E39 Nikasil - BMW payment?
Discussion
iSore said:
You misunderstand.
We're discussing Nikasil problems on a broader scale. It's a fact that older multivalve BMW engines can easily be flooded by starting it up, running for a few seconds and shutting off. They have fairly extreme cold start fuelling to ensure they start on the button and this can lead to bore wash (low compression) and plain flooding (wet plugs) and both lead to a non start situation. I've seen it and sorted it a hundred times. For bore wash it's plugs out, oil down the bores, spin it on the starter with the fuel pump fuse out and throttle wide open, refit plugs and fuse and away it goes. For the latter it's as above, fuse out, crank over with throttles wide open to dry the plugs off - the car will attempt to start with the fuel present and may even run briefly. When it does, refit the fuse, start it and run it for a couple of minutes.
Nikasil engines are a mixed bag. It was generally the low mileage short trip cars that suffered most (aggravated by high sulphur fuels), whilst high mileage motorway cars didn't. There are still loads of them around still running fine but that's not to say that short trips won't cause damage now because it just might. In the US where fuels had a very high sulphur content, cars like the E36 328i and E39 528i were built with cast iron blocks, only switching to alloy blocks when the steel liner blocks were places in for 1998.
The OP needs to have the car somewhere other than a BMW dealership where it can be compression tested. If the compressions are all even and within spec, it probably has an issue unrelated to bore wear.
Owning a '97 E36 328i Sport that currently uses a litre of oil every 200 miles I'm well aware of the nikasil issue and have had many a "discussion" on here with people who state that nikasil issues categorically no longer exist. We're discussing Nikasil problems on a broader scale. It's a fact that older multivalve BMW engines can easily be flooded by starting it up, running for a few seconds and shutting off. They have fairly extreme cold start fuelling to ensure they start on the button and this can lead to bore wash (low compression) and plain flooding (wet plugs) and both lead to a non start situation. I've seen it and sorted it a hundred times. For bore wash it's plugs out, oil down the bores, spin it on the starter with the fuel pump fuse out and throttle wide open, refit plugs and fuse and away it goes. For the latter it's as above, fuse out, crank over with throttles wide open to dry the plugs off - the car will attempt to start with the fuel present and may even run briefly. When it does, refit the fuse, start it and run it for a couple of minutes.
Nikasil engines are a mixed bag. It was generally the low mileage short trip cars that suffered most (aggravated by high sulphur fuels), whilst high mileage motorway cars didn't. There are still loads of them around still running fine but that's not to say that short trips won't cause damage now because it just might. In the US where fuels had a very high sulphur content, cars like the E36 328i and E39 528i were built with cast iron blocks, only switching to alloy blocks when the steel liner blocks were places in for 1998.
The OP needs to have the car somewhere other than a BMW dealership where it can be compression tested. If the compressions are all even and within spec, it probably has an issue unrelated to bore wear.
Way back yonder I read this amongst many, many other articles on the nikasil issue: https://www.bmwland.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3...
So thank you for the nikasil lesson but it wasn't required!
If the car in question is simply over fueling when hot then it should be pretty simple for a BMW technician to figure that out (just as it would be easy for a decent indy to figure it out), and fix the car.
Yes, the car requires a compression test (which BMW are fully capable of doing so I'm not sure why you indicate that the car must go somewhere else to have it done? [Apart from cost savings of course]
), and ideally it also should have a leak down test carrying out as well to better determine the true condition of the engine (again, BMW are just as capable of carrying out a leak down test as any other garage, it'll just cost you more money!).Do we actually know if the car has had a compression/leak down test done already? If it has, then the results would be interesting to see (especially in light of the insinuations being cast against BMW).
BMW dealerships know full well that nobody is going to spend £6K on a brand new engine for an E39 528i, but they may well pay to have a fueling issue sorted by the dealership, so it would not be in their own interest to deliberately misdiagnose the problem as you seem to be suggesting as they will not make any money from the misdiagnosis.
As I have already posted, to diagnose this cars problem properly, you need to actually see the car in person and carry out the proper tests. You cannot diagnose it over the internet based purely on previous experience of other cars!
My father had the flooding issue on his Jaguar (he had to call out Jaguar Assist to start it who removed the fuel pump fuse) and me on my MR2 (lots of cranking got it going again). In either case only once and we are both now very careful about just starting a car up and moving it so haven't had a problem since since.
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