F30 335d needs a new engine. What to do?

frozenfrozen

That's what I've been thinking and there will be a full engine minus block of parts left over that aren't worth nothing.. waiting to hear back from the situation of what's owed etc

frozenfrozen

Ok I've got an update,

There's €2,300 owed so far including vat.

12 hours @ €80exvat per hour - €960exvat for removing the engine and finding out that it's unrepairable

copy pasted from a pdf so please ignore any issues with formatting

Category	Item	Quantity	Price	Discount	Total
Parts	OIL FILTER - BMW N47N	1	23.15	10%	20.84
Parts	Environmental charge	1	12.5		12.5
Parts	OIL CASTROL 5W30 BMW LL04 / VAG 504/507	6.7	13.26		88.84
Parts	MICRO (CABIN) FILTER BMW F30 (ACTIVE CARBONE)	1	45.2	10%	40.68
Parts	WINTER SCREENWASH 1000ML -20C deg.	1	1.99	10%	1.79
Parts	BRAKE DISC /R/	2	245.45	10%	441.81
Parts	BRAKE PADS SET /R/	1	139.7	10%	125.73
Parts	WEAR INDICATOR /R/ BMW F2x, F3x	1	33.73	10%	30.36
Parts	CLEANER INDUSTRIAL 500ml	1	5.25	10%	4.73
Parts	WHEEL STUD.	1	6.13	10%	5.52
Labour	Oil service	1	80		80
Labour	Cabin filter replaced	0.25	80		20
Labour	Front brake discs & pads replaced	1.35	80		108
Labour	TYRES FITTED	1	80		80
Labour	BMW Online service record updated	0	0		0
Labour	Service data has been transferred to vehicle digital record	1	9		9
Labour	Remove engine to inspect + strip to find source of filling's in oil filter	12	80		960
	exvat				2029.8

Total amount owed to date: €2,303.82

it says front discs but I think it was rears actually.

The offer to buy the car is €5000 which would also clear the money owed on it.

The other option at roughly €13,000* is completely recon engine & turbos + €1,000 for work done to date.

so the options

Pay €2,300 and bring it elsewhere

accept €5,000 and walk away

pay €14,000 to be driving out of there with a recon engine.

**the 13k price is approx** so there's scope for it to change

Need to ring bavarian for a quote on the engine as I didn't get a reply yet from them.

I'm not an expert but I think 12 hours @ 80+vat to come to the conclusion my engine was unrepairable is a lot of money for that.

frozenfrozen

Bavarian will do an engine for €5,900 plus about €1k to fit it but they're too busy to do it soon. I said at the rate CMC are moving he'd still be quicker even if it took a month.

so lets say between €7,000-8000 for bavarian to do it and I'll clear the CMC bill at €2,300.

bavarian would also want to keep the old engine as part of that to take as many parts off it and hold onto spares etc which is fine by me.

mickdw

At those figures, it's clear the original guys are scamming you.

I'd query their bill also to get it reduced abit possibly.

Also the engine was so bad..... not...... that they saw fit to carry out a load of service work on the car.

The whole thing stinks in my view.

EDIT I guess the Bill to date is not scandalous if you are happy that all that service work was done.

The engine quote though is nuts.

frozenfrozen

I think it's a lot of hours to come to the conclusion the engine is a write off. I can understand the rest of the bill, probably cut the filter open at the very end of everything, and went oh shite it's full of metal.

I'll need to add reconditioning turbos to the bavarian cost I presume. but it'll still be much less than CMC in total.

I don't know would they entertain lowering the bill, I haven't asked. I told them to fix the car and it's unfortunate it took them 12 hours to give up instead of them reassessing earlier and saying the damage is massive and it's not worth fixing…

It's a bad situation and I'm not looking for anything for free. If someone else can do the job for a few thousand cheaper then I'll be getting that someone else to do it.

it's really about €1200 so far on the engine, still a lot but not as bad when the rest of the work was unrelated.

Mac 3

Apologies if this is a stupid question but whats this charge? €1.35 x 80?

Labour	Front brake discs & pads replaced	1.35	80		108

Brian Scan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701932#Comment_122701932

1.35 hours at €80 per hour

Mac 3

Sorry Brian, my mistake, Thats a very exact time. everything else is rounded evenly to 1 or 2. Id have been expecting a similar description like on the rears.

Brian Scan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701988#Comment_122701988

Yeah, it does seem quite precise.

frozenfrozen

I'm feeling like the obvious answer here is to just clear the outstanding cost with CMC, and organise getting the car transferred to Bavarian and then waiting a month+ for it to be worked on, and be done with it?

€2,300 to clear CMC

cost to transfer a non driving car + separate engine to Bavarian. Have access to a trailer and jeep but they're 2.5 hours away so diesel alone would probably pay for CMC to do the transfer

€5,900 for replacement engine

€1,000ish for fitting at Bavarian

€??? for two turbos to be reconditioned

€??? for remap after

back on the road around 10k from now?

selectamatic

There's a lad set up in Cavan that's specialising in this era BMW. He's flat out with work and on appearances seems to be very good. He posts quite a bit on tiktok.

Be interesting get a price off him but then you'd have the issue of getting the car to him.

Getting it fixed to fully operational but as cheaply as possible and then trading it in against something newer would be the best course of action for putting this whole episode behind ya.

Edit: "BM automotive" is the name they go by. He has tiktoks up of n57 failures and replacing them.

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122702532#Comment_122702532

Well its your best option so far. I would have the transfer done myself and not wait for the current chaps to move it or it might never happen.

frozenfrozen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122702564#Comment_122702564

That guy in cavan looks good but it would be a serious pain in the hole to get it to him but definitely a good backup plan I think.

Don't really want to sell it after I fix it but I know that's the best way so I'm not kicking myself wondering why I didn't get rid of it if anything else goes wrong. If I fixed it for €10,000 and sold it for 20-25, there's nothing I'd really be able to upgrade to without spending a lot more

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122702575#Comment_122702575

going to see if I can go in to look at the car and maybe talk to someone for a minute about it and I think that'll make it fairly clear what the next step will be

pooley124

There's a 2016 335d on copart UK with only 54k on it. Heavy rear end damage on it so engine will be fine. Would make a good engine donor plus it has a perfect front end to sell on. Don't forget to factor in fees and transport costs.

mickdw

Great shout that.

No brainer if it can be bought at right price.

Everything you need. Turbos etc included and considering your guys have pulled the car apart, you will have no worries about missing bits either.

Schorpio

Am I the only one not fully convinced that you definitely need a new engine?

The volume of sparklies in the filter is concerning, but if the bearings are suspected (not unreasonable) you wouldn't go top down. The next step would surely be to check the sump for more metal. Why did the head come off at all? It would make no sense to start there. And why would it be warped?

It just doesn't add up to me - doubly so if the car was driving fine beforehand.

pooley124

Would be best to go to the garage and see exactly what is wrong and what's been done to it. Emails/ messages are no good in this situation.

frozenfrozen

thanks lads, I went into CMC today to look at my engine

I think after discussing with him that at some point in time something dodgy was done with the engine before I owned it

He showed me that there are imprints on all 6 pistons from a valve collision (I tried to take a picture attached at the end of this post but not sure if I'm really showing it properly) so he thought at some point the engine had a snapped chain. He also said that the general look of the engine seemed to be older than 140,000km or at least that it wasn't in good condition for a 140k engine if it was really 140k. He said the engine had definitely had someone else in there before.

He said what likely happened is the incident with the valves happened, the engine was repaired but something had been damaged and was slightly oval so over time it was hammering away until eventually the big end bearing started to disintigrate and then cascaded to other failures like the block being warped beyond repair.

There was damage to the crank shaft, 6 pistons with those valve collision marks, block warped. My big turbo seems fine and they didn't split it open to look at the small turbo but wouldn't do that unless they were being refurbished. Other ancilliary bits like high pressure fuel pump etc all fine

I was talking about the other engine for €5,900 vs his €7k quote and he said he would be charging me for the engine whatever he needs to pay for it and if they are gone down in price to 6k then that's what I'd be paying but the last one he bought was at 7k. He said I'm about 30 hours labour and an engine away from finishing it plus the decision to do turbo reconditioning which he said he would do if it was him while the engine is out

he said a replacement engine would be getting new linings in the cylinders, new piston rings, new bearings etc all over everything that needs doing will be done. This is the part I'd say everyone here will be most interested in vs just buying a running used engine and putting it straight in without opening it. This is the bit I'm wondering about too. He seemed fairly confident that the right decision is open it up and do the work that a used engine is completely unknown and the only way to know is to do the work up front and know I've got a good engine for the next few years.

He's going to do up an estimate with all of these steps in there and he said I can get rid of the ones I don't want and drop the price as much as I want to by doing less and less extra to the replacement engine. He said they could put a replacement engine straight in but wouldn't recommend it if I want to keep the car.

He also said there'd be a year warranty but a remap would void it which is fair enough.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122708162#Comment_122708162

Completely agree, main cause of all of my concern completely gone immediately when I saw my engine neatly taken apart and clear to me signs that there was real damage. I wish I had gone in the day after the first phonecall because it was much easier to go through it all in person.

So anyway I'm still in the situation until I make a decision. I'm going to have their estimate to go through and I can decide which bits I'd like to do or ignore and make sure I'm comparing it fairly with other quotes

He said it genuinely did take more than 12 hours to get to the point it's at, and I believed him I think they did a tidy job and didn't just yank the engine out of the car

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122707952#Comment_122707952

I'm getting confused with the timeline myself now but anyway I think they came to the right conclusion that the engine block is a writeoff, the crank shaft is cut up from the failed big end bearing, all bearings were bad and one of them was completely falling apart. I'd say it would have been a catastrophic seize up at some point so I'm glad that didn't happen while overtaking or something.

took a couple of pictures but only on the phone so not great

He said there's marks from a valve collision on all 6 pistons that he thinks is from a snapped chain at some point or something with timing. I asked if maybe it was swirl flaps breaking in the past but he said the marks are even on all cylinders so its more likely it was timing caused the valve interference and then it was sorted before I bought it.

Was on the phone to Bavarian again and they can still do the engine at 5900+ whatever to fit it as my backup plan but I'm actually much happier with CMC now again that I'm understanding 13k was based on including the price of an engine at whatever he buys it for which might be less now, and it includes all this extra work that I'm able to opt out of bit by bit.

I think he was just incredibly busy and was on holidays for 2 weeks in the middle of it which ended up adding 3 weeks of delay because of messages waiting before and after that. Those delays got me worried when in reality I should have just driven in and spoken to someone in person…

I think I'll just wait for this estimate early next week and then decide? If I get it done in CMC I'd say they'd start work straight away so I need to balance a month less of borrowing peoples cars and getting the bus at times into this situation?

mickdw

Previous damage is possible but if its as bad as they say, there is no way in my mind that the engine was running so well that you didn't notice nor did they notice anything whatsoever given that they saw fit to do major service work to the car.

Big end slight bearing wear and iron filings you would not hear but the explanation of things being so bad that it warped the block to me doesn't add up.

Perfectly running car has engine taken out due to speckles in filter. That was the only visible issue. As someone said, you wouldn't take the head off. You might do bottom end bearings.

As for wanting to rebuild the engine you buy?

Not a hope would I allow that...... I'd be expecting another phone call. We found x y or z and its going to cost thousands and by opening the engine, you can forget about returning it for refund from wherever you buy it.

Who buys a good low mile engine and rebuilds it? Nobody. Its nonsense.

I don't trust what is presented and the bench display is alittle manufacturered too.

selectamatic

I'd get him to bang a good used replacement engine in without opening it just get the chain done and then get shut of the car asap.

It sounds like it has had an eye opening past life could possibly be clocked etc.

You could go all out refurb everything on the engine and then in a short while something else expensive goes wallop or indeed it could run the finest for years but it's a chance you're taking knowing a previous owner was a bit of a chancer.

frozenfrozen

at least it's entertaining now anyway with this new twist about the engine having been open before!

The previous owner I bought it from probably didn't do it because he tried to buy it back twice.

It had enthusiast owner amounts of paperwork with it, with receipts for all the work to match that was on the idrive service history and online. MOT history also matched up. Original order document etc all there. 1 owner for 6 years in england, 10k miles per year, the only MOT advisories were for things like worn rear tyres.

Next owner (guy I bought it from) had it less than a year and put a few thousand miles on it and this was during weird covid times. Since then I've seen him just tipping away owning one nice car at a time which he lists for sale and he keeps trading up and not stuff that looks like he's just clocking the same cars and selling them it's always interesting things, M3 at the moment.

So I don't think the car was clocked, maybe more likely my guess it had a chain snap in england and it was quickly sealed back up and sold?

The bit I'm really wondering about now is just buying an engine and putting it straight in (do chain) or going with the reconditioning plan.

I can get CMC to do either option, he's not pressuring me to do the more expensive one but he's saying it's the better choice if I'm planning on keeping the car

I wasn't feeling like I was being scammed while I was in there, I don't see what they have to gain when they are already flat out working, whether they charge me 20 hours or 30 hours for this job they've still a full queue. Now it still might be the wrong decision for me to do it but I don't think he's recommending it for any reason other than he thinks its the proper job and putting in an unknown engine could land me in the same spot again

If I get them to source me a good as possible engine, do the chain, put the best turbos from either engine and sell the rest of the left over parts that could be a decent option but I probably won't have a warranty then as I doubt anyone would warranty a used engine like that? Unknown territory for me there anyway.

From googling N57 bearing failure, n57 liners etc all of the companies advertising N57 reconditioning are mentioning the same things CMC are and lots of them have an extra charge for the block being warped on exchange so it must be common.

Need to wait for the estimate and then decide I think

mickdw

How much is a new engine from bmw. Not fitted but crate engine straight from bmw

Just to compare to the figures for having a good used engine rebuilt cause the figures here are abit nuts to me

Whatwicklow

For the avoidance of doubt, Check the numbers on the motor.

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122710777#Comment_122710777

Engine number could be checked Unfortunately, it wouldn't be possible to check that those pistons came out of his car or not.

I find it hard to believe that such a high performance engine would run fine long term with damaged pistons.

It's Always a big no no to have any marks on piston crowns as with the pressures and temps involved hot spots can occur at the rough spots etc.

These pistons look to me how I would expect pistons to look coming straight out of a broken chain engine.

One of the indents is even kinda white like a recent valve hit.

frozenfrozen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122710436#Comment_122710436

BMW probably want above 20k for an engine only if I was to guess. Can't remember how to spell his username but about 5 years ago someone on boards had an N57 have a spun bearing I think in a 330d. BMW did a deal to replace it where they covered a lot of the costs but I remember it being absolutely massive for the parts bill alone

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122711041#Comment_122711041

yeah I think if someone ever swapped an engine I've no way of really finding out as I never had the engine numbers documented anywhere I don't think. I should have asked whether it was an OE chain kit on it as if it was a cheap kit it would lead me to believe it was a shut and sell it asap type job. My guess at the moment is snapped chain quickly repaired and sold.

The only signs anything was wrong was stuff I'd chalked up to being related to the EGR job done by BMW where I felt it was down on power after. Could easily have been that the bearing started to break down around that time by coincidence so I didn't look into it. Didn't notice much else, mpg always in and around 40-45 depending on the type of journey.

I don't know how to tell how old the valve damage on the pistons was but I'd presume if it happened while I was driving I'd have really known about it?

Gumbo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122711729#Comment_122711729

Seen a €15k bill from bmw for the F10 520d engine recently. And people are worried about batteries in EV’s going!

frozenfrozen

received CMC estimate today

engine €6000

+ €2000 reconditioning

+ turbo recondition €1000

exvat prices

€14500 all in including clearing the €2,300 owed so far.

frozenfrozen

Think I'm just going to say OK to it to be honest I can't keep going without my own car and can't get Bavarian on the phone to talk about their option which would still have its own delay with it and probably hidden costs if I decided to do bits and pieces of extra work while the engine is out.

I've been successfully worn down to just needing it done I think at this point

User1998

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122733962#Comment_122733962

Would you consider opting out of the reconditioning to save yourself €3k and just sell the car immediately after?

frozenfrozen

Spent a good while going through my options today back on donedeal looking at what I'd move to etc and I just sent 5k deposit about an half hour ago to CMC to do the full job

It's just done now not thrilled but that's it... I think the better financial decision would have been to sell and move to something else but I want that car back since it has all the options I wanted and I would be seriously paying extra to move to something else I like

1k of it is turbo reconditioning so my thinking was look I'm paying an extra couple of grand of the extra engine work for a warranty and the fact it should be good for many thousand miles and not end up in the same situation again.

If i did the small job and sold it I'd be buying an unknown n57 from someone else, or moving to a b58 petrol at a huge cost and extra running costs . Few more years with this then I'll think about swapping