantly of engine failure.
See the 3rd link in my sig of mains vs rod bearing failure reported to this forum.

[spammysammich]

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

I though the S54 was fixed with the bearing update/revision by BMW?

S65 main bearing failure is much rarer than rod bearing failure, we can at least sort the the latter out relatively easy and cut the risk significantly of engine failure.
See the 3rd link in my sig of mains vs rod bearing failure reported to this forum.

I had a neighbor that would flip and track e46 M3s and he constantly had an engine opened up in his garage to do rod bearing swaps and valve adjustments. Just about every weekend during track season between his cars and his friends cars. If the S54 had been sorted these guys didn’t get the memo. At one point he had 3 in his garage and driveway with only one driving. Nice guy but his cars had him busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. He daily drives an RS3 now and has washed his hands of his “slow” cars.

[Assimilator1]

Lol

I've read very little about the S54s problems, just seen a couple of people claim that the updated bearings fixed the S54s rod bearing problem.
I already spend far too much time reading, discussing and arguing about S65 bearing issues, I don't want to go do another rabbit hole! lol
Is there a single good experienced source here or elsewhere about the S54 bearing story?

[nrubenstein]

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

Lol

I've read very little about the S54s problems, just seen a couple of people claim that the updated bearings fixed the S54s rod bearing problem.
I already spend far too much time reading, discussing and arguing about S65 bearing issues, I don't want to go do another rabbit hole! lol
Is there a single good experienced source here or elsewhere about the S54 bearing story?

The famous S54 bearing failure issue was a supply chain problem. Rod bearings entered the supply chain in the wrong size. These most impacted early MY02, but accidentally got shipped as late as '03. IIRC it was 10/01 and 11/01 production cars that really, really got fucked over. I remember that over 10% of US VINs reported an engine failure in online tracking. Which means that the actual failure rate had to have been a lot higher.

Today, S54s will spin rod bearings, but not *that* often. Considering the nature of the engine, the S54 has proven to be pretty incredibly reliable. It just has the reputation due to the early teething issues.

[Assimilator1]

Are todays S54s which have spun bearings due to bearing failure, or something else?

[nrubenstein]

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

Are todays S54s which have spun bearings due to bearing failure, or something else?

Still generally bearing failure. It's still a high revving, high strung engine. You absolutely should replace them - they're a wear part and they've mostly got real mileage on them today.

Also, consider replacing / rebuilding the oil pump. It's absolutely a wear item.

[Assimilator1]

To name just one other, the Honda S2000 has a high revving engine too (8.2-9k RPM depending on variant) and they don't have rod bearing problems (where it's not caused by something else). I hear the R8s also don't suffer RB problems either, but I've not looked into that one.
Anyway, my point is, just because it's a high revving engine doesn't mean it should wear out the bearings prematurely.
Rod bearings are not meant to be a wear item! But for some reason they are on the S54,65 and 85s.
Any idea why the S54s wear them out?

Interesting to hear about the oil pumps on the S54s, perhaps that's why the bearings fail?

[nrubenstein]

Originally Posted by Assimilator1

To name just one other, the Honda S2000 has a high revving engine too (8.2-9k RPM depending on variant) and they don't have rod bearing problems (where it's not caused by something else). I hear the R8s also don't suffer RB problems either, but I've not looked into that one.
Anyway, my point is, just because it's a high revving engine doesn't mean it should wear out the bearings prematurely.
Rod bearings are not meant to be a wear item! But for some reason they are on the S54,65 and 85s.
Any idea why the S54s wear them out?

Interesting to hear about the oil pumps on the S54s, perhaps that's why the bearings fail?

I'm not sure why you say that S2000s don't have rod bearing failures.

And no, I don't attribute most failures to the pumps.

[Assimilator1]

I didn't say the S2000s have no rod bearings failures, see the bit in brackets in my previous post .

(Although I recently stumbled across an old post (2016) here in a BE bearings thread by Rajmun claiming in the late 2000s that some S2000s were suffering some RB failures without other mechanical faults. But when I looked for cases a few years ago they were very rare, and all caused by other issues, e.g oil pump failures (ironically).

Re S54 oil pumps, fair enough.