[hayhay7789]

I got my 340iX in 2022 and took as good care of it as I could, changing the oil early and regularly and doing my best to keep on top of any preventative maintenance. The car served me very well with no issues up until February of last year when it was at 104034km or 64643mi, with an oil change done at 100000km and a service appointment scheduled for the coming weeks. I was driving it home from work when suddenly the oil pressure warning came on, and disappeared almost immediately. I pulled over, killed the engine and checked the car sensor values with my Icom cable stowed in the car. The sensor values were reading normal, the oil light was still off, and I felt it was passable enough to slowly limp the car home (was NOT in limp mode) the remaining ~1km. When I went to start the engine in the morning, it was making a loud noise - I already had lifter tick, but this sounded like my lifter tick took steroids overnight; this sounded a lot worse. I killed the engine and had it towed to an indy BMW shop. They drained the oil and told me the car only had 3L in it rather than 6.5, and found “large metal chunks” in the oil drainage. They were absolutely certain that I somehow only put 3L into the engine, which is ridiculous. I had replaced the oil about 4,000km before this incident, and with absolute certainty filled the car with the correct amount. I think that the car potentially burned a lot of oil as it was idling, as I did unfortunately extensively idle fairly often while hanging out or showing the car off in parking lots - probably really stupid of me. There is no sign of an oil leak anywhere, not even an oil slick in my designated parking space, so I’m inclined to believe this is what happened, although it does throw me a bit that the car was running with 3L of oil for god knows how long without the oil level computer giving me any sort of warning (it worked well in the past to warn me to top up the oil).

The indy shop quoted me for an engine replacement at $16,300 (~$8,000 for engine, ~$4k labour, the rest tax). The thing is they didn’t do any further diagnosis to confirm the source of the issue, all they did was drain the oil and check the oil pan. I’m wondering if there’s anything further that I can do myself to check for damaged areas and determine if this engine is possibly repairable in a rebuild. I had a colleague’s DIY mechanic friend take a look (which is when I shot the video below), but he looked at it even less than the indy shop (just started the engine and listened to it) and spat out a seemingly arbitrary quote of $25,000 altogether for an engine replacement for an amateur mechanic’s work. Not cool. I’ve unfortunately had this car on my back burner since then as I’ve had some personal issues come up that needed to be taken care of, but I’m ready to get this job done now. Before I make any phone calls to shops, though, I’d like to get a better picture of the problem for myself.

Even if a rebuild would be $15k, I’d rather pay that than $16,000 let alone $25,000 for another engine. I’ve heard varied opinions of what this might be, everything from rod knock to timing chain to valve tap. Considering the extent and type of damage will affect the engines candidacy for a rebuild (as I’m told), and that money is tight for me now, I’d much rather assess the damage myself as much as possible so as to avoid spending a few hundred on a shop taking my engine apart only to find it’s a totally unfixable dud.

I have a borescope and will be putting it into the cylinders to see if there’s any scoring. Is there anything else I should give a try for diagnostics so I can try to get an accurate picture of the state of the engine to describe to mechanics or rebuilders?

View post on imgur.com

video of the noise the engine is making in case it aids in anyone’s guesswork diagnosis. I also attached the work order from the shop if anyone wants to see the technicians notes.

[XutvJet]

Is this car modified with a tune? Interesting that no low oil level warnings were turned on.

Quite possible that a piston had a ringland failure and caused excessive oil burning as a result. I've heard of this failure in several B58s, especially tuned ones.

A borescope assessment is a good idea. Injectors on the B58 can leak, fill the oil with fuel thus impacting the oil film strength and then the piston rings scrap against the cylinder bore coating and score the bore and eventually causes a compression and oil burning issue. I've read of instances of this with stock and modified B58s.

[Altamate]

Borescope likely tells you little.
That sounds like a rod knock, especially since you know it was low on oil. Pulling the engine and rebuilding it yourself would save you money if you have the knowledge, skill and time to do it. But the crank will need to be ground undersized or replaced and at least one new rod procured, then likely the block bored/honed out and new pistons, rings and bearings.then reassembled with all new gaskets. A new oil pump and timing chain are nearly un avoidable as well and I’m likely forgetting other parts that should or must be replaced.

I haven’t had to rebuild a BMW 3.0litre so I don’t know what is available for parts and prices. But if you can find a used good condition motor for $8,000, I bet you are about even, given what a shop is going to charge to machine the parts you need machined and the cost of the parts you need to replace.

[hayhay7789]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

Is this car modified with a tune? Interesting that no low oil level warnings were turned on.

Quite possible that a piston had a ringland failure and caused excessive oil burning as a result. I've heard of this failure in several B58s, especially tuned ones.

A borescope assessment is a good idea. Injectors on the B58 can leak, fill the oil with fuel thus impacting the oil film strength and then the piston rings scrap against the cylinder bore coating and score the bore and eventually causes a compression and oil burning issue. I've read of instances of this with stock and modified B58s.

Thank you for your reply.

The car has had the MPPSK tune from BMW since it was delivered to the first owner years back, so technically yes. I haven’t done any modifying to the car beyond cosmetics.

That explanation would make sense to me. The car did burn oil for sure; every time I planned my oil change, about two weeks before it the oil level warning would come on and tell me to add a quart. Perhaps it just burned a lot more oil this time around due to further progression of the ring land failure combined with extended idling leading to more engine use than would show on the odometer?

I’ll put my bore scope down the pistons and see what I can gather from them. Thank you so much again for your input.

[hayhay7789]

Originally Posted by Altamate

Borescope likely tells you little.
That sounds like a rod knock, especially since you know it was low on oil. Pulling the engine and rebuilding it yourself would save you money if you have the knowledge, skill and time to do it. But the crank will need to be ground undersized or replaced and at least one new rod procured, then likely the block bored/honed out and new pistons, rings and bearings.then reassembled with all new gaskets. A new oil pump and timing chain are nearly un avoidable as well and I’m likely forgetting other parts that should or must be replaced.

I haven’t had to rebuild a BMW 3.0litre so I don’t know what is available for parts and prices. But if you can find a used good condition motor for $8,000, I bet you are about even, given what a shop is going to charge to machine the parts you need machined and the cost of the parts you need to replace.

Thank you for the reply. I appreciate all the info you’ve given.

If borescope doesn’t show me much, is there anything I can do to verify damage elsewhere short of disassembling the engine? I’m certainly confident enough to disassemble, but I don’t have a covered space to work in unfortunately and I don’t feel all that comfortable leaving a disassembled motor in my parking lot haha. I’m guessing you might be right on all accounts - in the end I might have no choice but to end up going for the engine replacement anyway and I’d hate to take the chance on a rebuild and find it costs the same. I would be even more upset, though, if my engine was pulled out for replacement and it turned out it could have been fixed for less than $16k if I had just known beforehand it was “only” a crank replacement or something.

[Altamate]

Remember only $8k is for the replacement motor the other $8k is labor and tax. Can you rebuild that BMW 3.0l for less than $8K? IDK but I think it is going to be close.

It won’t be only a crank, the block will need to be completely disassembled and cleaned out of all metal contamination. You might try reusing the pistons as is with out replacing rings but it was burning oil and you don’t know why so that is a bad idea. At least one rod is needing resizing or replacement, but you should check all 6 to be sure. You can’t have metal go through the motor and not replace the oil pump or rather it is very unwise. So the parts cost alone will be difficult.

[hayhay7789]

Originally Posted by Altamate

Remember only $8k is for the replacement motor the other $8k is labor and tax. Can you rebuild that BMW 3.0l for less than $8K? IDK but I think it is going to be close.

Thank you again for the replies.
I would guess you’re probably right, but I’d like to do everything in my power to assess the damage and find out for sure. If I’m able to take a look and determine that it’s “only” the crank that is wrecked, for example, I would hope the cost for a new crank plus labour and tax would not amount to over $16,000. Even if it’s $15k, I’ll take the $1000 saved. That being said though I think I would have to be supremely lucky for it to be as simple as that.

[Tejas1836]

Tough call. Though nothing to do with oil level, does your engine have the plastic oil pump components?
I think you will end up needing a complete teardown to asses any damage.

[ShocknAwe]

Very unfortunate. You won't be able to do it cheaper unless you have experience with engine building and even then. Replace the engine or write it off.

[pbonsalb]

Large metal chunks in the oil drained from the pan is not a good sign for rebuilding. There are probably lots of very fine parts all over the engine. We have no idea what happened so it is hard to assess. Maybe if you inspect each piston top and rotate the crank to pull the piston down so you can also inspect the bore, you will know more. Could also be a bearing failure, which may or may not have damaged the crank. Could be an oil pump failure that damaged bearings and is in the process of locking the motor up. Could be excess fuel washing the cylinder liners and causing problems.

Typically the used engine is the cheapest way to get back on the road. You do not appear to be a DIYer so you will be paying a shop to do everything and that shop will likely be paying a machine shop to do the engine work. They may get into it and learn they need a new block so they have to buy a used motor.

Lots of uncertainties. But if you pay for an engine removal and tear down you will learn your options.

[tracer bullet]

Just agreeing w/ the others. Borescope will of course show you how the walls are. May need to remove the radiator fan and access the crank with a big socket and breaker bar to turn it over and see them all.

Next is pulling the pan to access the rods and seeing if one of those bearings spun on the crank. Then pulling the mains and looking at them.

If the oil had a lot of sparkly bits in it, then... it has to come out for sure. That would be the easiest time to see what's going on, put it on a stand and have at it.

It was mentioned, fix vs replace, probably about the same for cost. So you have to think of how good a shape the car is in overall and decide if it's "worth it". Cost to do the work, value of the car, or what you'd get to just sell it as-is. Given there's a chance even a new engine and installation will have problems, I'd lean towards selling it as-is and buying something else.

Certainly sorry to hear it!

[hayhay7789]

Originally Posted by Tejas1836

Tough call. Though nothing to do with oil level, does your engine have the plastic oil pump components?
I think you will end up needing a complete teardown to asses any damage.

Thank you for your reply.

From my research it seems like my car would have plastic in the oil pump. From what I’ve been able to gather only 340s made after 2019/2020 would have the new all metal pump and mine was manufactured in 2017.

A full tear down to completely assess the damage unfortunately is what I imagined would be necessary. I held out hope that perhaps there was some mechanics trick to assess the damage without taking the whole block out, but it seems I was being naive. Thank you for the reply, I hope I can get this sorted soon with all of your and everyone else’s help.

[hayhay7789]

Originally Posted by ShocknAwe

Very unfortunate. You won't be able to do it cheaper unless you have experience with engine building and even then. Replace the engine or write it off.

Unfortunate indeed haha. Thank you for your input. Sounds like a replacement is likely my best option.

Originally Posted by pbonsalb

Large metal chunks in the oil drained from the pan is not a good sign for rebuilding. There are probably lots of very fine parts all over the engine. We have no idea what happened so it is hard to assess. Maybe if you inspect each piston top and rotate the crank to pull the piston down so you can also inspect the bore, you will know more. Could also be a bearing failure, which may or may not have damaged the crank. Could be an oil pump failure that damaged bearings and is in the process of locking the motor up. Could be excess fuel washing the cylinder liners and causing problems.

Typically the used engine is the cheapest way to get back on the road. You do not appear to be a DIYer so you will be paying a shop to do everything and that shop will likely be paying a machine shop to do the engine work. They may get into it and learn they need a new block so they have to buy a used motor.

Lots of uncertainties. But if you pay for an engine removal and tear down you will learn your options.

Thanks for your input. I will be inspecting the bore once I find my spark plug socket, but as you’ve elucidated it sounds like that looking at the bore alone won’t answer all the questions.

I do love doing things myself and am very handy, but unfortunately I currently live in an apartment complex with outdoor parking and where my bylaws prohibit working on the car on apartment property. I get frowned at by neighbours for just opening the hood in my designated parking spot. So as much as I would love to get my hands dirty, save a bunch of money and learn a lot by doing this kind of work myself, I sadly don’t have the space to do so.

All that being said, it sounds like from what you and others are telling me is a replacement is indeed the best way to go. I would love to get the engine torn down and find out exactly what is wrong, but I’m guessing a full teardown just by itself would be fairly costly. And I would hate to pay for a teardown only to find that the engine can’t be saved, and then have to foot the bill for a $16,000 replacement on top of a teardown bill.

Thank you very much for all your help.

[tracer bullet]

Originally Posted by hayhay7789

I would love to get the engine torn down and find out exactly what is wrong, but I’m guessing a full teardown just by itself would be fairly costly. And I would hate to pay for a teardown only to find that the engine can’t be saved, and then have to foot the bill for a $16,000 replacement on top of a teardown bill.

Well, a large chunk of the labor cost would already be eaten up getting the engine out. So you could consider the work to open it up to be in addition to the rest, but only the work opening it up. Which isn't minimal of course, it has to get on a stand, disassembled further, and so on. But let's hypothetically say it's 1k to do this, then with your numbers the labor goes from 8k to 9k.

The question to ask next is, what does that do for you, if it can be repaired, how much is it to repair? Does the 8k replacement then become a 4k repair?

Just throwing numbers out, the only point is that tearing it open is a little bit additional to the rest, with a potential savings. You'd want to figure out those numbers and see if anything changes for you.

You will also REALLY want to trust the shop. If you don't, you may reconsider just selling the car as is and replacing it altogether.

[zx10guy]

Not to pile on. But I don't know what you expect the shop to do with assessing the damage definitively. The only way to pin point the exact failure is to tear the engine down. Which requires labor that you have to pay for. The shop isn't going to come up with some wild guess for you to later complain if their guess is wrong. In my eyes, they did the correct things and even added oil to the engine instead of tossing their hands up saying it's your problem now when you declined the engine R&R.

Also, if you were going to DIY this job, how the heck are you going to do it when you don't have a garage and you admit the apartment rules prohibit you from working on your car in the parking lot? Any tear down is going to take time. More so without a lift. This isn't even going to a quick let me pull some cover off to do a quick check that might take a few minutes. You're looking at a couple of hours minimum and that's if you know what you're doing.

This is sort of a lessons learned thing for you. You knew there was something amiss when you said you were aware of a valve tick and oil consumption. That would have been the time to figure out the problem before it got catastrophic. Were you somehow able to do your own oil changes despite the apartment rules prohibiting you from doing so? Typically a higher pitched sound is indicative of a valvetrain problem. A deeper knocking is a bottom end issue. That would direct your attention on either pulling the valve cover or the oil pan. From your description it seems to be a deep knocking. That would mean having to raise the front end of the car to drop the subframe to gain access to the oil pan. Removing the oil pan will allow you to gain access to the crank and bottom ends of the connecting rod. If it's a connecting rod problem, you can tell if there is excessive free play between the rod and the crank. Also, if the problem is bad enough, you'll see an obvious color change of the rod cap compared to the others.

Something you can probably do which the shop didn't indicate in their notes. You can pull the oil filter and examine the filter itself. It appears the shop didn't replace the oil filter. With the amount of metal the shop indicated, you would see that in the pleats of the oil filter. The color of the metal or running a magnet through the metal debris can tell you if it's aluminum or bearing material.

Based on what you've given, there's no way you can DIY this and it has to go to the shop for a rebuild, used engine, or a new engine install.

[pbonsalb]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

Something you can probably do which the shop didn't indicate in their notes. You can pull the oil filter and examine the filter itself. It appears the shop didn't replace the oil filter. With the amount of metal the shop indicated, you would see that in the pleats of the oil filter. The color of the metal or running a magnet through the metal debris can tell you if it's aluminum or bearing material.

I think there is a shop report attached to a post above that says the oil filter was full of metal particles. I would have to reread it to see whether the color is mentioned. Not a good sign. The damage was not caught early. But without doing at least a partial tear down, I could not say whether the block or crank is ruined.

Long ago, I used to get in trouble with my condo association for fixing my car in the parking lot. If the OP is interested in learning to DIY, moving to a place where he can is a good goal. I graduated to a house with a barn, then a house with a barn and a lift, and now a house with a barn and lift and heat and AC. Much of the motivation was me modifying and breaking the car and having to pay to get it fixed, but hands on mechanical things also interested me and I like projects that can be accomplished in a day or few days, since my job was mostly sitting at a desk and working on stuff that could take months or years to complete.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by pbonsalb

I think there is a shop report attached to a post above that says the oil filter was full of metal particles. I would have to reread it to see whether the color is mentioned. Not a good sign. The damage was not caught early. But without doing at least a partial tear down, I could not say whether the block or crank is ruined.

Long ago, I used to get in trouble with my condo association for fixing my car in the parking lot. If the OP is interested in learning to DIY, moving to a place where he can is a good goal. I graduated to a house with a barn, then a house with a barn and a lift, and now a house with a barn and lift and heat and AC. Much of the motivation was me modifying and breaking the car and having to pay to get it fixed, but hands on mechanical things also interested me and I like projects that can be accomplished in a day or few days, since my job was mostly sitting at a desk and working on stuff that could take months or years to complete.

You're right. The report does say they inspected the filter. But it seems they didn't bother replacing it as it's not listed in the parts used summary. Even if the filter was replaced, I'm willing to bet there will still be metal captured in the new filter. Still worth pulling the filter to examine it.

[pbonsalb]

We don’t know how the shop inspected the filter or whether they installed a new one. It is an open element filter, so you pull it out and can see the media and the oil dripping from it. I assume it was silvery and that, along with the oil drained from the pan, was enough for the shop to conclude metal particles were all over the engine and that, in the shop’s experience, engine replacement is needed. The OP does not know enough to second guess the shop and neither do we based on what the OP has related and what is in the shop report.

[zx10guy]

Not second guessing the shop's diagnosis and conclusion. Just putting it out there that if the OP wants to dig further as to what he could possibly be facing with doing a rebuild, inspecting the filter will give clues.

Either way, this is going to be a major job. The easy button is to have the engine replaced as it'll take less time overall with having the car being inoperable.

[IanH]

Say OP games the system for $15k on the engine replacement, I bet they pretty close to break even on selling the car with the busted engine. Might come out 1-2k ahead in total economic value (assuming nothing else is wrong).

Unless there is some emotional attachment to the car its a clear trade-in/auction situation. The only person who sees any additional value in this car is a shop who can pay themselves to do the work.

[pbonsalb]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

Not second guessing the shop's diagnosis and conclusion. Just putting it out there that if the OP wants to dig further as to what he could possibly be facing with doing a rebuild, inspecting the filter will give clues.

Have you changed a BMW filter from the last 25 years? It is open element. You can see the media when you pull it out and all the oil dripping from inside and outside the media. The filter has already been inspected by a professional. The OP knows far less. I see no point.

He should take the car to another shop if he wants a second opinion.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by pbonsalb

Have you changed a BMW filter from the last 25 years? It is open element. You can see the media when you pull it out and all the oil dripping from inside and outside the media. The filter has already been inspected by a professional. The OP knows far less. I see no point.

He should take the car to another shop if he wants a second opinion.

Yes, I have. I've done plenty of repairs and oil changes on my E82. It would be evident that I do know a little from my initial reply in this thread. The OP says they want to DIY and there's no harm in him pulling the filter element to inspect it himself. All of us started somewhere with no knowledge. I see plenty of reasons from an educational point even if he's not equipped/able to do the rebuild himself. So I don't see why you continue to harp on this.