which of the deisel engines tend to fail ?

[fatgaz]

Hi,

I have seen the various scary stories about lost 'swirl flaps' in the plastic(!) intake causing total engine failures.

Also there seen to be quite a few stories about turbo's failing on fairly young cars. (and possibly totaling the engine too)

I am thus put off buying a second hand BMW deisel ! I'm looking at cars between 6 months and 3 years old.

Do people know if the 'swirl flap' issue only covered some engines or do all the recent engines have them ?

is turbo failure random or more frequent on some engines ?
or might it be due to people 'chiping' their cars or not driving the car sympathetically ?

ie do people allow the turbo to spin down with the engine running etc.

- or is there too much stop-start city driving clogging engines up with soot ? ie DPF clogging or EGC valves causing clogging ?

I'm thinking I should get a nice 6 cylinder NA engine just to be on the safe side !

Gareth.

( i'm getting tempted by the prices of 123d at the moment - down to below 17k now - or a 330d tourer ?)

[Ment-Al]

123d will be fine, as will the 330d.

IIRC, it was mostly the engine that was put in the earlier 320d - pre 2003 at a rough guess from what i remember?