2014 M5 low oil = engine rebuild... recommendations?

[Dav_s]

Hello

Can someone please recommend a company that can potentially rebuild an M5 engine that has been run with low oil?
The car is in West London, but can be transported anywhere in the country.

Also, if anyone else has had the misfortune of a similar situation, please feel free to share your experience/tips (if any) on getting the problem rectified.

Thanks in advance

Edited by Dav_s on Wednesday 16th September 08:29

[paulmc]

Oh that's not good. No oil warning light or anything?> Dig end knocking??

prepare yourself for a hefty bill. On the plus side (if there is one) if you catch it quick enough its maybe only the shells that have gone crank might be ok? fingers crossed.

[Dav_s]

It's a friends car - no warning lights, just straight to clunking!

Dash is indicating that the next service is due in around 2000 miles, but his local BMW garage are saying he missed the oil service, so his warranty is void. They've told him that the pistons have gone and have quoted him in the region of £35,000 for a new engine.

[Sir_Dave]

Dav_s said:

It's a friends car - no warning lights, just straight to clunking!

Dash is indicating that the next service is due in around 2000 miles, but his local BMW garage are saying he missed the oil service, so his warranty is void. They've told him that the pistons have gone and have quoted him in the region of £35,000 for a new engine.

When they say his missed the oil service/voided the warranty, do they mean the latest one, or the "running in" one?

Bad thing to happen, seems a little odd though, always a slight issue with no dipstick though i guess?!

[W8PMC]

Dav_s said:

It's a friends car - no warning lights, just straight to clunking!

Dash is indicating that the next service is due in around 2000 miles, but his local BMW garage are saying he missed the oil service, so his warranty is void. They've told him that the pistons have gone and have quoted him in the region of £35,000 for a new engine.

Did it miss an Oil Service? If showing 2000 miles to the next Oil Service on the dash & if it missed the previous service then it could conceivably be 35000 miles without an oil change which for an M5 could quite easily lead to a catastrophic engine failure.

I can fully recommend BN Dynamics in Wigan as an excellent BMW Indy & they specialise in BMW M's. Bit of a trek i grant you but i'm sure they'd be considerably cheaper. Although a different league price wise, i paid them £105 for the supply & fit of rear pads on my F10 M5, whilst my local BMW Stealer wanted 3x that.

[paulmc]

Dav_s said:

It's a friends car - no warning lights, just straight to clunking!

Dash is indicating that the next service is due in around 2000 miles, but his local BMW garage are saying he missed the oil service, so his warranty is void. They've told him that the pistons have gone and have quoted him in the region of £35,000 for a new engine.

Pistons have gone, what a load of ste. If the pistons have gone there must have been det, Low oil wont cause det. Low oil = low oil pressure = lack of lube to crankshaft bearings (shells) which = engine knock.

Get a real mechanic to look at it not a BMW fitter!!!

[Dav_s]

Yeah have advised my mate. First port of call is the BMW dealership to discuss the whole void warranty issue.

Fingers crossed everything goes his way.

Thanks for all the replies so far.

[theboss]

I'll be interested to hear the story behind this e.g. the details on servicing, whether your mate bought it new or used, etc. as if he hasn't done anything at all wrong then it's a nightmare situation. £35k!!!

[Soov535]

Dav_s said:

It's a friends car - no warning lights, just straight to clunking!

Dash is indicating that the next service is due in around 2000 miles, but his local BMW garage are saying he missed the oil service, so his warranty is void. They've told him that the pistons have gone and have quoted him in the region of £35,000 for a new engine.

I assume you mean the running in service at 1200 miles?

If he did miss it he's fooked.

[likesachange]

That's frightening! £35k! A new m5 is 59k (with discounts)

Will be very interesting on the history of the car.

What are the service intervals?? 1200, 12, 24, 36 etc??

Has he not long bought it and previous owner has not bothered servicing it and just had the service indicator reset?? Meaning mileage might also be "dodgy"?

[Schermerhorn]

Did he buy it new?

If so why did he miss the running in service? It is probably the most important service you can do on the car.

[HoHoHo]

Wow, that's a huge sum for a new engine

I check mine regularly and it seems to use f-all oil to be fair but it's all checked electronicly which I'm sure can have its own issues.

One thing to bear in mind is my service indicator was out when my car was serviced at 1200 miles and it suggested work was needed that wasn't. This fault isn't unique to me according to this forum and if it can work one way, can it work the other?

I'd be looking to interrogate the on-board service manual to ensure it hasn't had a hiccough.

[W8PMC]

HoHoHo said:

Wow, that's a huge sum for a new engine

I check mine regularly and it seems to use f-all oil to be fair but it's all checked electronicly which I'm sure can have its own issues.

One thing to bear in mind is my service indicator was out when my car was serviced at 1200 miles and it suggested work was needed that wasn't. This fault isn't unique to me according to this forum and if it can work one way, can it work the other?

I'd be looking to interrogate the on-board service manual to ensure it hasn't had a hiccough.

As above. BMW dealers are aware of issues with the CBS sensors (Condition Based Servicing) as mine's had issues with anomalies for the brake pads. Without boring everyone, my fronts were showing 2400 miles left, however had close to 10mm which is about 60% life left & my rears were showing 11000 miles left but had the same physical wear as the rears. During a track day a few weeks ago at Snetterton my fronts dropped to need replacing (red warning) without ever showing a yellow warning & my rears dropped to 6000 miles left on the computer. When physically checked, both needed replacing ASAP which they then were.

So worth doing physical checks rather than relying on the computer, however am i right that the oil can't be checked as the F10 M5 doesn't have a physical dipstick?

[simonpa]

No dipstick.

There is a sensor bolted to the underside of the sump, which sticks up in the oil sloshing around in the sump pan.
It measures the average oil level over a period to indicate how much is in the sump.

This measurement can be hurried along by getting to temperature, parking level with engine idling and then pressing the oil level reset. You mustn't touch the throttle during the reading phase. If the clock symbol doesn't come up, then you are probably not up to temp.

Usually, with dry-sump systems, oil level in the sump isn't that meaningful, but I'm pretty sure this isn't a real dry-sump system, as it always has some oil in the sump pan.

The sensor may include some optical elements to show how 'dirty' or opaque the oil is, but as there is no forced flow through the sensor, it won't measure viscosity in any way that I can see.

[likesachange]

Can never understand why no dipstick, yeah it's nice to have an electronic sensor to gauge it but what harm is there to add a dipstick onto the engine?? Even as a secondary gauge.

But that's great info Simon!

[JNW1]

likesachange said:

Can never understand why no dipstick

I've had spats on other threads over the lack of a dipstick but the reality is that nowadays even a large proportion of BMW owners aren't car people and are happy to rely on the i-drive to tell them everything they think they need to know. BMW are obviously happy to play along with this as if they can discourage people from doing anything under the bonnet apart from topping-up the washer fluid it eventually means more will beat a path to their service departments...

[pidsy]

OP i'd be looking to speak to George @ technosport (staples corner). they know their stuff, M specialists who have done work for me. last time my car was in, they were doing a rebuild on a MY13 M6.

http://www.technosport.co.uk/

[nickfrog]

W8PMC said:

As above. BMW dealers are aware of issues with the CBS sensors (Condition Based Servicing) as mine's had issues with anomalies for the brake pads. Without boring everyone, my fronts were showing 2400 miles left, however had close to 10mm which is about 60% life left & my rears were showing 11000 miles left but had the same physical wear as the rears. During a track day a few weeks ago at Snetterton my fronts dropped to need replacing (red warning) without ever showing a yellow warning & my rears dropped to 6000 miles left on the computer. When physically checked, both needed replacing ASAP which they then were.

So worth doing physical checks rather than relying on the computer, however am i right that the oil can't be checked as the F10 M5 doesn't have a physical dipstick?

I don't think there is a CBS sensors problem - the systems' algorithm simply can't cope with the wear pattern generated by track day use.

[W8PMC]

nickfrog said:

I don't think there is a CBS sensors problem - the systems' algorithm simply can't cope with the wear pattern generated by track day use.

I should have been more specific as although you're probably right, i was told by 2 BMW dealers that there is a known issue with CBS (can't recall if they said hardware or software), but they did confirm they've had to reset several CBS systems which i assume is a specific ECU?

[Wills2]

One "feature" I've found with the oil level indicator is that through the idrive it will say "oil level OK" but when you stop and perform a full check through idrive it merrily informs you that the oil is low.

So I no longer rely on the first option and check every month.