Rod bearing failures on 2004+ M3's?

Anybody out there had rod bearing failures on cars that were not part of the 2001 to 2003 rod bearing recalls? My 2004 M3 has a failed rod bearing at 82,000 miles, never abused or tracked. Trying to get a sense if the rod bearing problems continued after the initial problems, or if I'm just very unlikely. Anyone get BMW to pick up the repair of this failure - technically I'm over 6 years with the car so not covered.

~gs2gf

It doesn't hurt to ask and write some letters. I read of another that got a deal to have his 04 repaired, but not sure if it was BMW or the local dealer that worked out the reduced repairs.

Any signs before it failed? Did you do an oil analysis? Did you push it before fully warmed up?

BMW did step up and help out some, we ended up doing a 3 way split on the repair between me, BMW NA, and my local BMW dealer.

BMW NA did some analysis of the failure but never really got to a definitive cause for the failure. The crank wasn't in bad shape so we replaced the rod bearings (all) and also tossed a new oil pump at it for good luck, we'll see how it goes.

No, I never did any oil analysis, so didn't catch it that way.

Car has been treated very well, never pushed hard cold.

The rod did start rapping before hand, that's what made me have it looked at. But other than a bit of noise around 3,000 rpm it ran normal.

~gs2gf

I'm surprised with a bearing shell half as nasty as the one above that the crank was ok. Lucky for sure. Nice to hear everyone sharing in the expense. If I were you, I'd do an oil change at 1200 miles and send a sample off to Blackstone for analysis. I'd do the next change at ~4k miles and send if off for analysis too (cheap to do, think they charge $25). Then I'd do 5k mile oil changes of course using Castrol 10W60. Good luck!

What was your maintenance schedule?

How often did you change oil & what did you use?
Did you have the car since new?

Oil was changed when the in dash service interval called for it, nominally 15,000 miles. Used the OEM Castrol 10w60 oil. Yes, have owned the car since new.

~gs2gf

I would definitely switch to 7500mi max oil change interval.

:facepalm:

I'm not saying that the long intervals had an effect on what actually happened, but it definitely doesn't help that you waiting so long to change the oil.

Yes, clearly there are MANY threads already about the default BMW oil change interval, or for that matter, what the optimum change interval for synthetic oils.

Hard to say if following BMW's oil change schedule contributed or not, but if that was a factor I would have expected more than just the single rod bearing to have excessive wear. The other 5 all showed normal wear for the mileage.

~gs2gf

sure it did

Well then, should a lot of the existing E46 M3s that followed factory oil change schedules be developing this problem as well?

~gs2gf

tick
tick
tick

Know what I mean?



(the best thing for the S54 is fresh oil. Consider the high-pressure vanos for example. Not to mention the high stress of 8000 RPM shifting. Taking OCIs out to 10,000+ miles is madness.)

8000 rpm shifting is madness with old tired oil. I switched to Redline 10w-60. Has better HTHS numbers than TWS.
Regular fluid changes (gearbox, diff, crankcase) give peace of mind when driving it "properly"