BMW 6 cyclinder engine swap guesstimates?

milltown

For the past couple of months myself and a couple of independent specialists have been trying to trace a fault in my engine, but had no luck.

Briefly, the symptoms are: Starting from cold it will cut out unless held on a fast idle for about 5 minutes. Seems to be running on 4/5 cylinders at this time. When partly warm it will settle to a lumpy idle, still 1 or 2 cylinders down. At this point, turning off the ignition and restarting will bring it to life on all cylinders and it will run fine. Until you let it idle for 5 minutes again, then it seems to flood itself and cutout again.

As said, two specialists have been through it on and off since April. The guy it's currently with is talking about Vanos trouble but also a loss of compression on #2. Vanos seals or exchange will run a couple of hundred quid all told but the bottom end is the potential money pit, more so for labour than parts.

The smart thing to do would seem to be an engine transplant (though the first guy reckoned it aced every compression and leakdown test he did). Also, my engine is relatively youthful, an '02 with 80k on it, and in the past year has had a new alternator, all belts and pulleys and tensioners and water pump done. And 24 hydraulic tappets when they looked like being the culprits.

Can anyone with knowledge or experience give an estimate of the cost of a replacement engine supplied and fitted? Recommendations for who to do it in the Dublin/Kildare area would also be welcome.

Thanks for reading.

Mr Benevolent

Which engine is it? Google suggests changing to 5W30 oil might resolve the issue.

voxpop

I got a rough quote before of something like 500-600 for labour and then the same again for an s/h engine (M52). Problem is you dont know how your s/h engine was treated and may give issues once installed, meaning having to remove the engine and get another, all the while accruing labour costs.

Are you sure its not some sort of electronic issue or something ?

milltown

It's an M54 2.2. I'd gladly pop a 2.5 or 3.0 in if one came up.

It could very well be electronic, but we can't find it! The guys are well regarded and using expensive diagnostic kit, not cracked software and Ebay cables.

Very valid concerns about the s/h engine voxpop, especially knowing how well cared for mine has been. This is really end of the tether time, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. A 9 year old big (irish) engined automatic car that might be worth €4k by the end of the year. Any more than €1k to repair it and I'd be as well selling it to a breakers.

That would break my heart. I'd buy the same car again tomorrow!

Edit: Google terms for the oil solution Confab?

Mr Benevolent

milltown wrote: »

Edit: Google terms for the oil solution Confab?

bmw rough 5 cylinders +idle +restart

http://www.e46zone.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=26570

listermint

Have you tried for advise of on bmw-driver.net ?

Also E46 Fanatics in the US, those lads know everything about everything

MacGyver

theres a guy in cork who sorted mine out, after bmw having it for three days and being unable to find a fault. His name is Pat and he has Autologic, so if its electrical he should be able to find it. He's near Mallow iirc, pm for his number as i dont want to put it up here without his permission.

milltown

Yeah there's a megathread on BMW-driver about it. Looking here for a fresh viewpoint.

E46 Fanatics. Hmm. While there are some tidbits buried in there, I generally find that the yanks change absolutely everything to fix their problems, spending a fortune on parts, then congratulate themselves/each other on not getting ripped off paying dealer labour prices.

I'm 99% sure it's already running 5w30 because I had to ring the mechanic to check what to buy for top ups after the last oil change.

Any opinions on the engine change?

cadaliac

Looks like an engine change will cost you over 1k also, so I (personally) would stick with what you have.
An engine change will run the risk of a crap engine and could lead to problems (cpu) down the line blah blah.
I know you are at the end of your tether, but there must be a fix for the issue.
Just because the specialist guys are using diagnostic equipment doesn't mean they know what they they are looking for, don't get me wrong, I'm sure they are very capable but have you looked for another opinion?
Just my 2c though, sorry I can't be of more help.

milltown

Yeah, the engine swap would be a very last resort, unless a worthwhile 2.5 or 3.0 turned up with a bit of history for small money.

I'm currently looking at options to get a third opinion. So far there's a bit of the "doctors differ and patients suffer" about this. The third opinion may not even concur with either of the other two, but throw up a new bunch of possibilities.

I'll wait and see.

unkel

It's madness swapping the engine if you do not know what the problem is. There's a proper diagnostics man a 5 minute drive from your home. He will tell you what's wrong. MKW motors

milltown

Nice find Unkel! Wasn't aware of them.
Have you experience with them? I'm guessing your 7er was gone before they opened around the corner? Have you had the Porker in with them?
Will give them a try next.

unkel

milltown wrote: »

Nice find Unkel! Wasn't aware of them.
Have you experience with them? I'm guessing your 7er was gone before they opened around the corner? Have you had the Porker in with them?
Will give them a try next.

Porker is off the road

Yes I have experience with them and I highly recommend them. Keith knows his diagnostics. Impressive setup. Ring them cause they can be busy.

milltown

Will do.
Need to organise getting my car back from Sandyford anyway.

unkel

And keep us updated. Good luck!

daRobot

milltown wrote: »

Will do.
Need to organise getting my car back from Sandyford anyway.

If your mechanic is the one I suspect it might be (German, and missing a few teeth?), I know exactly why you're having the problems you are.

Get the car to MKW fast, i've been down this road with a 7 before and they were the only ones that could help. Keith there is an excellent mechanic, and he's all i'd ever use now.

Fishtits

The M54 is a nightmare when it goes wrong. There are so many different problems with that lump.

I had one with poor low rpm performance, stalling, bogging on take-off etc. Long story short - nothing showed up on diagnostics, wasn't willing to take the try this & that route so got rid of it. I drove Beamers for nearly 20 years - that one will be my last for quite a while, sickened.

Bad idle is often Vanos seals, but there are recorded issues with HVA's, oil seperators, throttle bodies, etc, etc.

Good luck with your new guy, you may be lucky.

voxpop

daRobot wrote: »

If your mechanic is the one I suspect it might be (German, and missing a few teeth?), I know exactly why you're having the problems you are.

whats the story here ?


How come these MKW guys are never mentioned on the bmw sites - had a pain in the arse problem with my own 5er, myself and my da sorted it, after it being through a few indys and still having problems. Runs sweet now

unkel

voxpop wrote: »

How come these MKW guys are never mentioned on the bmw sites

They are fairly new (last year or two iirc) and they are not a BMW indy, they service all cars, but specialise in German cars. They are an approved Bosch service centre

They're getting a bit of a reputation in getting things diagnosed / fixed where other so called specialists (main dealers / mark specific independents) couldn't

milltown

Major hat tip to the lads in MKW

Collected the car this evening and it's running like a swiss watch (without the ticking!).

Many, many hours of troubleshooting, testing, probing, gas analysis and elimination went into it and eventually the problem was found to be a lump of what looked like silicone sealant blocking the small swirl port near the main inlet port on the head on one cylinder.

Pic:


For anyone interested in the science, here is my understanding. The bulk of the air required for one combustion cycle is drawn in through the main inlet port. Better combustion is achieved, by virtue of a better air/fuel mix, by creating turbulence or swirl in the incoming air charge. Air entering the cylinder through the larger port moves slowly, relative to the faster moving air entering through the smaller swirl port (my terminology, not sure what the official name for it is). The faster moving air creates the swirl in the combustion chamber, allowing the fuel to mix better when it is injected and thus the mix burns more completely once compressed and ignited.

I have no idea why or how the silicone came to be there. There is nowhere on the inlet tract from there to the airbox that should have any silicone sealant on it, and indeed none was found anywhere, apart from this very small but very important hole.

I'm delighted to be at the end of this fiasco. Driving the car home this evening reminded me of shopping for school shoes as a boy with my mother. Spending an eternity clomping up and down the shop in hard unyielding shoes, then the joy when you finally get to put back on the comfy shoes you came in. What grates, and what I'm trying not to get too annoyed over, is the €500 or so of unneccesary parts that were fitted by the two BMW "experts" who worked on the car before MKW. The labour bill was pretty eye watering but didn't reflect the amount of time actually spent working on the car.

A huge thanks to the members on this forum also, who put me on to MKW. As the thread title suggests, I was close to scrapping a perfectly good engine, possibly a perfectly good car if the engine swap didn't seem economical. Thankfully I'm now looking forward to years more motoring from a car I still struggle to imagine a replacement for.

unkel

Glad to be of help and delighted you got it sorted