Piston rings, oh how I dislike you...

[Uraharasan]

So...car's been burning through entirely too much oil for the last year. I ignored the problem until the last month or so and just kept feeding it whenever it got hungry. Over the past 5 weeks I've gone through a gallon (No, not a quart...a gallon) of Amsoil 5w40 Euro. Car Formula. That's when I said enough is enough.

Ripped into the PCV system tonight and checked everything out. Hoses were good, valve was good, nothing clogged...did a compression test. 210psi in 1,2,5 and 6. 3 and 4 were both sitting at 180psi. Poured a little oil into the cylinders and hooked the gauge back up, compression rose for a moment but quickly fell back to 180 and the oil was gone.

FML.

Anyone had to replace their rings on these motors before? Other things I should probably tinker with while the engine is torn apart?

[Speedsta]

might as well throw in fresh rod bearings and valve seals while youre at it.

[kryatov123]

Complete rebuild, y not your taking everything apart

[kevinwilly]

How many miles on the car? I'd be more prone to saying it's a head gasket than rings...

But I mean- that's just from what people have said. Of problems with compression, 95% of the time it's head gasket on these cars.

Hell, I just pulled the head off my euro motor with 140k miles. There is still all the cross-hatching on the cylinder walls. The rings have virtually NO wear on them at all.

At any rate, EVERYTHING is easier with the engine out of the car. If you have the room to do it and the know-how, it's only a few hours to get it done.

Anyways- I second rebuilding the whole thing if you have it out. Just for the love of god, go to a machine shop that does engine work and have THEM order you the rings, bearings, and rebuild your lifters if you need it. Usually they rebuild lifters for like 12 bucks each, and rings are 2-3 bucks each, instead of 120 a cylinder from most BMW parts places.

Bearings are bearings, lifters are lifters, and rings are rings. It doesn't matter what engine they go in. People tend to WAY overpay for stuff just because it's going in a BMW. Drives me crazy. I got my cylinder head rebuilt a couple weeks back. Came to 450 bucks after tax, and it's basically brand new. Re-used the valves, though.

[328iJunkie]

Ftl