e90 e92 e93 engine problems

[v8m3]

are these engines reliable
please list any faults you've had

[ndj]

Zero problems. Sept 09 with 27k miles.

[M3greg]

I bought mine from Ocean in Plymouth, at 5 years old and 35k miles. Within a week an ignition coil went. Thankfully it was AUC and through Wollaston in Northampton they fixed it gratis.

Incidentally, at the same time, Wollaston found that the offside rear shock was cracked so they did that too. There was a quibble as this was technically a consumable, but Wollaston convinced the a s it was only a week old BMW should cover it.

Incidentally, the salesman at Ocean assured me the security update would be done before I bought it. Fortunately I asked Wollaston to check as Ocean hadn't done it (anyone see a pattern forming here?).

So for me, depends where you get it from. I'll never do any trade with Ocean again! Looked after they're reliable, but they do need a lot of expensive servicing.

[E91M3]

In 3 years of ownership (25K miles) I had to replace all 8 ignition coils, 1 lambda sensor and a Vanos solenoid.

My car was an early 08 model so not sure if the later engines are more reliable.

[MerseaBoy]

Most people have had zero engine problems. The main issue appears to be the throttle actuators which some people have has issues with. Do a search on M3cutters and you will see various posts about it.

[v8m3]

the reason I asked this question is, I am fitting this engine in my e30 m3 with a shoe horn and don't want to have to keep lifting it out or struggling to replace parts, I know the starter motor is an absolute nightmare to get to but I wanted to know any other problems

thankyou for your help

wayne

[t8cmf]

Owned my E92 M3 for two years. No issues, no warranty either.

[cpufreak]

on my first e92 m3 , I had a fuel pump malfunction, which brought up this scary warning



That was in 2009, with a car on ~7000 miles.

simple fix under warranty.

current E92 m3 has done 29,000 miles, no problems under my ownership, and not aware of any before then.

[Gruber]

I've had two e92 M3s and not a single engine problem with either of them. It's a cracking engine... you must be an absolute lunatic to be fitting one into an e30!!

[krallicious]

I never had a problem. Covered 55k miles in under 3.5 years and the car was driving very often on track.

[julians]

I've only had one issue, and that was a single coil pack failed.

Car was a 2008 model, and now has done 50000 miles.

[whp1983]

2008 m3 now at 73k miles... Two ignition coils replaced. So far that's it (touch Wood!)

[cerb4.5lee]

I did 10k miles in mine & it was as solid as a rock it just enjoyed sipping oil a little.

[jcolley]

Throttle actuators will all go eventually. The middle gear of three wears and eventually prevents smooth rotation. Mileage at failure will vary though. There are a few companies pursuing replacement gear sets of improved design.

Rod bearings are the next concern. S85 and S65 share the same rod bearings and combined with the ridiculously heavy Castrol TWS, the very tight clearance appears to result in premature wear of the rod bearings and potential failure manifesting in the form of a thrown rod or spun bearing. Google "S65 rod bearing" or "s85 rod bearing" and read away. No hard statistic on failure rate, but not one single owner of an S65 or S85 yet has removed a set of rod bearings and been willing to reuse the old ones due to the wear.

You guys get off lucky over the V-10 as you don't have the VANOS high pressure pump and its problems to deal with.

[Wills2]

A combined mileage of 45k over two e92, one 2008 one 2012 no issues with either, the length of time the car has been out, numbers sold and the lack of engines letting go tell you the s65 is a reasonably safe bet.

Some of the rod bearing stories are from cars running 550+ with superchargers attached...

[Tony B2]

jcolley said:

No hard statistic on failure rate, but not one single owner of an S65 or S85 yet has removed a set of rod bearings and been willing to reuse the old ones due to the wear.

And what proportion of M3 owners has removed and inspected a set of bearings?

0.1%?

Or maybe less….

[jcolley]

Tony B2 said:

And what proportion of M3 owners has removed and inspected a set of bearings?

0.1%?

Or maybe less….

Completely agreed. But if you take a minute random sample of any batch of any product and 100% of those sampled exhibit wear... It certainly seems more logical to me than saying only that 0.1% who inspected their bearings are the ones with problems.

The last part number revision for the bearings was made to remove lead to comply with "green" regulations. Coincidentally, they tend to show increased cleareance measurements allowing better lubrication. I have faith in BMW they have tight enough control on their OEMs that it's not an accident the measurements have changed.

I have nothing to sell and nothing to gain. My S85 had a failed injector and hydrolocked on the starter when I went to restart it. I boroscoped the cylinder walls to verify there was no damage from washing the piston rings and then pulled the oil pan to inspect the connecting rods. Made sense to replace the bearings while I was in there and mine fell right in to the sample batch of every other set that's been photographed coming out of the engine. My S85 was at 73k, so I consider that decent. However, the have been engine failures as low as 27k on bone stock engines and low mileage failures on both S65 and S85s. It's not that hard of a job to replace them, it just takes a little studying.

Professionally I work in QA and if cursory inspections reveal a consistent trend, it warrants further investigation. I'm not out to spread doom and gloom, just passing along what I've learned. I intend to enjoy my car for another 75k and maybe more after that.


Edit: A couple of good threads for data:

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9353...
http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8928...

Edited by jcolley on Friday 14th February 15:47

[Tony B2]

jcolley said:

Completely agreed. But if you take a minute random sample of any batch of any product and 100% of those sampled exhibit wear... It certainly seems more logical to me than saying only that 0.1% who inspected their bearings are the ones with problems.

The last part number revision for the bearings was made to remove lead to comply with "green" regulations. Coincidentally, they tend to show increased cleareance measurements allowing better lubrication. I have faith in BMW they have tight enough control on their OEMs that it's not an accident the measurements have changed.

I have nothing to sell and nothing to gain. My S85 had a failed injector and hydrolocked on the starter when I went to restart it. I boroscoped the cylinder walls to verify there was no damage from washing the piston rings and then pulled the oil pan to inspect the connecting rods. Made sense to replace the bearings while I was in there and mine fell right in to the sample batch of every other set that's been photographed coming out of the engine. My S85 was at 73k, so I consider that decent. However, the have been engine failures as low as 27k on bone stock engines and low mileage failures on both S65 and S85s. It's not that hard of a job to replace them, it just takes a little studying.

Professionally I work in QA and if cursory inspections reveal a consistent trend, it warrants further investigation. I'm not out to spread doom and gloom, just passing along what I've learned. I intend to enjoy my car for another 75k and maybe more after that.


Edit: A couple of good threads for data:

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9353...
http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8928...

Edited by jcolley on Friday 14th February 15:47

Agreed - up to a point.
The problem is, engines that have been dismantled are not necessarily representative of the wider (statistical) population.
Dismantling could have been performed as a result of problems experienced, either with a standard engine, or worse, with a modified or supercharged engine.

Any of the supercharged engines should be eliminated from the stats.

I still believe that S65 reliability is far higher than that of the E46 M3 (brain-fade - can't remember the S number…) which had loads of problems in the first 3 years of production. My second E46 M3 - built Jan 2003 - had a bearing recall. Not sure now (further brain-fade) whether this was main, or big end bearings.

[v8m3]

thanks guys for all your input, but it seems that left standard they are pretty damn reliable I don't intend to supercharge the thing as it will be under a ton I will be fitting a carbon airbox and running a stand alone ecu and a lightened flywheel so this thing will rev

[whp1983]

That is awesome, can't wait to seeit finished