Just how bullet proof IS the S54 3.2 M motor?
Discussion
Post May 2003 (ie, when they started building them properly), only personally heard of one needing to be replaced - and the circumstances around that are dubious.
Engines built prior to that date (I think the actual day was 22nd but that's only from memory) had issues and were subject to a few recalls, so quite a few failures were recorded during that time.
Engines built prior to that date (I think the actual day was 22nd but that's only from memory) had issues and were subject to a few recalls, so quite a few failures were recorded during that time.
Not had a catastrophic failure but the vanos unit needed replacing at only around 14k miles (and mine's an October 2005 car so relatively speaking one of the last).
Initially my local dealer was sceptical that the problem was the vanos unit ("we've never had to do one of those on an E46"
but when they had it in for a closer look they decided it was. BMW UK were obviously sceptical as well as they insisted one of their service engineers inspect the car before authorising the work but he agreed with the dealer and to be fair it was then changed immediately under warranty without a problem.
However, the moral of the story is that while vanos failures may be much less common on the E46 than they were on the E36 they can and do happen. Oh, and had my car not been under warranty the dealer informed me the bill would have been over £2k....!
Initially my local dealer was sceptical that the problem was the vanos unit ("we've never had to do one of those on an E46"
but when they had it in for a closer look they decided it was. BMW UK were obviously sceptical as well as they insisted one of their service engineers inspect the car before authorising the work but he agreed with the dealer and to be fair it was then changed immediately under warranty without a problem. However, the moral of the story is that while vanos failures may be much less common on the E46 than they were on the E36 they can and do happen. Oh, and had my car not been under warranty the dealer informed me the bill would have been over £2k....!
Philrose said:
I know of 2 engine failures on S54 M Roadsters
they didn't gave returns on roadsters and coupe with the S54 engine, because they were a bit saver with less power because of the rpm limiter @ about 7.500rpm instead of the 8.000rpm in the E46 M3 and at high revs they crash of oil problems/starvation....thats wy...but if they did go bang mostly around 40K miles more or les then you still could get a new free engine.the M3 e46 did get recalls, see if thats bin done...also the better oil-pumps from 2003 were not good enough so from 2004 they also build a even stronger one that holds till this date...
GTRene
The 2004-2006 E46 M3 S54 engine should also have slightly different internals compared to the less reliable pre-2004 S54 lumps (as well as the basic oil pump upgrade) to prevent the con rod bearing issue happening. So in effect the S54 engine lump from 2004 onwards should be slightly different to pre-2004 lumps and have much stronger engine internals.
I've heard of quite a lot of pre-2004 lumps that have actually had all the service action/recall work carried out and the engine still failed at a later date - mechanically they were just flawed (or more likely the local BMW dealer who carried out the work didn't do enough preventative work in the "service action", no doubt to save money) and owners just ended up with a complete engine replacement as a result costing BMW more money in the end.
I have also heard of some dealers refusing to help the owner if the engine has failed at a later date if the service action work was carried out at some point in the past (even though the failure was directly a result of the con rod bearing flaw), leaving the owner to foot the bill (not good).
The later 2004 onward engines though should be much more reliable and stronger with absolutely no cases of the bearing issue or engine failures.
I've heard of quite a lot of pre-2004 lumps that have actually had all the service action/recall work carried out and the engine still failed at a later date - mechanically they were just flawed (or more likely the local BMW dealer who carried out the work didn't do enough preventative work in the "service action", no doubt to save money) and owners just ended up with a complete engine replacement as a result costing BMW more money in the end.
I have also heard of some dealers refusing to help the owner if the engine has failed at a later date if the service action work was carried out at some point in the past (even though the failure was directly a result of the con rod bearing flaw), leaving the owner to foot the bill (not good).
The later 2004 onward engines though should be much more reliable and stronger with absolutely no cases of the bearing issue or engine failures.
Edited by matth76 on Sunday 9th March 20:24
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