Hello Folks!!...;
I haven't been up here for awhile, but my 2010 BMW 328i Sulev Coupe has a problem.... The engine is headed to the Great Beyond. I had an slight oil leak coming from my valve cover so I took it into my favorite Indie to have him take a "Squint". He said it was indeed the valve cover and when I picked myself up off the floor after he told me the price to repair it... he called me back a couple hour later and gave me some very disturbing news. It seems that between 6 and 30,000 miles, someone used the wrong type of oil in the engine. From 30,000 and then the present it was serviced by Kuni BMW in Beaverton Or. And the correct oil was used. I then picked it up at 46,000 and change, and serviced it again (I always service a new (for me) car just to be safe). But I digress.... anyhow after the cover was removed.... the whole upper part of the engine was absolutely covered in sludge and a foamy like hard crust about an 1/8 th inch. The rest was covered in a dark varnish like stuff. Chunks of crust fell off the cover and dropped al over the moving parts of the valve trains and head. He said it's virtually impossible to try and clean everything up without dumping waste into the oil pan. If anyone is interested in lookin at the mess I'll try and upload pictures from my android phone for their perusal... So..... rebuilt N-52 engines seem to be as scarce as Hens Teeth, so will a regular used low-mile N-52 non-Sulev work in my Coupe??... or will I have to change a bunch of computer stuff.... I found an outfit that has one with 58 grand on it that they warranty for 5 years or 50,000 miles for 2 grand, but I'm not sure if it's a SULEV (whatever that is). I'm just an Old Retired Locomotive engineer not a BMW Tech (as you may already surmise..). I would appreciate any advice.....
Drive On and Thank you
Fred
2010 BMW 328i Coupe. SULEV
USMC 64-67 RVN I Corps "66"
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
Attributed to , Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Hello Fred,
sorry to hear about your issue...
To my knowledge, the price of a Valve Cover & Gasket should not make anyone weak at the knees. I should expect it to be around 400-500€.
The sludge issue is a different thing though.
I cannot give you any advice without having seen any of it before. All I can say is that a friend of mine used to have an issue like yours ( his engine was sludgy and gooey, filled with some kind of evil living mass ). After doing about 3 oil changes using some additive the inside of his engine looked pretty alright for the mileage. I am not going to say that it look'd fantastic, but it was acceptable and decent.
Did you change the engine? I would have tried to drive it with some transmission oil and do some oil changes.... that could help bring it to it's end...
I don't think this is a catastrophe, and I absolutely do not think the sludge was caused by a few thousand miles of using the wrong oil. When it was new, the car would have been delivered with the correct oil. Chances are that a dealership did at least some of the subsequent oil changes.
You should check the BMW records and see what service records exist.What causes the problem you describe is frequent short trips which never warm up the engine enough to get rid of condensation. It would be surprising if synthetic oil sludged up in this manner, but I suppose it could happen. I wonder if the filter was changed, as it also has a role in this. But you don't give any indication that the engine is burning oil, has lost compression, or has any other indication of mechanical problems.
Your problem is possibly a minor one and may be correctable.You have nothing to lose except a few bucks by changing the oil every 3000-5000 miles, adding an engine cleaning solution before each oil change (don't drive it when you do that, add it only to run the engine until it's hot) and chancing the oil and filter repeatedly. Over a few changes, the engine will clean up.
The ONE potential problem is that doing this could break loose sludge that blocks an oil passage. If that happens, it may cause engine damage if the blockage doesn't dissolve in time.This has happened to me in one engine over a couple of dozen older used cars in 40 years.
I don't think it's probable, but it's possible. What's the worst that can happen?? If it DOES cause engine problems, you are no worse off than you are today. The odds are that you can clean up this engine over the next 20K miles and eliminate this problem.
Last edited by Pilgrim; 01-21-2018 at 05:00 PM.
Bookmarks