Absolutely no leak so must be in valve guides. Adding half quart oil 800 miles. Car has 100k 2003, runs great 32 mpg, no smoke except cold morning startup. Question, do I pay $2500 for valve guide/ring job or keep driving until I see blue smoke or engine missing? Thanks.
I'd drive it till it dies then engine swap
As above poster said, thats so close to the price of an engine plus swapping it that I don't see why that would ever be worth it to do.
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Probably not the valve guides, First suspect would be the crank case vent valve and you should replace it with only oem and the 4 hoses as well. The valve can be checked with a slack test and also a smoke test. When this valve is defective it can cause a lot of strange oil consumption issues including, but not limited to pushing oil thru the intake manifold, brake booster, idle air, its certainly a lot cheaper to replace this valve, especially on the M54 as thats not the motor that has valve guide issues. The hose at the bottom of the valve turns to goo and will clog oils return to the sump. The valve also has a nipple which has a rubber cap on it, some techs connect a vacuum line from that nipple to one thats plugged on the back of the intake manifold. As long as that motor doesnt get overheated its on of BMW's most reliable engines...ever. M30 people will probably try to disagree but that motor had issues with cracked heads and wiped cams.
Thanks the engine replacement sounds good.
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Confused? A previous post said $2500 is what you could buy a rebuilt engine for 'if' it came to that. It hasn't come to that as yet but good to know choices.
Drive it.
Half a quart every 800 miles is normal ... you might not like it, but almost every manufacturer considers anything up to a quart for every 1000 miles normal.
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