BMW E46 M3 Engine Failure Archive
Discussion
Whether you call them a faulty batch, not hardened to spec, spec not high enough etc etc it still remains that by far the bulk of early rebuilds up to 12k miles were down to the finger followers. Fair enough there are other common problem areas like the valve guides, stems, seats etc which have come to light at higher miles but you could probably tie a lot of these back to the design/radius of the followers.
Although there is no hard evidence of major changes in mid 2002, there was certainly a sharp fall in the frequency of problems after this point, especially regarding the issue of multiple rebuilds. I know the first rebuild on my car in '01 involved replacing the worn followers/cams, where as the second in '02, 5k miles later, for the same problem was cured by fitting a complete new cylinder head. 23k miles since and no problems.
Although there is no hard evidence of major changes in mid 2002, there was certainly a sharp fall in the frequency of problems after this point, especially regarding the issue of multiple rebuilds. I know the first rebuild on my car in '01 involved replacing the worn followers/cams, where as the second in '02, 5k miles later, for the same problem was cured by fitting a complete new cylinder head. 23k miles since and no problems.
puffsorted2 said:
Because of the Vanos problems the cost of a years warranty on a 68000 mile 2000 M5 has jumped from £650 to an eye watering £1800 and that doesn't include the battery or the exhaust any more!
So you are sure its down to Vanos problems then? I would love to know where you got that conclusion from, perhaps a mate, perhaps another web forum, or is it clearly outlined in BMW's service documents? I suspect the latter is not the case and you have chosen to miss the other reasons the price may have gone up. Age, mileage, number of owners etc etc etc.
Amazing how conjecture and rumour is so often presented as fact in the world of the interweb, but thats a whole different discussion, though one this forum demonstrates so well, much to the frustration of many Speed 6 owners. Feel free to point me in the direction of your summary of the reasons above, I love to be proved wrong...
>> Edited by housemaster on Wednesday 25th January 21:06
housemaster said:
Because of the Vanos problems the cost of a years warranty on a 68000 mile 2000 M5 has jumped from £650 to an eye watering £1800 and that doesn't include the battery or the exhaust any more!
So you are sure its down to Vanos problems then? I would love to know where you got that conclusion from, perhaps a mate, perhaps another web forum, or is it clearly outlined in BMW's service documents? I suspect the latter is not the case and you have chosen to miss the other reasons the price may have gone up. Age, mileage, number of owners etc etc etc.
Amazing how conjecture and rumour is so often presented as fact in the world of the interweb, but thats a whole different discussion, though one this forum demonstrates so well, much to the frustration of many Speed 6 owners. Feel free to point me in the direction of your summary of the reasons above, I love to be proved wrong...
>> Edited by housemaster on Wednesday 25th January 21:06
My conclusion was ironic conjecture and comes from the £11422.06 pence warranty claim on my 68000 mile M5 which let go its VANOS system at 61000 miles taking out the complete left bank of the V8, dropping a valve into the cylinder which subsequently came through the side of the block, and just for good measure took the power steering pump out at the same time - would you like a copy of the invoice as proof?
Whatever the reason the fact stands that the warranty cost has nearly tripled in price this year for M5 owners. Why.. who knows .. but £1800 is £1800!
puffsorted2 said:
...comes from the £11422.06 pence warranty claim on my 68000 mile M5...
Whatever the reason the fact stands that the warranty cost has nearly tripled in price this year for M5 owners. Why.. who knows .. but £1800 is £1800!
I think the increase in warranty cost has something to do with £11,000 warranty claims!
Perhaps the same problem has happened to a few more people.
I dont know about anoyone else, but if my warranty had just saved me paying an eleven grand bill, I would snap their hand off to have the same coverage at £1800.
The more I hear about the BMW problems and Porsche problems ( I am ignoring the Metcelffe Ferrari for now) the more I am convinced that the Speed Six issue isn't an engineering problem its a PR problem. Apart from Porsche I think the TVR warranty system is now one of the most comprehensive (wear and tear included for a price) and the longest.May have the numbers wrong but I think with the 3 years on the new ones plus the extended warranty you can purchase you can now Tiv about for 8 years under warranty. And before anyone says that doesn't equate to 100,000 miles I do 12k a year which would make it pretty close.
And thats from a company with a sales output that is 0.6% that of Porsche
And thats from a company with a sales output that is 0.6% that of Porsche
sideways mostly said:
The more I hear about the BMW problems and Porsche problems ( I am ignoring the Metcelffe Ferrari for now) the more I am convinced that the Speed Six issue isn't an engineering problem its a PR problem. Apart from Porsche I think the TVR warranty system is now one of the most comprehensive (wear and tear included for a price) and the longest.May have the numbers wrong but I think with the 3 years on the new ones plus the extended warranty you can purchase you can now Tiv about for 8 years under warranty. And before anyone says that doesn't equate to 100,000 miles I do 12k a year which would make it pretty close.
And thats from a company with a sales output that is 0.6% that of Porsche
Agree completely
sideways mostly said:
I am convinced that the Speed Six issue isn't an engineering problem its a PR problem.
That's a classic journalist's approach - choose one or the other. I think that a few of us appreciate that the route cause of this issue is engineering.
SXS said:
Its true, inside information backs up the picture which has been forming over the past few months. Revised components, better quality materials. New valve guides, new valve seats, stronger valves, stronger finger-followers with better designed oil feeds, revised conrods and a few other areas (classified)....
yi8tvr said:
The head has not changed since 2000, oil is twin pumped.
The bad quality components have been resolved.
The cam angle still exists.
The crank still needs to be weighted.
JR said:
Just depends how you look at this as far as I can see. It's the same basic design with the same inbuilt unwanted forces but improved materials and detail design changes (solid cam, revised oil pump location, crank oil feed, etc.) mean that the newer engines appear beter able to cope with those unwanted forces. Call that a new engine if you like.
JR said:
I am convinced that the Speed Six issue isn't an engineering problem its a PR problem.
That's a classic journalist's approach - choose one or the other. I think that a few of us appreciate that the route cause of this issue is engineering.SXS said:
Its true, inside information backs up the picture which has been forming over the past few months. Revised components, better quality materials. New valve guides, new valve seats, stronger valves, stronger finger-followers with better designed oil feeds, revised conrods and a few other areas (classified).... yi8tvr said:
The head has not changed since 2000, oil is twin pumped.
The bad quality components have been resolved.
The cam angle still exists.
The crank still needs to be weighted.JR said:
Just depends how you look at this as far as I can see. It's the same basic design with the same inbuilt unwanted forces but improved materials and detail design changes (solid cam, revised oil pump location, crank oil feed, etc.) mean that the newer engines appear beter able to cope with those unwanted forces. Call that a new engine if you like.
Ouch-that hurt!I deal with journalists often and don't like many of them.
What I meant to say was just like Porsche et all they have had engineering problems but no more or no greater that Porsche et al BUT had not handled the PR as well...... but I didn't
The impression I frequently get from reading PH is that ONLY TVR have engine problems-and thats crap.
justinp1 said:
...comes from the £11422.06 pence warranty claim on my 68000 mile M5...
Whatever the reason the fact stands that the warranty cost has nearly tripled in price this year for M5 owners. Why.. who knows .. but £1800 is £1800!
I think the increase in warranty cost has something to do with £11,000 warranty claims!
Perhaps the same problem has happened to a few more people.
I dont know about anoyone else, but if my warranty had just saved me paying an eleven grand bill, I would snap their hand off to have the same coverage at £1800.
The thing is its less coverage now as well. It used to cover the battery and exhaust. The exhaust is the worrying bit as these are silly money to replace. To be honest £600 was a bargain, £1800 is taking the mickey. Plus they have put the 100k mileage limit in which effectivily de-values the cars approaching that - which are most as they spend the first few years as company director cars hacking to around the country before falling into private hands. My 2000W reg @ 68000 is pretty low mileage.
The point of my post was put in context the suggestion that BMW somehow treat their customers better - I bet if I didn't have the warranty in place I wouldn't have got a good will rebuild or even a contribution - but the situation was handled very well under the warranty - but by doing what they have done has now cost me a lot of cash as its nearly impossible to sell one without a warranty so I am going to have to pay it whatever as you cannot restart the warranty once it has lapsed, even if I took a chance on nothing going wrong. (which it has in the past, leaky water pump replaced and broken climate control switch)
sideways mostly said:
Ouch-that hurt!I deal with journalists often and don't like many of them.
What I meant to say was just like Porsche et all they have had engineering problems but no more or no greater that Porsche et al BUT had not handled the PR as well...... but I didn't
The impression I frequently get from reading PH is that ONLY TVR have engine problems-and thats crap.
Fair enough. It was just that in general I think that the engineers at TVR don't get the credit and recognition for the work that they do.
puffsorted2 said:
Because of the Vanos problems the cost of a years warranty on a 68000 mile 2000 M5 has jumped from £650 to an eye watering £1800 and that doesn't include the battery or the exhaust any more!
So you are sure its down to Vanos problems then? I would love to know where you got that conclusion from, perhaps a mate, perhaps another web forum, or is it clearly outlined in BMW's service documents? I suspect the latter is not the case and you have chosen to miss the other reasons the price may have gone up. Age, mileage, number of owners etc etc etc.
Amazing how conjecture and rumour is so often presented as fact in the world of the interweb, but thats a whole different discussion, though one this forum demonstrates so well, much to the frustration of many Speed 6 owners. Feel free to point me in the direction of your summary of the reasons above, I love to be proved wrong...
>> Edited by housemaster on Wednesday 25th January 21:06
My conclusion was ironic conjecture and comes from the £11422.06 pence warranty claim on my 68000 mile M5 which let go its VANOS system at 61000 miles taking out the complete left bank of the V8, dropping a valve into the cylinder which subsequently came through the side of the block, and just for good measure took the power steering pump out at the same time - would you like a copy of the invoice as proof?
Whatever the reason the fact stands that the warranty cost has nearly tripled in price this year for M5 owners. Why.. who knows .. but £1800 is £1800!
Ah, ironic conjecture, Jeremy Clarkson built a career on that and how many people think everything he says is factual. I have had a number of M cars too, just wanted to stop all those Clarkson types reading "its all down to the Vanos" and then feeling the need to pass it off as informed fact.....
Its does happen you know, you should have a read of that Speed 6 engine thread on Pistonheads sometime....
>> Edited by housemaster on Thursday 26th January 18:20
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