i think my 328 still has nikasil engine

[lewis328]

hey my 97 328 sport drives fine, good fuel economy, performance etc, but after reading all the info on nikasil engines, i have been trying to identify this pear shaped plate on the block, does anyone have a photo of what i am looking for?? and does anyone run a nikasil engined 328 at the moment, will the car simply stop working and be no good to me??? my car has done 78000 miles, any info will be great cheers

[MitchT]

Phone BMW customer services with the chassis number/VIN and they' tell you whether it has/had Nikasil or not. I say 'had' because many cars had their engines changed. I believe some were done FOC even on cars that were out of warranty, though I'm not sure they'll still do it FOC. If it does have Nikasil liners and it's performing properly you might be okay now as the sulphur content in petrol these days isn't what it was. I believe the symptom of a Nikasil linered engine failing was gradual loss of compression rather than sudden catastrophic failure.

[driftdaddy]

being a 97 i very very much doubt it mate theres a simple way to check but if i try explaining to you, you won't know what the feck im on about lol
best thing to do is get yourself on e36coupe.com/forum and go to the faq section and its at the top of the page with pics on what your looking for it takes about 10 seconds

but i very much doubt it mate being a 97 9/10 it will be an alusil lined block

[doodlebug]

driftdaddy said:

...
but i very much doubt it mate being a 97 9/10 it will be an alusil lined block

All engines were Nikasil until March 1998.

So 1/10 then

[The Penguin]

Really wouldn't worry mine is a nikasil engine but runs fine and gets a fair amount of punishment. I don't belive all this scaremongering about the nikasil block.

If it is running good now i would say it's very unlikely for it to stop now.

[The Penguin]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I know that reports are still coming in on e36coupe.com although can't see any recent posts. I don't belive these are simply down to the nikasil as there are plenty of other factors i.e. mileage and quality of servicing. Service it frequently with high quality oils and I doubt you will see a problem.

[agent006]

Weren't the nikasil problems primarily caused by sulphur in petrol? Hence low sulphur petrol these days causing less issues.

[MitchT]

Apparently Jaguar had big trouble with Nikasil too. The Ferrari 348 also has Nikasil but I've never heard of it being a problem on those.

[blade7]

MitchT said:

Apparently Jaguar had big trouble with Nikasil too. The Ferrari 348 also has Nikasil but I've never heard of it being a problem on those.

Apparently nikasil is an excellent lining material provided it hasn't been compromised, most of the high performance engines it was used in specified super unleaded or whatever the equivelant was therefore avoiding the sulphur issues.

[abarber]

MitchT said:

Apparently Jaguar had big trouble with Nikasil too. The Ferrari 348 also has Nikasil but I've never heard of it being a problem on those.

Also lots of problems with 1.7 Pumas with Nikasil and also some bikes..

[lewis328]

cheers for the comments, checked out my car and going by the pics posted i have the nikasil block!! sad day, now the question do i sell or keep running it till it dies??? tough one

[NickXX]

Should be ok now - fuel quality has improved in recent years and I believe that if it's not already dead it shouldn't fail now.

[Gad-Westy]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Sadly he's right. Modern petrol means that the wear will have slowed considerably but if enough damage was done in the bad days then it could still fail. More likely to happen if the car was run on supermarket fuel when it was new. On the plus side, though many survive so if I were the OP I wouldn't lose sleep over it. Things can go wrong on any car, I'd be inclined just enjoy the car and put it to the back of your mind.

[abarber]

Just get the compression tested and also look for any vibration at idle. It should be a big smoothie like all Beemer inline sixes. Rough idle is a dead giveaway.

If it's fine, I'd keep it personally. :up