Nikasil question.....sorry
Discussion
Hi all,
Im sure this must have been done to death so I appolagise in advance. A quick browse using the search didnt really help.
Im thinking about going to look at a BMW e36 328 this weekend but have read bad things about the Nikasil problem. The car is a 1995 which I have been told will definatly have that engine and has covered 110,000 miles.
Is there any test I can do once im looking at the car to test to see if it has a problem? Also would the engine have died before 110k miles if it was going to be a problem?
Thanks.
Im sure this must have been done to death so I appolagise in advance. A quick browse using the search didnt really help.
Im thinking about going to look at a BMW e36 328 this weekend but have read bad things about the Nikasil problem. The car is a 1995 which I have been told will definatly have that engine and has covered 110,000 miles.
Is there any test I can do once im looking at the car to test to see if it has a problem? Also would the engine have died before 110k miles if it was going to be a problem?
Thanks.
In my opinion if the car has done 110,000 miles it's going to be ok to carry on.
Others might disagree with me on this point however so I'd be interested to hear theirs and why.
What sort of history does it have? Full, partial, none? If partial or none? Don't bother - there's plenty more to choose from.
Others might disagree with me on this point however so I'd be interested to hear theirs and why.
What sort of history does it have? Full, partial, none? If partial or none? Don't bother - there's plenty more to choose from.
I've had a couple of 328's with nikasil engines. One was great with 160k on the clock but another that had 140k on it suffered badly.
The bad one ran fine but after being left standing for a couple of weeks it was difficult to start. This led me to get the engine compression tested and the results weren't good. I was getting readings of 140-150 and even 120 on one cylinder. Good readings are between 180 and 200.
The thing is though, the car was perfectly usable, had most of its power and was smooth enough. It just needed topping up with oil more frequently.
A 1995 car will have been built with a nikasil block but may have had it replaced with an alusil one under warranty. There is a check you can make as alusil blocks have a brass tag on the block (a quick google search should throw up where to look)
Unless you do a compression test on the engine there no sure way of telling how fit the engine is. Obviously it should be very smooth being a straight 6 and I'd be worried if it wasn't. It's a 15 year old car though and there's a multidude of other things that can go wrong.
Good luck with the car, i'm currently sorting out a nikasil mess on a 540!
The bad one ran fine but after being left standing for a couple of weeks it was difficult to start. This led me to get the engine compression tested and the results weren't good. I was getting readings of 140-150 and even 120 on one cylinder. Good readings are between 180 and 200.
The thing is though, the car was perfectly usable, had most of its power and was smooth enough. It just needed topping up with oil more frequently.
A 1995 car will have been built with a nikasil block but may have had it replaced with an alusil one under warranty. There is a check you can make as alusil blocks have a brass tag on the block (a quick google search should throw up where to look)
Unless you do a compression test on the engine there no sure way of telling how fit the engine is. Obviously it should be very smooth being a straight 6 and I'd be worried if it wasn't. It's a 15 year old car though and there's a multidude of other things that can go wrong.
Good luck with the car, i'm currently sorting out a nikasil mess on a 540!
Oi_Oi_Savaloy said:
In my opinion if the car has done 110,000 miles it's going to be ok to carry on.
Others might disagree with me on this point however so I'd be interested to hear theirs and why.
What sort of history does it have? Full, partial, none? If partial or none? Don't bother - there's plenty more to choose from.
A chap I work with has a 1997 323i Touring. It had about 100k miles on when he bought it,I think, but the engine needed replacing within a year due to Nikasil. Wasn't showing when he bought it, so be wary.Others might disagree with me on this point however so I'd be interested to hear theirs and why.
What sort of history does it have? Full, partial, none? If partial or none? Don't bother - there's plenty more to choose from.
Having said that, I bought a 140k mile 1997 530i V8 four years ago and since it didn't show any signs of problems, I assumed it would be OK, and it was during my ownership.
Oi_Oi_Savaloy said:
In my opinion if the car has done 110,000 miles it's going to be ok to carry on.
Others might disagree with me on this point however so I'd be interested to hear theirs and why.
I disagree...Others might disagree with me on this point however so I'd be interested to hear theirs and why.
Fact is that any bore wear would be present. Because the sulphur content has now been removed from fuel, the majority of future damage will be diminished compared to when the engine was fuelled in the period between manufacture and the sulphur content being present. However, the damage will still be done to varying degrees. Multiple cold starts/short journeys will exacerbate the the existing condition and will inevitably play a major part in the engine's downfall - hence people buying cars that are healthy which eventually fail under their ownership after X amount of time.
You have to weigh up the pros and cons of any prospective car purchase if you are going to keep the car for a decent amount of time. If you budget for an engine swap, then all is well. There's plenty of cars out there so it's not like you have to get a nikasil lined M52. Conversely, engines can be had cheaply enough. If you're reasonably handy with spanners and have a few mates, you can get one changed over in a day or two.
For the record, I had a nikasil lined lump in an E38 which I put 25k on in the space of just under two years before selling it when the mileage was a shade under 200k. One of the best engines I've ever had. Superbly smooth and very linear power delivery. It took plenty of abuse, too. It was no stranger to track days.
Edited by liquidken on Wednesday 10th March 21:44
Edited by liquidken on Wednesday 10th March 21:45
If you go for a look, look for obvious signs of oil consumption, the usual blue smoke, or strangely clean oil that was last changed 6000 miles ago.
A quick test suitable for any longitudinal engine, and especially an inline six, is to run it at a cold idle with the front doors wide open. An inline six is a naturally well balanced engine and all good BMW inline sixes should idle very smoothly. If there's a compression difference, it will show up as a lack of balance which is most easily seen by the top corner of the door bouncing gently as the car rocks from side to side slightly. It should sit very still with perhaps a small amount of vibration, any movement over a couple of mm means poor balance (or a knackered engine mount) and is a decent yardstick.
Look for the above mentioned brass tab on the side of the cylinder wall underneath the intake manifold between cylinders 1 and 2. If there's no brass tab, there will be an un-tabbed casting boss, teardrop shaped with a small and a large hole side by side, like an unused knock sensor boss.
Good luck.
A quick test suitable for any longitudinal engine, and especially an inline six, is to run it at a cold idle with the front doors wide open. An inline six is a naturally well balanced engine and all good BMW inline sixes should idle very smoothly. If there's a compression difference, it will show up as a lack of balance which is most easily seen by the top corner of the door bouncing gently as the car rocks from side to side slightly. It should sit very still with perhaps a small amount of vibration, any movement over a couple of mm means poor balance (or a knackered engine mount) and is a decent yardstick.
Look for the above mentioned brass tab on the side of the cylinder wall underneath the intake manifold between cylinders 1 and 2. If there's no brass tab, there will be an un-tabbed casting boss, teardrop shaped with a small and a large hole side by side, like an unused knock sensor boss.
Good luck.
carlosvalderrama said:
Look for the above mentioned brass tab on the side of the cylinder wall underneath the intake manifold between cylinders 1 and 2. If there's no brass tab, there will be an un-tabbed casting boss, teardrop shaped with a small and a large hole side by side, like an unused knock sensor boss.
Good luck.
it's the other end you should be looking at, by cyl6, as the boss/blanking plate is for the newer style crank position sensorGood luck.
If it's a plain lug - it's nikasil. If it has a tab on it too - it's steel linered block (that has it's own issues aswell potentially).
These lugs are just a filled in blank for a sensor that BMW used for the American markets.
Let me see if I can get the exact explanation: ah, here we go.
'If you didn't know what that lug on the block is for - it's for US spec engines which used a different management system where the TDC sensor fits into the back of the block to read from a trigger ring on the back of the crank. All in vain because US market cars (E36 and E39) used an iron block until the steel liners were introduced in 1998. That's why steel liner blocks have the plate and bolt - remove these and there's the hole where the TDC sensor fits!
On the M52TU double Vanos and M54 donks, the TDC sensor was rear mounted on everything. BUT...you will find late 1998 and 1999 built E36 Convertibles, Coupes and Tourings for Europe with the M52 and rear mounted TDC sensor. Not saloons though as they'de been replaced by the E46 which used the M52TU.'
These lugs are just a filled in blank for a sensor that BMW used for the American markets.
Let me see if I can get the exact explanation: ah, here we go.
'If you didn't know what that lug on the block is for - it's for US spec engines which used a different management system where the TDC sensor fits into the back of the block to read from a trigger ring on the back of the crank. All in vain because US market cars (E36 and E39) used an iron block until the steel liners were introduced in 1998. That's why steel liner blocks have the plate and bolt - remove these and there's the hole where the TDC sensor fits!
On the M52TU double Vanos and M54 donks, the TDC sensor was rear mounted on everything. BUT...you will find late 1998 and 1999 built E36 Convertibles, Coupes and Tourings for Europe with the M52 and rear mounted TDC sensor. Not saloons though as they'de been replaced by the E46 which used the M52TU.'
I looked into this thoroughly about 6 months ago before buying a 98 323i coupe (Nikasil).
I didn't want a nikasil due to the problems mentioned above, but mine has a FBMWSH, and was registered in Feb 98 (sulphur content regulations came into practice in May 98), so there wasn't that much of an issue. I test drove quite a few models before buying, and it was one of the best.
A couple of days before I bought it, I'd driven a 97 323i, which felt fine, but throttle response was a tad slow. Not sure whether this could have anything to do with the nikasil issue, but in any case, test drive as many 328s as you can, both nikasil and steel lined, so you know what to expect from the car.
I used to have a folder full of useful sites about these cars, but my laptop got nicked... If I find any, I'll post some up
= )
I didn't want a nikasil due to the problems mentioned above, but mine has a FBMWSH, and was registered in Feb 98 (sulphur content regulations came into practice in May 98), so there wasn't that much of an issue. I test drove quite a few models before buying, and it was one of the best.
A couple of days before I bought it, I'd driven a 97 323i, which felt fine, but throttle response was a tad slow. Not sure whether this could have anything to do with the nikasil issue, but in any case, test drive as many 328s as you can, both nikasil and steel lined, so you know what to expect from the car.
I used to have a folder full of useful sites about these cars, but my laptop got nicked... If I find any, I'll post some up
= )
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