BMW NA Approves New S65 Engine Replacement Due to Bad Rod Bearings

[swamp2]

Originally Posted by kawasaki00

There have been, it was by 2 people in PM that told me I should not spread incorrect information.

That's significantly different than,

Originally Posted by kawasaki00

everyone told me I was full of crap

[swamp2]

Originally Posted by W Cole

A failed rod bearing at 55,000 miles is indicative of faulty design. BMW needs to step up to the plate like they did on the e46 and recall the bearings and extend the engine warranty to 10 years.

In lieu of that, offering goodwill repair and extending warranties on a case by case basis seems reasonable to me.

Saying the OP should be responsible for a BMW manufacturing defect is BS.

Although your initial sentence appeals to some fundamental logic, all engines have instances with early failures, that's pretty well true by definition. Please have a look at the thread I just linked to a few posts back (again here). Have a look at the whole thread. In it there is a firm conclusion that this is nothing like the rate of failure that was present in the E46 M3. Even with an effort to grossly overestimate the amount of under reporting (not everyone who owns a failed S65 M3 engine is a member here nor would report such an event even if so) this still is nothing like the E46 M3 situation.

[regular guy]

Originally Posted by kawasaki00

They know there is a problem. They would not be giving out free engines if not.

Originally Posted by Petros

I agree. They really dont deserve any credit for "goodwill" repairs considering they are the ones who fucked up the design of the engine in the first place. But of course we'll get the usual trained morons who will assure us that TWS is liquid gold, bearing clearances were determined by god himself, and that the S65 is a flawless model of perfection

Best post of the thread so far! I got so tired of these guys in the bearing thread. Some serious lack of critical thinking going on with those guys.

Originally Posted by swamp2

From the epic bearing clearance thread and input from Clevite near the end of the thread I'm reasonably sure there is no looming large scale flaw in the S65, bearing clearances nor oil recommendation. Could BMW have engineered a combination of clearances and oil that resulted in fewer failures? Probably so, but they wanted the trade-offs exactly where they wanted them.

Clevite was very careful not to throw BMW under the bus. On one hand, they said clearance isn't an issue, and then said oil thickness is. I'm still asking engine builders if that makes sense. So far, everybody says they go hand in hand. I'm getting yet another opinion on this tomorrow from another esteemed engine builder. So it's a bit ironic that Clevite declares no issue on the one thing (clearances) that might come back to implicate them, but then declares oil thickness the problem when they have no connection to it.

[swamp2]

Originally Posted by regular guy

Clevite was very careful not to throw BMW under the bus. On one hand, they said clearance isn't an issue, and then said oil thickness is. I'm still asking engine builders if that makes sense. So far, everybody says they go hand in hand. I'm getting yet another opinion on this tomorrow from another esteemed engine builder. So it's a bit ironic that Clevite declares no issue on the one thing (clearances) that might come back to implicate them, but then declares oil thickness the problem when they have no connection to it.

Mostly agree here. However, Clevite can't be "implicated" in anything - they just buiid to print for BMW. Either way if any "problems" are concluded it all comes back to BMW not to them (except in term of supplier relations, of course).

Although, 2 counter points - most of the bearings Clevite examined were from supercharged engines and secondly also pointed out the benefits of relatively tight bearing clearances, specifically "they; 1) spread the load on the oil film out over a wider area, reducing the psi load on the film and reducing the chances for boundary or mixed lubrication conditions and 2) allow longer engine/bearing life."

[kawasaki00]

Originally Posted by swamp2

That's significantly different than,

Not playing your games in this thread

[SenorFunkyPants]

Originally Posted by Bmw M3 Guy

the noise was due to bad rod bearings. Just on what was inspected at the time, #5 rod and journal of the crankshaft were severely damaged.

JUst a quick question - has the car any history of having problems with the coil packs?

[regular guy]

Originally Posted by swamp2

Mostly agree here. However, Clevite can't be "implicated" in anything - they just buiid to print for BMW. Either way if any "problems" are concluded it all comes back to BMW not to them (except in term of supplier relations, of course).

I repeatedly made this same point in the bearing thread. Do you remember why? I made that point because many people couldn't separate BMW from Clevite. They just couldn't grasp that Clevite only made the bearings at the specification BMW gave them. So it's a difference between the engineering reality that Clevite was a contract manufacturer and the public perception that Clevite is to blame. The Clevite response reflected this perfectly by deflecting blame away from bearing clearance and onto oil thickness. The Clevite guy is smart enough (or was reading the thread) to see that people were blaming Clevite anyways. So I don't find it terribly coincidental that he deflected blame away from clearance and onto oil thickness. Now take the next step and do what I did: follow that up with engine builders and see if it makes sense. So far, it doesn't make sense to any of the engine builders I've queried. But I'm still out there trying to find one who does make sense of it.

Although, 2 counter points - most of the bearings Clevite examined were from supercharged engines and secondly also pointed out the benefits of relatively tight bearing clearances, specifically "they; 1) spread the load on the oil film out over a wider area, reducing the psi load on the film and reducing the chances for boundary or mixed lubrication conditions and

You're a physics guy, maybe you can explain that to me. This never made sense to me. When I think if "area" I think of the mathematical definition. I'd like to know how thinner oil clearance spreads the oil film to a wider area. To me, the area is the same regardless of clearance. Help me understand that please.

The Clevite guy also never answered the question about the role of supercharging. Most of the supercharged bearings I sent had very low miles on them. One set as low as 1800 supercharged miles. Yet the Clevite guy labeled all of them "terrible." That's not sitting well with me. If bearings went from perfect to the verge of failure in as little as 1800 miles, then I think we'd see a lot of supercharged engine failures (we aren't). Here's another example where I think the Clevite response was more expedient and politically correct than expository. I'm simply not buying that those bearings were fine one day and then like a light switch they turned terrible the moment a supercharger was added.

[regular guy]

BTW, OP congrats on the new engine. I'd say no doubt BMW is aware of the issue and definitely aware of the various bearing and blown engine threads on this forum.

To all the naysayers who believed BMW designed the perfect engine with the perfect bearing clearance mated with the perfect oil: what's your explanation for BMW replacing an engine free of charge 1+ years out of warranty?

[Petros]

Originally Posted by SenorFunkyPants

JUst a quick question - has the car any history of having problems with the coil packs?

No, but I think the OP accidentally filled it with diesel fuels about a dozen times and drove it through a swamp while redlining the engine at subzero temperatures in winter.

I really don't know why people still keep evading the main issue, and that is tight clearance coupled with too thick engine oil. BMW doesn't have a history of bad coil packs. They don't have a history of detonation. They don't have a history of reacting to bad fuel. What they do have a history of is a problem with clearances and oil. That was the same with the E46 M3 and the E60 M5. There is just no evidence whatsoever of any problems in terms of detonation that would lead to such bearing wear. Modern fuels are good quality. And modern engines have sophisticated knock detection and anti-detonation measures that would kick in and throw the engine into limp mode long before there is a chance of serious harm. Your arguments in the bearing thread were based on nothing more than pure speculation and guesswork without any factual evidence to back it up.

[Bmw M3 Guy]

Originally Posted by SenorFunkyPants

JUst a quick question - has the car any history of having problems with the coil packs?

None at all..
Justin

[swartzentruber]

Originally Posted by Petros

I really don't know why people still keep evading the main issue, and that is tight clearance coupled with too thick engine oil. BMW doesn't have a history of bad coil packs. They don't have a history of detonation. They don't have a history of reacting to bad fuel. What they do have a history of is a problem with clearances and oil. That was the same with the E46 M3 and the E60 M5. There is just no evidence whatsoever of any problems in terms of detonation that would lead to such bearing wear. Modern fuels are good quality. And modern engines have sophisticated knock detection and anti-detonation measures that would kick in and throw the engine into limp mode long before there is a chance of serious harm. Your arguments in the bearing thread were based on nothing more than pure speculation and guesswork without any factual evidence to back it up.

Your criticism of SFP would carry a bit more weight if this wasn't yet another example of a blown engine in a California (low octane state) car, and tuned if the signature line is correct.

[Leonardo629]

wait..is it a new motor from Germany or just a repair?

[Bmw M3 Guy]

Originally Posted by Leonardo629

wait..is it a new motor from Germany or just a repair?

I'm getting a new motor from a crate shipped from where ever they are manufactured as if it were going into a new M3 in the assembly line from what I understand.

Justin

[Leonardo629]

That's mighty cool!

Originally Posted by Bmw M3 Guy

I'm getting a new motor from a crate shipped from where ever they are manufactured as if it were going into a new M3 in the assembly line from what I understand.

Justin

[TheDeliverator]

Originally Posted by Bmw M3 Guy

I'm getting a new motor from a crate shipped from where ever they are manufactured as if it were going into a new M3 in the assembly line from what I understand.

Justin

You need to go down on the day it arrives and take pics of it during the uncrating!

[Bmw M3 Guy]

Originally Posted by TheDeliverator

You need to go down on the day it arrives and take pics of it during the uncrating!

Already on it! Will post up once I take them.

[TheDeliverator]

Originally Posted by Bmw M3 Guy

Already on it! Will post up once I take them.

BMW have an s65 on display at the Welt. The lady giving the tour got upset with me because she was moving the tour group on and it was clear I was not moving on with them. Couldn't stop gawking at the engine. It's a beauty to look at.

Good times

[regular guy]

Originally Posted by swartzentruber

Your criticism of SFP would carry a bit more weight if this wasn't yet another example of a blown engine in a California (low octane state) car, and tuned if the signature line is correct.

This seems worth repeating from the bearing thread:

Even 93 octane is low octane to a 12:1 compression ratio motor. You can't run 12:1 on anything less than about 110 octane without a very good and very active spark management system. BMW also varies the cylinder pressure by controller CAM overlap and thereby makes a kind of form of dynamic compression ratio. You need to have very good ECU programming to make this all work together. So if 91 octane is the problem, then BMW screwed up the programming of the ECU. That's the same thing the Clevite guy and other engine experts all said about this low octane theory.

Just so there's no misunderstanding here: 93 octane is low to a 12:1 motor also. That makes all 50 states "low octane states" to this engine. So if 93 is fine and 91 is the problem, then BMW screwed up the ECU programming.

[SenorFunkyPants]

Just so there is no misunderstanding.....Regular Guy Q&A with Clevite:

Q: Are there any signs of detonation?
A: Probably, but certainly signs of very high cylinder pressure on the supercharged applications. Detonation is uncontrolled combustion of the fuel in an engine. Normal combustion in an engine starts with a fuel burn at the sparkplug then burns on an ever expanding flame front until the fuel is consumed. It is similar to a grass fire starting at one spot and burning in an ever expanding flame front. In detonation the spark ignites the fuel then fuel on the back side of the combustion chamber explodes before the flame front has reached it.
When that occurs, cylinder pressure spikes quickly and sometimes reaches 2-3 times normal cylinder pressure. The duration of the spike is short but that pressure spike is really hard on the oil film. Those dark, worn, some what round spots of wear on a number of upper rod bearings may be and probably are indications of that happening. What can cause detonation? Lean fuel conditions, poor octane quality fuel, too much ignition timing, too much engine compression for the fuel being used - these are the most common causes.
Q: Are there any signs of bearing clearance deficiencies. The nominal bearing clearance is 0.00140 inch on a 2.04655 inch journal.
A: I know you are all hot on this, but I just don't see it. The upper shells in most of the samples show a wear pattern over 2/3 of the surface which we'd consider normal.

So:
High combustion loads and detonation can produce the type of rod bearing wear seen on the S/Ced engines.
The Ionic anti knock system is not infallible.
The bearing clearance is fine..

[davesaddiction]

Originally Posted by Bmw M3 Guy

I'm getting a new motor from a crate shipped from where ever they are manufactured as if it were going into a new M3 in the assembly line from what I understand.

How many "extras" do you think they make of an engine like ours, for purposes like these?

[regular guy]

Originally Posted by SenorFunkyPants

Just so there is no misunderstanding.....Regular Guy Q&A with Clevite:

Q: Are there any signs of detonation?
A: Probably, but certainly signs of very high cylinder pressure on the supercharged applications. Detonation is uncontrolled combustion of the fuel in an engine. Normal combustion in an engine starts with a fuel burn at the sparkplug then burns on an ever expanding flame front until the fuel is consumed. It is similar to a grass fire starting at one spot and burning in an ever expanding flame front. In detonation the spark ignites the fuel then fuel on the back side of the combustion chamber explodes before the flame front has reached it.
When that occurs, cylinder pressure spikes quickly and sometimes reaches 2-3 times normal cylinder pressure. The duration of the spike is short but that pressure spike is really hard on the oil film. Those dark, worn, some what round spots of wear on a number of upper rod bearings may be and probably are indications of that happening. What can cause detonation? Lean fuel conditions, poor octane quality fuel, too much ignition timing, too much engine compression for the fuel being used - these are the most common causes.
Q: Are there any signs of bearing clearance deficiencies. The nominal bearing clearance is 0.00140 inch on a 2.04655 inch journal.
A: I know you are all hot on this, but I just don't see it. The upper shells in most of the samples show a wear pattern over 2/3 of the surface which we'd consider normal.

So:
High combustion loads and detonation can produce the type of rod bearing wear seen on the S/Ced engines.
The Ionic anti knock system is not infallible.
The bearing clearance is fine..

SFP, I'm not sure the purpose of this post because it doesn't really address anything I said. It's probably an honest mistake because this follow up came in a separate post; but you forgot to quote this part:

Q: Do you recall if the signs of detonation were predominantly on supercharged over NA bearings? Or did you see signs on each?
A: It was all supercharged engines. The NA engines didn't show signs of detonation.

BTW, the NA engine bearings Clevite saw all came from California.

You're jumping from point-A to point-Z without anything in between. You're taking a bunch of "what if's" and saying "that's what happened." Don't ignore that the Clevite guy also said he saw no signs of detonation on the NA bearings. If you have engine experts who believes 93 octane isn't "low octane to a 12:1 engine" then feel free to line them up so their beliefs and expertise can be analyzed in public. Just show me an engine expert who believes you can even run 93 octane on a 12:1 engine without active spark management.

This engine isn't supercharged, had pretty low miles, was meticulously cared for, never tracked, was warmed up before driving, was serviced regularly, and oil changed more often than required using BMW required 10W60 oil. Yet it suffered worse than any other engine I've seen short of a rod out the side of a block. I'll stand behind what I said and what Clevite said in private (parts I couldn't post verbatim but did paraphrase): if 91 octane is a problem, then BMW doesn't know how to program ECU's.

[SenorFunkyPants]

Originally Posted by regular guy

Q: Do you recall if the signs of detonation were predominantly on supercharged over NA bearings? Or did you see signs on each?
A: It was all supercharged engines. The NA engines didn't show signs of detonation.

BTW, the NA engine bearings Clevite saw all came from California.

You're jumping from point-A to point-Z without anything in between. You're taking a bunch of "what if's" and saying "that's what happened." Don't ignore that the Clevite guy also said he saw no signs of detonation on the NA bearings. If you have engine experts who believes 93 octane isn't "low octane to a 12:1 engine" then feel free to line them up so their beliefs and expertise can be analyzed in public. Just show me an engine expert who believes you can even run 93 octane on a 12:1 engine without active spark management.

This engine isn't supercharged, had pretty low miles, was meticulously cared for, never tracked, was warmed up before driving, was serviced regularly, and oil changed more often than required using BMW required 10W60 oil. Yet it suffered worse than any other engine I've seen short of a rod out the side of a block. I'll stand behind what I said and what Clevite said in private (parts I couldn't post verbatim but did paraphrase): if 91 octane is a problem, then BMW doesn't know how to program ECU's.

The points I was making were (from Clevites responses):
The high rod bearing wear patterns seen (on the S/Ced engines (and similar on stock cars)) are compatible with an engine experiencing detonation/high combustion loads....something that has been disputed before.
The anti-knock system is not infallible as shown by above.

And as Clevite noted that:
"The upper shells in most of the [N/A] samples show a wear pattern over 2/3 of the surface which we'd consider normal." and "the N/A sets looked pretty normal"
Then its not surprising that they didn't note signs of detonation.

The reason I asked about the coils packs was that I found another failure in a car out of warranty whose engine was also replaced under goodwill that had history of coil problems in the cylinder whose piston subsequently failed.
There are quite a few posts noting coil pack problems and you have to wonder how much damage that could do.

Originally Posted by regular guy

if 91 octane is a problem, then BMW doesn't know how to program ECU's.

Well they are certainly clear that they much rather owners used 93 octane fuel...I'm guessing there is a reason behind that.