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      02-17-2021, 11:22 PM   #1
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Rod bearings & main bearings replaced under BMW warranty?

I'm looking at purchasing a car, and the current owner mentioned the first owner had the rod bearings replaced under warranty @ BMW. This caught me off guard, as typically when people say this they're just BS'ing you — however I had no reason to believe the guy selling the car was lying to me as money doesn't seem to be too much of a concern (if you know what I mean) ...

I call my friend at BMW to see if he can run the VIN through his system, which will give a report of EVERY maintenance item completed at a BMW dealership. Sure enough, the rod bearings were replaced:

06/10/2010 - 5,171 miles - connecting rod bearings
06/10/2010 - 5,171 miles - crankshaft bearing assembly

Clicking on the services leads you to the notes provided to you by the technician at the time of service, which read:
"INSTALLED NEW MAIN BEARINGS & CHECKED CLEARANCES WITH PLASTI-GAUGE. RE-INSTALLED BED PLATE WITH NEW HARDWARE AND WENT TROUGH THE TORQUING SEQUENCE 3 TIGHTENING INSTRUCTIONS. INSTALLED NEW ROD BEARINGS & CHECKED CLEARANCES WITH PLASTI-GAUGE."

Can anyone help speculate as to why BMW of Mountain View might have done this? From what I know, BMW's tolerance to replace an engine is fairly low—especially when the car is new and replacement engines are plentiful. This whole thing just makes me scratch my head. I can't imagine it's a bad thing that these services were completed (for my sake), I just can't think of WHY they would be completed.
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      02-17-2021, 11:59 PM   #2
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My car had the rod bearings replaced under warranty also
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      02-18-2021, 05:39 AM   #3
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did they change the physical crankshaft too?
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      02-18-2021, 06:34 AM   #4
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5,000 miles is one of the lowest known cases of bad rod bearings identified. They were replaced not because of a recall but because the motor had problems while it was still under warranty and the dealer had no choice. It seems like they caught it in time to save the engine, though. There are other warranty cases in which BMW replaced the entire motor.
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      02-18-2021, 09:01 AM   #5
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What’s the model year? It would be interesting to understand the process that BMW required for replacement.

I was under the impression that BMW went with an engine swap vs dealer repair for items like this while the car was in production.
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      02-18-2021, 09:04 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shimmy23 View Post
My car had the rod bearings replaced under warranty also
Why? How? Do tell!!
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      02-18-2021, 09:41 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 911r View Post
I'm looking at purchasing a car, and the current owner mentioned the first owner had the rod bearings replaced under warranty @ BMW. This caught me off guard, as typically when people say this they're just BS'ing you — however I had no reason to believe the guy selling the car was lying to me as money doesn't seem to be too much of a concern (if you know what I mean) ...

I call my friend at BMW to see if he can run the VIN through his system, which will give a report of EVERY maintenance item completed at a BMW dealership. Sure enough, the rod bearings were replaced:

06/10/2010 - 5,171 miles - connecting rod bearings
06/10/2010 - 5,171 miles - crankshaft bearing assembly

Clicking on the services leads you to the notes provided to you by the technician at the time of service, which read:
"INSTALLED NEW MAIN BEARINGS & CHECKED CLEARANCES WITH PLASTI-GAUGE. RE-INSTALLED BED PLATE WITH NEW HARDWARE AND WENT TROUGH THE TORQUING SEQUENCE 3 TIGHTENING INSTRUCTIONS. INSTALLED NEW ROD BEARINGS & CHECKED CLEARANCES WITH PLASTI-GAUGE."

Can anyone help speculate as to why BMW of Mountain View might have done this? From what I know, BMW's tolerance to replace an engine is fairly low—especially when the car is new and replacement engines are plentiful. This whole thing just makes me scratch my head. I can't imagine it's a bad thing that these services were completed (for my sake), I just can't think of WHY they would be completed.
I have to assume that this means that it spun a bearing and BMW replaced the crank.

BMW will sometimes have dealer techs do services that seem awfully strange. Here's an example: I looked at an S54 head that a former tech has had rattling around for a while. Secondary air plug came out, and BMW decided to replace the head. New head. New camshafts. (Apparently camshafts are supposed to be replaced with the head, who knew?) Tech instructed to TRANSPLANT VALVES FROM OLD HEAD TO NEW HEAD AND HAND LAP THEM IN.
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      02-18-2021, 09:59 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Scharbag View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by shimmy23 View Post
My car had the rod bearings replaced under warranty also
Why? How? Do tell!!
Previous owner knew someone in the service department. Car had 50k miles on it and warranty about to expire... he got hooked up. Since it was a bmw dealer they replaced with bmw RBs tho.
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      02-18-2021, 12:41 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bubbles View Post
What's the model year? It would be interesting to understand the process that BMW required for replacement.

I was under the impression that BMW went with an engine swap vs dealer repair for items like this while the car was in production.
It's a '10 (late production '09 I believe) — yeah, typically with rod bearing failure I'd assume they would just want to replace the entire engine but I guess not. Presumably everything worked out though as the engine has made it another ~35k miles to with no issues.
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      02-18-2021, 12:42 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by amrazM View Post
did they change the physical crankshaft too?
I'm not 100% sure, on the parts 'requested & approved list' it lists a "Crankshaft with bearing shells" — there is a chance the crankshaft was replaced too.
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      02-18-2021, 01:30 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 911r View Post
I'm not 100% sure, on the parts 'requested & approved list' it lists a "Crankshaft with bearing shells" — there is a chance the crankshaft was replaced too.
Yes, that means the crank was replaced.
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      02-19-2021, 03:46 PM   #12
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It's pretty amazing that they replaced both the RB's AND the main bearings...that's certainly not something you see every day...
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      02-19-2021, 06:05 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PACarGuy View Post
It's pretty amazing that they replaced both the RB's AND the main bearings...that's certainly not something you see every day...
AND the crank supposedly! Weird stuff.
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      02-19-2021, 09:09 PM   #14
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Weird that the record doesn't state new crankshaft though.
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      02-20-2021, 06:00 AM   #15
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Tend to agree, the bill of material assumingly should include everything down to final nut incl shaft if thats replaced.
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      02-20-2021, 10:45 AM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Helmsman View Post
Tend to agree, the bill of material assumingly should include everything down to final nut incl shaft if thats replaced.
Was able to get a pic!
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      02-21-2021, 07:23 AM   #17
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Wow, the shaft is replaced as well! That must have been one costly exersise...
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      02-22-2021, 09:14 AM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PACarGuy View Post
It's pretty amazing that they replaced both the RB's AND the main bearings...that's certainly not something you see every day...
What's surprising is that they didn't replace the motor.

A warranty repair of this type means that a bearing actually spun. That means crank damage. Which means extensive parts replacement.
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      02-22-2021, 11:31 AM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nrubenstein View Post
What's surprising is that they didn't replace the motor.

A warranty repair of this type means that a bearing actually spun. That means crank damage. Which means extensive parts replacement.
Yes, that's why I was so surprised by a mains replacement. I would have thought with all the labor and risk after replacing the mains and crank, they would have just replaced with a fresh motor.
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      02-23-2021, 12:38 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PACarGuy View Post
Yes, that's why I was so surprised by a mains replacement. I would have thought with all the labor and risk after replacing the mains and crank, they would have just replaced with a fresh motor.
I've learned over the years that BMW can be weird about what they instruct technicians to do at any given moment.
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      02-23-2021, 03:37 PM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nrubenstein View Post
I've learned over the years that BMW can be weird about what they instruct technicians to do at any given moment.
Maybe they had a master tech available to help ?
I guess, worst case, it would fail again and they'd just put another motor in anyway...
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      02-23-2021, 07:00 PM   #22
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My guess is the motor locked up due to a seized main bearing and they felt the block was still good enough to attempt the repair.

What year was the car? Perhaps in 2010 it was one of the earlier failures and they changed how they fixed these failures after that.
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