This was clearly the unluckiest grandma in history. First, the engine blew up while she was idling out of the grocery store parking lot a mile from her house, then the battery caught fire in her driveway while she was calling the dealership to make arrangements for repair. Sad really, but I'm glad she's OK. Its a good thing she had insurance!
@@markymark5281 huh? his comment means that around 50% of burnt cars were insurance jobs, ie, intentional fires by the owner due to him blowing the engine and/or transmission..
my dad was hired a few times to investigate this exact thing....one of the local insurance companies would hire him when they suspected this exact type of fraud (using fire insurance to make a claim when the problem was actually engine or trans that the owner decided to "repair" by fire)
Hi Eric! I’m currently lying in bed recovering from back surgery and there isn’t much fun going on in my life right now. Except this channel. I hope you understand how your work brings joy to people. To some people it may just be broken engines. To me it’s a chance to hang out with a really cool guy while learning a lot of new things. Thanks for all you do!
Hope your back op is successful. Recovery is slowish with lots of physio. I paid for extra as I wasn't getting there very quickly. Look after you new back, it'll be geat but there are only so many surgeries you can have. I'm one ahead of you maybe. Good luck.
I hope you get well soon. I had a T-4 to L-5 spinal Fusion (about 3/4 of my spine) and yeah the surgery caused a blood clot in my right leg from my ankle to my knee (from a central, which is where they put a very large needle in your jugular and send the blood through a machine that filters and adds oxygen and then puts it back in your ankle) with a PE to my right lung (yeah i should be dead a couple of times over). I still have issues but at least I'm not three inches taller on my right side compared to my left. Anyway stay strong and remember it will get better. (physical therapy was full of good days and bad).
@@nigelalderman9178 Thanks! I'm 5 days post op and I'm already walking around in my house. Still some sciatic pain left, but my nerve has been grinding against the disc for a long time, so it probably takes some time to recover. Had L4-L5 and L5-S1 done.
Heh! And you'd think after all these decades of owner disgust that the Germans would finally learn how to make a simple fucking timing set.. that works.. longer than lease terms.. lol!
@@jst_TV 😆 lol or in BMW bean counting "let's spend an extra 2 cents "overengineering" it to make another $75,000 right at the 60,000 mile mark. GENIUS MUAHAHAHAHA ze Americans vill never know"
Eric, it's nice that you enjoy your BMW's. My one experience owning a BMW taught me never to do that again. Now I own a 4 cylinder Accord, and I'm a much happier guy. Watching you tear these down is always a treat. Thanks for a taking the time to make this video!
Same here - bought one for my kid as a wedding present. It spent about 50 percent of the time in the shop. Might have been a lemon, but I'm not going to buy another toi find out.
From a career as an auto adjuster for a large P&C company, I saw a lot of this. It got passed on to the SIU for an investigation to look for proof. In a case like this everyone gets burned. The rate payers, the folks doing the legwork, and eventually the purchaser of the salvage piece because everyone is denied the opportunity to inspect the mechanical workings. If you do a teardown and discover the engine damage, you spend thousands on a forensic teardown with a good chance you don't get enough evidence to convict. The best you can hope for is for the policyholder to withdraw the claim, in which case the lender takes a bath. It's all our money so everyone loses no matter what.
I love the correlation between the length of the videos and the "don't buy" list! Jags and Land Rovers get into the 50's! A Ford 289 takes, what, about 8 minutes? Good stuff Eric!
When I hear insurance jobs I imagine Altimas, not BMWs. But looking at the condition and lack of care for this BMW I'm positive it's a former Altima owner. Great video as always!
Well The Altima is amazing it keeps going with so little oil! and I know for most that lil stick of mystery under the hood is meant to be ignored but I like to play with things and discovered it tells you the oil level! I rebuilt the front end and rear suspension, on 3rd rotor for the cap, and at 414k Km, I need to do the front end again and now got steering jitter, We'll see if I can keep it glued together till it hits 500k Km or better
The broken valve allowed the combustion to travel all the way down the exhaust where it found a hole leading to the trunk and the still burning combustion gasses caught the trunk carpet (and a spare container of gas) on fire. This is common on engines with horizontal valve springs. I think Ralph Nader wrote about it in his book "German Flamethrowers." I could be wrong though. I was wrong once before so it's possible I could be wrong again.
No no no, that's not it... it ate the valve just as it was preparing to auto stop the engine, and when it tried to re-start the engine to get going again, the engine locked, causing the starter draw while trying to break through the stopped engine to cause the battery to super heat and burst into flames. Yeah, that's it. (LOL)
@@aperson9495 I still think that gas can and a match had something to do with it. But yeah, I've heard those engines with horizontal valve springs tended to self delete themselves or ate parts of the adjustable valves. Top notch German engineering right there.
Dont be so negative, The old lady owner got such a fright when her trunk exploded in flames that she stepped on the gas so fast that the engine dropped a valve.
Well, he didn’t have a dibstick to remove this time, so the engine had to give him something to fight. But if he really wanted to, he could definitely post that footage on his grindr profile
For the oil filter housing and oil cooler gaskets, the BMW design uses either an EPDM or BUNA-N rubber. A lot of the OE/OEM name brands offer a fluorosilicone rubber version now. That can potentially increase the seal life under high temperature. I've used it on my own repairs of that component.
I love cars, but in the context of driving them, not working on them. It's a good learning experience to visualize each component in detail, and kind of like "CSI: Engine". Love the channel. I've driven three BMWs over the course of 16 years and it's cool to see the engine models getting dissected.
Speaking of straight sixes, how long do you think until we get to see one of the brand new Steilantis turbo sixes from one of those new big grand wagoneers? 6 months till someone full sends one into piston McNuggets?
idk man, some people can probably kill it in less time. If we get real lucky somebody will full send their car into a cement wall while texting and tiktoking and he might get the crumpled remains of that engine.
It should be right after they start selling cars with the straight 6 twin turbo engine. I've read that they're going to use powdered metal rods and cast pistons in the engine, and can we imagine what will happen when those parts are subjected to 20 psi turbo boost. 500+ HP out of a 180 cubic inch engine and with cast pistons and powdered metal rods.
The design of the n54 belt is something to be aware of in all filet mignon situations. The power steering pulley get brittle and chip away after 100,000 miles, can also break where the bolts thread. Recommend changing, and locktighting the pulley or upgrading to metal that way you won't have to think about the belt slipping off and almost getting sucked into the crank seal. Had just done the oil filter gasket earlier that year but man I got incredibly lucky.
Silicone restricted oil flow and the lack of maintence caused the valve guide to seize to the valve causing the valve to slap the piston and this unlocked the keepers dropping the valve until the piston broke the face of the valve and inturn locked the engine
It’s actually quite simple for a BMW engine. There’s no individual throttle bodies, no weird “valvetronic” nonsense, it’s easy to change coils, plugs and injectors with a bit of know-how. Not bad really, you just have to do the preventative maintenance.
@@TML34 I believe you. But mean just the look of that side of the engine. The aesthetic of the parts... they way it all looked. Sometimes things just affect me, and this reminds me of... something alien, or uncanny valley....
@@mediocreman2 I've been working on N54's since they came out. It's not rocket science. The only real challenging part is changing the turbos, but most of the day-to-day issues are all diy friendly.
Every time I watch you tear down one of these BMW engines I am struck by the extreme complexity of the engine. No way I’m ever interested in owning something that complex.
Cool video Eric. I wanna know what they did to booger up that crank snout. I've been watching so many of Rainman Ray's videos now that I was expecting "socket gravity" and the noise he plays when hosing things down with brake clean...
The EXACT same thing happened to my E34 525i with the M20 engine, right after startup at idle, the engine stopped, i heard clunking, and it wouldn't spin over; when we took off the head we saw a valve was broken, it was also the exhaust valve, on cylinder 5. Luckily, the bore and the piston was okay and we just replaced the valve and it was all good; but I never found out WHY would someting like this happen.
I'm a long time viewer but first time commenter. Thanks for sharing your engine insight. I really enjoy your depth of knowledge regarding BMW engines. Thanks again.
On the subject of crappy repairs, earlier this week the yard I work for sold the 5.7 Hemi from a 2013 Ram 1500. The truck itself had 344000km on it, and truck ran quite well, however the engine itself had at least been apart to have the camshaft and lifters replaced as they are very failure prone on those engines. The truck wasn’t on its original transmission either as there was a stock number from another yard on the transmission. All of the previous work was very visible from all of the out of place, or simply absent bolts. But my favourite was the bellhousing, the late model Hemi uses the same or a very similar bolt pattern to many older Chrysler V8’s, including their use of SAE bolts in certain places as the 4 uppermost bellhousing bolts in a Hemi block are 3/8 by 16 threads per inch. The late model Hemi’s also use a cast aluminum brace on the bottom of the bellhousing which bolts to the block and transmission case entirely with metric bolts(M10 x 1.5mm) which are slightly larger then the SAE bolts on the top of the bellhousing. The previous “mechanic” took no notice of the visibly different bolts used the different locations and I believe tried to force one of the larger metric bolts into the hole for standard bolts and “installed” the extra SAE bolt in the lower brace with the larger metric bolt hole. With the block(and any threads cut in it) being cast iron the metric bolt made it 4 or 5 threads into the SAE bolt hole destroying the threads in the block as it went before breaking off in the block. As this bolt was broken off on its way in because it was wrong for the hole, removing it with the welder or an easy out was never going to happen, the remains of the bolt were removed with a die grinder, a carbide burr, and a tap, and the block got a heli-coil.
You really messed with my head @ 38:21 when you had the bed plate sitting on top the cylinder head. It took a couple seconds for my brain to realize it.
Sad to see that someone bought this car, but really couldn't afford to properly maintain it; the end result is destruction! Boo to BMW for the oil leaks. Perhaps I am too naive to think that a highly engineered, supposed excellently designed engines wouldn't leak so as to cause these failures. As always, an excellent video, Eric! I love your channel.
I have had many Bimmers that never leaked... That engine leaked because someone got into it and did not put it back together correctly, and then it started leaking.. All German cars require a lot more maintenance than American cars... If one does not keep up with their maintenance schedule, then sometimes bad things happen... This engine had very few oil and filter changes, and perhaps they just ran the oil without ever checking the oil level for years... These in line 6 cylinder engines are really great, run super nice, and can get great mileage on the highway...And, they are really great driving cars, like their ad of years ago - "BMW the Ultimate Driving Machine".......... :)
One thing a lot of BMW owners don't understand is that many 'BMW mechanics' are only parts changers and that a number of BMW dealerships know this and just hope their 'mechanics' can keep the cars running until they're out of warranty.
@@zachansen8293 Coming from a automotive Tech they really dont. They just decline it if they think its fishy but iv seen people do blatant insurance fraud and it gets paid 🤷🏿♂️
Great teardown, as always. However, many of your intros tease us with the Series 3 RX-7 on the rack in the background. I share your affinity for 80’s Mazdas as I grew up with an ‘80 626 coupe (same color as yours), an ‘84 RX-7, and an ‘87 RX-7 Turbo that forever endeared me to the brand. Always loved telling curious minds why RX’s burned oil on purpose! Please give us a tour at your convenience!
I just went through your playlist. I have watched literally every teardown video (all 108 at time of) except for the Escalade Danali L94 where you explain your process, and the Q&A. ........ *Gets on that.
At some point about 20 years ago BMW decided that it would be a good idea to extend the service life of the engine oil based on some algorithms someone dreamed up. Our 2004 MINI Cooper when new was to go about 20K miles between oil changes according to the computer’s service interval read out. I heard stories of leased BMWs being sold as CPOs that blew the engines at about 80k miles because of oil sludge. On our MINI those long oil change interval “changed” (updated software?), but they are still 12-15k on our newer MINIs. A guess - this engine was one where the owner(s) followed the BMW display for service interval…. On a turbo car, that oil gets cooked. No good will happen following what BMW says. Great video!
If you’re trying to cut the cord you could grab a Milwaukee High Torque for those tougher bolts. Close to 800 ft lbs breakaway so about three times the little subcompact. Love that little guy though.
Eric, i wanted to drop a note and say i started watching your channel before i even found out how close ive been to your business location. i used to deliver flour to natures bakery next door to you in hazelwood. its cool your local, i told a small garage mechanic i know about your website.
Very interesting. I had my 335is injectors replaced recently with new, original ones and I wish I would have known about your stock. Man, they were expensive 😵
It just goes to show you more moving parts, the more ways for an engine to brake down. I repaired a straight 6 72 Ford engine with no experience other than a book, now with the added technology on engines today my experience only works on lawnmower engines today.
If you do the oil filter housing gasket yourself, make sure you bleed the oil circuit by removing the plugs for the coils and cranking the engine 3 times for 10 seconds with 20 seconds between each crank. If this isn't done, you run the risk of scoring your camshafts and the journals. Source: Me, Dealer tech
There's a slide hammer tool kit you can buy for removing the injectors on the 3.2L straight six that was in the 2005 E320 CDI and I think that would help you out a lot. That one gives a decent amount of room for the slide hammer.
Back in the 80's I worked in the fire brigade in Sydney. We had so many cars "stolen" and burned in the end, the insurance companies refused to pay any and all those claims. That stopped it!
My Aston Martin 4.7 V8 dropped an exhaust valve head and caused similar "malice in the combustion palace". When I turned it off it was still turning over. Have to assume the recovery company started it because it was seized on arrival at the garage (shop). The piston impacted the free valve head, cracked, tilted and cracked through the liner into two coolant jackets. The repair bill is utterly eye-watering but I love my Vantage so it will be reborn (rather than burnt). Rest assured, the remainder of the inside of my engine did not look like this one but is soon to be a coffee table.
Two notes about the oil filter housing: - also order the housing bolts just in case because sometimes they break. I had one snap and crack the housing near the threads and had to replace the entire thing - Sometimes the intake has to come off, however, if you just loosen/remove all the bolts, you can wiggle it aside to get to the last bolt and get it in and out with a swivel. Locking extensions/locking swivels will help a lot with the last bolt by the intake
The vanos oil filters are located near the chain tensioner, two recessed plugs T40 or something. Remove those if you want to find debris. Goes for all (bmw, mini) engines that have solenoids without screens directly on them. They are made from aluminium, so don't use an impact gun on them.
It's almost like the engineers consulted with the automotive technicians on how can we make these engines the most difficult to maintain because we don't want to just make our money when we sell the car we want it to be an ongoing financial burden.
Many cars are leased then returned back to the dealer. Cars these days often have 60k to 100k mile warranties. (Not bmw though) so I don't think manufacturers are trying to make them complex
@@Troy_Built - Absolutely !!!! I remember a model of Audi that you had to take out the zillion modules out of the engine compartment, then, the engine and transmission, to get to the timing belt on the back of the engine...It was huge labor hours..Some people came in for that and found out the cost to repair was more than they could afford, so they just left the car with the shop, got some money out of it, and unfortunately, they had to start all over again... Love Audi Interiors!!! Always absolutely beautiful, and done so perfectly! It's just the powertrain that eats one alive if it goes bad on you...
You're my hero! Thanks for the great and enjoyable educational content. This enginge sure did seem to be a huge pile of trouble and I hope you make the most out of it!!
I'm super surprised there aren't a bunch of folks suggesting this engine ingested the DISA flapper. This is a common thing for BMW, and one would think they could redesign the DISA, after a couple decades of failure. I actually heard mine being ingested, about gave me a heart attack, but evidently no damage and the engine ran another 100K until I sold it, still running solid.
I know you are a BMW Guy, but MAN Do these, and any BMW engine look to be stupid levels of Complicated. and this is coming from a Lincoln LS owner, That Jaguar V8 has its quirks yes, But they seem simple compared to this, or any BMW engine really. Except for the OLD 90s 4.0 V8s that he AJ takes Inspiration from. Those seem somewhat simpler.
Honestly there isn't much more that it has compared to your V8. Just direct injection and a turbo system. Other than that it's almost all the same basic stuff. It's just alot crammed into a small package
All modern auto manufacturers are out competing with each other to make the most overcomplicated and finicky plastic shit. All to appease marketing departments and consumers who are more qualified to hold opinions on white goods products. The logic and reasoning is based on aspirational outcomes that have no value beyond their fantastic imagination.
@@AlienLivesMatter no. They are worried about production cost and warranty period reliability. That's it all they care about because that's all stock holders care about. Whatever affects bottom line and drives sales. Nothing you said would help in either way. Always assume cost saving during production over malice when it comes to the engineering issues that come up during repair
I agree, it seems the German manufacturers look for ways to, not the right term but, over engineer, their products. Resulting in an expensive to buy and maintain product. The VW engine recently featured on this channel that had an inaccessible plastic water pump just that is known to have a high failure rate keeps me buying Japanese products.
When I worked at Kaunz in Lake Forest, Illinois I bought a 2002 tii that came in as a trade. it was a good runner but a little tired. And bought my wife a BMW 320 i S. It came in with about 3,000 miles on it when I bought it. Kept it for about 80,000. Never broke. Don't know why it held together so well.
Valves sometimes crack. Also if they ever overheat the valve seats may start to drop out of the cylinder head. Bottom ends are pretty good as long as the oil is changed and kept full. They do burn oil.
improper oil changes is sure a way to induce excessive valve float, and then it just takes one little tap for the valve to stop sitting straight and eventually get crushed along with a sudden loss of turbo boost. Either that or belt material caused the same process, or even just too much soot gunk. While working at a head shop ive seen quite a few instances of valves just not wanting to move freely in the guides, or they might move partially but the top has been mushroomed from excess pressure, having to grind the top down so that they can be removed without destroying the guide completely. If the service manual states a specific oil type with specific change intervals, you follow them. If it also states carbon cleaning you get that done. Best case for the latter is it just refusing to turn over in the morning, you cant make diamonds with an engine block.
Bmw updated the coolant in 2018 iirc from blue to green. The blue isn't forward compatible but the green coolant is backward compatible. It is entirely possible that if the water pump had been replaced at any point after 2018 that it could've been refilled with the bmw green coolant.
Thanks for another entertaining video. I’d like to see, at the end of the tear down, a table with all the parts you are going to be able to use/ sell. Thanks for the Sunday morning entertainment!
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
This was clearly the unluckiest grandma in history. First, the engine blew up while she was idling out of the grocery store parking lot a mile from her house, then the battery caught fire in her driveway while she was calling the dealership to make arrangements for repair. Sad really, but I'm glad she's OK. Its a good thing she had insurance!
That is a friction fire. The repair estimate was rubbing against the insurance policy.
🤣
😂😂😂😂
You forgot also rubbing against a empty wallet, clearly not maintained at all 😂
@@blueberrywilbur315 BMW= break my wallet
@@mysock351C Good point!
I worked in a junkyard in the 80s and it was a 50/50 shot that a burnt car had a bad engine or transmission
Wouldn't it always be a 50/50 shot? Either it's bad, or it isn't...50/50
@@markymark5281 huh? his comment means that around 50% of burnt cars were insurance jobs, ie, intentional fires by the owner due to him blowing the engine and/or transmission..
@@petesmitt The guy was making a joke lol
@@huskers1278 it was a stupid comment and if he was trying to be funny, that's even worse..
@@petesmitt it was obviously a joke
my dad was hired a few times to investigate this exact thing....one of the local insurance companies would hire him when they suspected this exact type of fraud (using fire insurance to make a claim when the problem was actually engine or trans that the owner decided to "repair" by fire)
Not so interesting. What would be interesting is what happened to the perps? Did they ever get them in jail?
Jewish lightning
would they try to turn the engine over after a fire?
@@ghostrider-be9ek
Yes, depending on the fire I would crank it what can it hurt? Destroy evidence?
I used to buy insurance auction boats. Over half of them I reckon were sunk on purpose.
Hi Eric! I’m currently lying in bed recovering from back surgery and there isn’t much fun going on in my life right now. Except this channel. I hope you understand how your work brings joy to people. To some people it may just be broken engines. To me it’s a chance to hang out with a really cool guy while learning a lot of new things. Thanks for all you do!
Really glad I could take your mind off of that for 40 some-odd minutes. Wishing you a speedy recovery!
Hope your back op is successful. Recovery is slowish with lots of physio. I paid for extra as I wasn't getting there very quickly. Look after you new back, it'll be geat but there are only so many surgeries you can have. I'm one ahead of you maybe. Good luck.
I hope you get well soon. I had a T-4 to L-5 spinal Fusion (about 3/4 of my spine) and yeah the surgery caused a blood clot in my right leg from my ankle to my knee (from a central, which is where they put a very large needle in your jugular and send the blood through a machine that filters and adds oxygen and then puts it back in your ankle) with a PE to my right lung (yeah i should be dead a couple of times over). I still have issues but at least I'm not three inches taller on my right side compared to my left. Anyway stay strong and remember it will get better. (physical therapy was full of good days and bad).
@@nigelalderman9178 Thanks! I'm 5 days post op and I'm already walking around in my house. Still some sciatic pain left, but my nerve has been grinding against the disc for a long time, so it probably takes some time to recover. Had L4-L5 and L5-S1 done.
Try Rainman Repairs and South Main Auto channels. Easy to get hooked on too. What back surgery did you have?
The grin on your face when you destroyed that timing chain guide was priceless. 🤣
Made me think of that Lonely Island song "Threw it on the Ground"
Heh! And you'd think after all these decades of owner disgust that the Germans would finally learn how to make a simple fucking timing set.. that works.. longer than lease terms.. lol!
@@Drmcclung they definitely know how, but the bean counters in Accounting won't let them go above 13 cents a part
@@jst_TV 😆 lol or in BMW bean counting "let's spend an extra 2 cents "overengineering" it to make another $75,000 right at the 60,000 mile mark. GENIUS MUAHAHAHAHA ze Americans vill never know"
@@jst_TV Germans are good at knowing how to make things burn to a crisp 😉
Eric, it's nice that you enjoy your BMW's. My one experience owning a BMW taught me never to do that again. Now I own a 4 cylinder Accord, and I'm a much happier guy. Watching you tear these down is always a treat. Thanks for a taking the time to make this video!
Same here - bought one for my kid as a wedding present. It spent about 50 percent of the time in the shop. Might have been a lemon, but I'm not going to buy another toi find out.
98 or older are good
@@KARR 98 and newer are good too you just need to know what to stay away from specifically N54 2007-2010 x35i cars and N63 2008-2013 x55i cars
'04 K24 here
BMWs are an awesome car for your friend to own.
I think I finally see a legit use for the "Shake Weight." It trains you for injector removal!
Just what I was thinking
or your right hand for.. yeah nvm
There's another use that comes to mind
Yeah.... Injector removal 🍆
@@colchronic I fight something similar morning and night everyday.
From a career as an auto adjuster for a large P&C company, I saw a lot of this. It got passed on to the SIU for an investigation to look for proof. In a case like this everyone gets burned. The rate payers, the folks doing the legwork, and eventually the purchaser of the salvage piece because everyone is denied the opportunity to inspect the mechanical workings. If you do a teardown and discover the engine damage, you spend thousands on a forensic teardown with a good chance you don't get enough evidence to convict. The best you can hope for is for the policyholder to withdraw the claim, in which case the lender takes a bath. It's all our money so everyone loses no matter what.
The satisfaction in your face when you slammed the timing chain cassette on the ground… priceless.
"Daggum. I guess the [super expensive part] was damaged in the incident. What a coincidence!" - The last owner of every twin turbo car, ever.
All these years and I finally get to see you DESTROY a "good" timing chain guide, absolutely epic!!😂😂😂😂
I love the correlation between the length of the videos and the "don't buy" list! Jags and Land Rovers get into the 50's! A Ford 289 takes, what, about 8 minutes? Good stuff Eric!
When I hear insurance jobs I imagine Altimas, not BMWs. But looking at the condition and lack of care for this BMW I'm positive it's a former Altima owner. Great video as always!
Well The Altima is amazing it keeps going with so little oil! and I know for most that lil stick of mystery under the hood is meant to be ignored but I like to play with things and discovered it tells you the oil level! I rebuilt the front end and rear suspension, on 3rd rotor for the cap, and at 414k Km, I need to do the front end again and now got steering jitter, We'll see if I can keep it glued together till it hits 500k Km or better
BAE.....
Wow the smile on your face smiling while smashing the chain guides. Gold, one of the best youtube channels.
Great camera work, great editing, great video. I love Saturday nights!
That last injector got a happy ending... lol
I started watching you a couple years ago and I gotta say that not only are you entertaining but you’re great at editing. Keep up the good work.
Got to love this man's sense of humor. O-ring pump and I hope that I will never have to change one. Great Sunday and good morning to you all today.
The broken valve allowed the combustion to travel all the way down the exhaust where it found a hole leading to the trunk and the still burning combustion gasses caught the trunk carpet (and a spare container of gas) on fire.
This is common on engines with horizontal valve springs. I think Ralph Nader wrote about it in his book "German Flamethrowers."
I could be wrong though. I was wrong once before so it's possible I could be wrong again.
I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
No no no, that's not it... it ate the valve just as it was preparing to auto stop the engine, and when it tried to re-start the engine to get going again, the engine locked, causing the starter draw while trying to break through the stopped engine to cause the battery to super heat and burst into flames. Yeah, that's it. (LOL)
@@aperson9495 I still think that gas can and a match had something to do with it. But yeah, I've heard those engines with horizontal valve springs tended to self delete themselves or ate parts of the adjustable valves.
Top notch German engineering right there.
Dont be so negative, The old lady owner got such a fright when her trunk exploded in flames that she stepped on the gas so fast that the engine dropped a valve.
I was just smiling and laughing away with that last injector removal 😂😂
Well, he didn’t have a dibstick to remove this time, so the engine had to give him something to fight. But if he really wanted to, he could definitely post that footage on his grindr profile
That's cos he didnt have a dipstick to fight with!!!😂
Did you get a new mic recently? Those head bolt cracks were sounding extra crispy lol....thanks for another great teardown!
For the oil filter housing and oil cooler gaskets, the BMW design uses either an EPDM or BUNA-N rubber. A lot of the OE/OEM name brands offer a fluorosilicone rubber version now. That can potentially increase the seal life under high temperature. I've used it on my own repairs of that component.
I love cars, but in the context of driving them, not working on them. It's a good learning experience to visualize each component in detail, and kind of like "CSI: Engine". Love the channel. I've driven three BMWs over the course of 16 years and it's cool to see the engine models getting dissected.
What a great Saturday. Banana kush and all my favorite channels have a new upload. Hard to beat on a chili winter day.
Another great tear-down! I have an F32 with a N26 in it. So far, it has been a real gem; but I'm religious about maintenance and upkeep.
"in and out shaft play" made my fn night.
I know nothing about engines. But watching you tear these apart is fascinating. I’ve also learned a ton. Keep it up!
Speaking of straight sixes, how long do you think until we get to see one of the brand new Steilantis turbo sixes from one of those new big grand wagoneers? 6 months till someone full sends one into piston McNuggets?
idk man, some people can probably kill it in less time. If we get real lucky somebody will full send their car into a cement wall while texting and tiktoking and he might get the crumpled remains of that engine.
It should be right after they start selling cars with the straight 6 twin turbo engine. I've read that they're going to use powdered metal rods and cast pistons in the engine, and can we imagine what will happen when those parts are subjected to 20 psi turbo boost. 500+ HP out of a 180 cubic inch engine and with cast pistons and powdered metal rods.
2:20 I had to pause the video. The black lift blended into the background. It looked like the pickup truck was sitting on the shelf.
Great high definition camera work. Super interesting. Unleashing the Kraken ! (flashing the VIN) :)
Honestly Really impressed with that piston holding together with a valve rattling around
The design of the n54 belt is something to be aware of in all filet mignon situations. The power steering pulley get brittle and chip away after 100,000 miles, can also break where the bolts thread. Recommend changing, and locktighting the pulley or upgrading to metal that way you won't have to think about the belt slipping off and almost getting sucked into the crank seal. Had just done the oil filter gasket earlier that year but man I got incredibly lucky.
Silicone restricted oil flow and the lack of maintence caused the valve guide to seize to the valve causing the valve to slap the piston and this unlocked the keepers dropping the valve until the piston broke the face of the valve and inturn locked the engine
I've worked on and taken apart various engines... but for some reason, this engine ... sort of gives me the willies.
It’s actually quite simple for a BMW engine. There’s no individual throttle bodies, no weird “valvetronic” nonsense, it’s easy to change coils, plugs and injectors with a bit of know-how. Not bad really, you just have to do the preventative maintenance.
its a BMW thing lol. Some people love them, then there are other people like me that use logic and say, "hell no" that thing is my nightmare
@@TML34 I believe you. But mean just the look of that side of the engine. The aesthetic of the parts... they way it all looked. Sometimes things just affect me, and this reminds me of... something alien, or uncanny valley....
This is not 'quite simple' for a BMW engine lol. It's one of the worst. If you want simple, but still modern, look at N52.
@@mediocreman2 I've been working on N54's since they came out. It's not rocket science. The only real challenging part is changing the turbos, but most of the day-to-day issues are all diy friendly.
Every time I watch you tear down one of these BMW engines I am struck by the extreme complexity of the engine. No way I’m ever interested in owning something that complex.
Cool video Eric. I wanna know what they did to booger up that crank snout. I've been watching so many of Rainman Ray's videos now that I was expecting "socket gravity" and the noise he plays when hosing things down with brake clean...
Same here!!!!!!
Another!!!!!
x3
Yep plus 1
Hi Eric, I thank you very much for putting the subtitles back.
Greetings from Barcelona, Spain.
Next time you have to pull injectors, trying twisting as you stroke up and down. Usually helps get the job done a little quicker.
You so nasty!
😂😂
@13:30 Way to stroke that stuck injector out. Looks like you've had practice doing that.
SMASH!!! That timing cassette didn't stand a chance. Great teardown Eric!
The EXACT same thing happened to my E34 525i with the M20 engine, right after startup at idle, the engine stopped, i heard clunking, and it wouldn't spin over; when we took off the head we saw a valve was broken, it was also the exhaust valve, on cylinder 5. Luckily, the bore and the piston was okay and we just replaced the valve and it was all good; but I never found out WHY would someting like this happen.
Eric, be gentle with the injector, if you jiggle it too hard it will start leaking way too soon.
I'm a long time viewer but first time commenter. Thanks for sharing your engine insight. I really enjoy your depth of knowledge regarding BMW engines. Thanks again.
On the subject of crappy repairs, earlier this week the yard I work for sold the 5.7 Hemi from a 2013 Ram 1500. The truck itself had 344000km on it, and truck ran quite well, however the engine itself had at least been apart to have the camshaft and lifters replaced as they are very failure prone on those engines. The truck wasn’t on its original transmission either as there was a stock number from another yard on the transmission. All of the previous work was very visible from all of the out of place, or simply absent bolts.
But my favourite was the bellhousing, the late model Hemi uses the same or a very similar bolt pattern to many older Chrysler V8’s, including their use of SAE bolts in certain places as the 4 uppermost bellhousing bolts in a Hemi block are 3/8 by 16 threads per inch. The late model Hemi’s also use a cast aluminum brace on the bottom of the bellhousing which bolts to the block and transmission case entirely with metric bolts(M10 x 1.5mm) which are slightly larger then the SAE bolts on the top of the bellhousing. The previous “mechanic” took no notice of the visibly different bolts used the different locations and I believe tried to force one of the larger metric bolts into the hole for standard bolts and “installed” the extra SAE bolt in the lower brace with the larger metric bolt hole. With the block(and any threads cut in it) being cast iron the metric bolt made it 4 or 5 threads into the SAE bolt hole destroying the threads in the block as it went before breaking off in the block. As this bolt was broken off on its way in because it was wrong for the hole, removing it with the welder or an easy out was never going to happen, the remains of the bolt were removed with a die grinder, a carbide burr, and a tap, and the block got a heli-coil.
Ugh. I hate that. We see this stuff often too. Cars are already unreliable enough, they don’t need people’s help to make them worse 😂
The B2200 in the background makes my heart sing....
How I miss mine... had a 93.. 5 speed, no extras...
please keep that smashing timing guides a thing i love it
You really messed with my head @ 38:21 when you had the bed plate sitting on top the cylinder head. It took a couple seconds for my brain to realize it.
Awesome videos, will we see any early 2000s bmw 540i 4.4l teardowns? Keep up the awesomeness.
Loved the slow motion destruction of the timing guides. Keep up the great work!
Sad to see that someone bought this car, but really couldn't afford to properly maintain it; the end result is destruction! Boo to BMW for the oil leaks. Perhaps I am too naive to think that a highly engineered, supposed excellently designed engines wouldn't leak so as to cause these failures. As always, an excellent video, Eric! I love your channel.
I have had many Bimmers that never leaked... That engine leaked because someone got into it and did not put it back together correctly, and then it started leaking.. All German cars require a lot more maintenance than American cars... If one does not keep up with their maintenance schedule, then sometimes bad things happen... This engine had very few oil and filter changes, and perhaps they just ran the oil without ever checking the oil level for years... These in line 6 cylinder engines are really great, run super nice, and can get great mileage on the highway...And, they are really great driving cars, like their ad of years ago - "BMW the Ultimate Driving Machine".......... :)
One thing a lot of BMW owners don't understand is that many 'BMW mechanics' are only parts changers and that a number of BMW dealerships know this and just hope their 'mechanics' can keep the cars running until they're out of warranty.
i wonder how long until that insurance adjuster sees this video
They don’t care really it’s all part of doing business
@@blueberrywilbur315 insurance companies don't care about insurance fraud?
@@zachansen8293 Coming from a automotive Tech they really dont. They just decline it if they think its fishy but iv seen people do blatant insurance fraud and it gets paid 🤷🏿♂️
@@zachansen8293 Absolutely not. They commit insurance fraud all the time when they screw over their customers!
Great teardown, as always. However, many of your intros tease us with the Series 3 RX-7 on the rack in the background. I share your affinity for 80’s Mazdas as I grew up with an ‘80 626 coupe (same color as yours), an ‘84 RX-7, and an ‘87 RX-7 Turbo that forever endeared me to the brand. Always loved telling curious minds why RX’s burned oil on purpose! Please give us a tour at your convenience!
The fire in the boot clearly broke that valve. Happens all the time.
I just went through your playlist.
I have watched literally every teardown video (all 108 at time of) except for the Escalade Danali L94 where you explain your process, and the Q&A.
........
*Gets on that.
Thank goodness the N54 doesn't have a particularly shaped water pump to go along with the injector stroking we got.
Nice work with the slide hammer! You must use that a lot.
Love your channel, keep up the good work!!
great vid man, i always look forward to you posting!
At some point about 20 years ago BMW decided that it would be a good idea to extend the service life of the engine oil based on some algorithms someone dreamed up. Our 2004 MINI Cooper when new was to go about 20K miles between oil changes according to the computer’s service interval read out. I heard stories of leased BMWs being sold as CPOs that blew the engines at about 80k miles because of oil sludge. On our MINI those long oil change interval “changed” (updated software?), but they are still 12-15k on our newer MINIs. A guess - this engine was one where the owner(s) followed the BMW display for service interval…. On a turbo car, that oil gets cooked. No good will happen following what BMW says.
Great video!
Keep up the great videos and hello from Alberta, Canada!
Alberta here too!
From Ontario...love Ms Smith🍁👍✅️🇨🇦
Another Albertan who loves his chanel
From Québec Nice vidéo again
Also from Alberta, Eric is the best!
If you’re trying to cut the cord you could grab a Milwaukee High Torque for those tougher bolts. Close to 800 ft lbs breakaway so about three times the little subcompact. Love that little guy though.
Turns over just dandy once you get the valve pieces out of the cylinder
Eric, i wanted to drop a note and say i started watching your channel before i even found out how close ive been to your business location. i used to deliver flour to natures bakery next door to you in hazelwood. its cool your local, i told a small garage mechanic i know about your website.
Very interesting. I had my 335is injectors replaced recently with new, original ones and I wish I would have known about your stock. Man, they were expensive 😵
Spiking the timing guide on the floor was the most Epic moment I have seen in any of you videos! Please keep it going! Amazing!!
Great video as usual! Always love seeing different manufacturers and engines. If yea get a shot would love to see the giant V4 2.7 gm if yea find one!
Those aren't very common in the US
The GM 2.7 is an inline-4 not a V.
@@johnfox3845 good to know thanks. Yep the I4 L3B your right
@@trentryan27aren't they in Chevy and GMC 1500s should make them fairly common?
@@DH-mw5rz yeah its a I-4 and its a fairly new engine option
Dang, 42 years in the automotive business for me. And 10 years on RUclips alone. Great video again.
Cant wait to see this teardown (only 2 minutes into it)
It just goes to show you more moving parts, the more ways for an engine to brake down.
I repaired a straight 6 72 Ford engine with no experience other than a book, now with the added technology on engines today my experience only works on lawnmower engines today.
If you do the oil filter housing gasket yourself, make sure you bleed the oil circuit by removing the plugs for the coils and cranking the engine 3 times for 10 seconds with 20 seconds between each crank. If this isn't done, you run the risk of scoring your camshafts and the journals.
Source: Me, Dealer tech
Why is that ? Seems like all that would do is remove residual oil in housing
@@drifter9425 the n52/n54/n55 had trouble getting oil to the head after ofhg replacement for some reason, and that scored the journals / trays.
Bmw won't pay the labor for that on a warranty repair...
@@chrisbrown3925 all ofhg repairs I do are customer pay, and you just disconnect the ignition coils and crank. It takes 2 minutes tops.
@@J-Kersting
Oh I see you mean after installation for some reason I was thinking before lol
Makes total sense now
There's a slide hammer tool kit you can buy for removing the injectors on the 3.2L straight six that was in the 2005 E320 CDI and I think that would help you out a lot. That one gives a decent amount of room for the slide hammer.
As an investigator this video has definitely peaked my interest...
Let's hope that your pique peaked....
Special investigation unit. SIU
@@danielknepper6884 Impressive. 😁
@@Blue-moon12 I worked for Allstate
@@danielknepper6884 Nice. I work for a Canadian Insurer
Back in the 80's I worked in the fire brigade in Sydney. We had so many cars "stolen" and burned
in the end, the insurance companies refused to pay any and all those claims. That stopped it!
"I can fix this crank seal, hold my beer"----proceeds to get out 2 lb mallet and chisel
My Aston Martin 4.7 V8 dropped an exhaust valve head and caused similar "malice in the combustion palace". When I turned it off it was still turning over. Have to assume the recovery company started it because it was seized on arrival at the garage (shop). The piston impacted the free valve head, cracked, tilted and cracked through the liner into two coolant jackets. The repair bill is utterly eye-watering but I love my Vantage so it will be reborn (rather than burnt). Rest assured, the remainder of the inside of my engine did not look like this one but is soon to be a coffee table.
a blown engine and a trunk fire at the same time. nothing sus about that! drats he only had 15 payments left
Hmmm. I have a 2009 335i that a turbo just went bad on. I think my battery is getting really HOT now too in the trunk!
Two notes about the oil filter housing:
- also order the housing bolts just in case because sometimes they break. I had one snap and crack the housing near the threads and had to replace the entire thing
- Sometimes the intake has to come off, however, if you just loosen/remove all the bolts, you can wiggle it aside to get to the last bolt and get it in and out with a swivel.
Locking extensions/locking swivels will help a lot with the last bolt by the intake
The vanos oil filters are located near the chain tensioner, two recessed plugs T40 or something. Remove those if you want to find debris. Goes for all (bmw, mini) engines that have solenoids without screens directly on them. They are made from aluminium, so don't use an impact gun on them.
It's almost like the engineers consulted with the automotive technicians on how can we make these engines the most difficult to maintain because we don't want to just make our money when we sell the car we want it to be an ongoing financial burden.
Audi is even worse.
Many cars are leased then returned back to the dealer. Cars these days often have 60k to 100k mile warranties. (Not bmw though) so I don't think manufacturers are trying to make them complex
@@Troy_Built - Absolutely !!!! I remember a model of Audi that you had to take out the zillion modules out of the engine compartment, then, the engine and transmission, to get to the timing belt on the back of the engine...It was huge labor hours..Some people came in for that and found out the cost to repair was more than they could afford, so they just left the car with the shop, got some money out of it, and unfortunately, they had to start all over again... Love Audi Interiors!!! Always absolutely beautiful, and done so perfectly! It's just the powertrain that eats one alive if it goes bad on you...
You're my hero! Thanks for the great and enjoyable educational content. This enginge sure did seem to be a huge pile of trouble and I hope you make the most out of it!!
Eric, watching you work the injectors out was amazing 🤣
jinjer friend!
Yay my Saturday night is complete. Another engine tear down.
I'm still laughing about the name of the slide hammer...
I'm super surprised there aren't a bunch of folks suggesting this engine ingested the DISA flapper. This is a common thing for BMW, and one would think they could redesign the DISA, after a couple decades of failure. I actually heard mine being ingested, about gave me a heart attack, but evidently no damage and the engine ran another 100K until I sold it, still running solid.
That wrist action with the injector removal tool looks strangely familiar for some reason. I can't quite place where I've seen that motion before.
😂
its a slide hammer. thats just how you use the thing. beat it like it owes you money
@@bradhaines3142 so we're going to start calling it "slide hammering" now.... 🤣🤣🤣
I feel a gentle tug on my memory strings....
15:14 Second time I've heard walnut (shell) blast today. I was watching Hoovie's Garage and the Car Ninja mentioned it when cleaning Hoovie's Audi S7
I know you are a BMW Guy, but MAN Do these, and any BMW engine look to be stupid levels of Complicated. and this is coming from a Lincoln LS owner, That Jaguar V8 has its quirks yes, But they seem simple compared to this, or any BMW engine really. Except for the OLD 90s 4.0 V8s that he AJ takes Inspiration from. Those seem somewhat simpler.
Honestly there isn't much more that it has compared to your V8. Just direct injection and a turbo system. Other than that it's almost all the same basic stuff.
It's just alot crammed into a small package
Go watch an Audi V6 or V8 tear down.
All modern auto manufacturers are out competing with each other to make the most overcomplicated and finicky plastic shit.
All to appease marketing departments and consumers who are more qualified to hold opinions on white goods products.
The logic and reasoning is based on aspirational outcomes that have no value beyond their fantastic imagination.
@@AlienLivesMatter no. They are worried about production cost and warranty period reliability. That's it all they care about because that's all stock holders care about. Whatever affects bottom line and drives sales. Nothing you said would help in either way. Always assume cost saving during production over malice when it comes to the engineering issues that come up during repair
I agree, it seems the German manufacturers look for ways to, not the right term but, over engineer, their products. Resulting in an expensive to buy and maintain product. The VW engine recently featured on this channel that had an inaccessible plastic water pump just that is known to have a high failure rate keeps me buying Japanese products.
When I worked at Kaunz in Lake Forest, Illinois I bought a 2002 tii that came in as a trade. it was a good runner but a little tired.
And bought my wife a BMW 320 i S. It came in with about 3,000 miles on it when I bought it. Kept it for about 80,000. Never broke. Don't know why it held together so well.
Do you deal in Mini Coopers? How about N14 or N18 engines? They're notoriously reliable. Would be near impossible to find a failed motor.
Valves sometimes crack. Also if they ever overheat the valve seats may start to drop out of the cylinder head. Bottom ends are pretty good as long as the oil is changed and kept full. They do burn oil.
improper oil changes is sure a way to induce excessive valve float, and then it just takes one little tap for the valve to stop sitting straight and eventually get crushed along with a sudden loss of turbo boost. Either that or belt material caused the same process, or even just too much soot gunk.
While working at a head shop ive seen quite a few instances of valves just not wanting to move freely in the guides, or they might move partially but the top has been mushroomed from excess pressure, having to grind the top down so that they can be removed without destroying the guide completely.
If the service manual states a specific oil type with specific change intervals, you follow them. If it also states carbon cleaning you get that done. Best case for the latter is it just refusing to turn over in the morning, you cant make diamonds with an engine block.
Can you do a tear down off a blown up ford 300 i6 if you can find one
Anyone with a Ford 300 is probably smart enough to keep it and rebuild it.
Really loving this channel!!! Been watching it a ton lately. Love to see a mopar magnum engine tear down some day
Sub optimal? Good way to put it. I like to call things “not ideal” when I need a nice way to call something extremely screwed up.
I use the phrase "Less than ideal" myself....
Bmw updated the coolant in 2018 iirc from blue to green. The blue isn't forward compatible but the green coolant is backward compatible. It is entirely possible that if the water pump had been replaced at any point after 2018 that it could've been refilled with the bmw green coolant.
Oh a bmw would never be used in an insurance job😂
Never
Yeah, it's just pure coincidence the engine exploded and the trunk caught on fire at the exact same time.
@@thenoblehacker9111 I mean I could honestly believe a bmw would be the one to pull it off😂
This is my absolute favorite RUclips channel. Thanks a lot for posting these videos.
Teardown time! Hurray. P.s Whatever happened to that externally overheated porsche motor?
Thanks for another entertaining video.
I’d like to see, at the end of the tear down, a table with all the parts you are going to be able to use/ sell.
Thanks for the Sunday morning entertainment!