N54 no more; Crank Bolt came Loose

[Greyhound007]

Generally when you send your car in for repairs, you expect it to be in better condition then when you dropped it off right? Well in this case it didn't happen.

Long story short, the crank bolt on my '10 135i came loose while it was at a local shop and destroyed my motor. It actually came loose during a test drive after they fixed my injector issue; irony right? First thing everyone says is its the shops fault, they must have touched it. Thats not the case. Car was in for replacing injectors and the crank bolt was never touched then or prior to. They're a respectable shop in Orlando, FL, and I can't with good conscious place the blame on them without any evidence of neglect.

So from there I had the car the towed to a local BMW dealership (per BMW NA's request) to diagnose the car determine if it qualifies for assistance from BMW NA. 500 Dollars later, they tell me what I already knew; that the motor was toast. The good news was that the motor was not being beat on when it failed, and that everything up front looked untouched. They also said its made to do that in an event like a hydrolock to contain all the internals...at least thats what I understood. So I'm thinking great, BMW will definitely cover this because it a faulty design. Nope.

Just received a call from them that since the car is out of the "warranty parameters" and because I purchased from a third party instead of a certified dealer, they aren't helping with a new motor (which is $19k btw). So now I'm stuck; paid to fix my car and don't have one.

This is the first time I've ever heard of something like this happening on a combustion engine, but the more I look into it, the more it seems like an issue with some of the new BMW crank designs. I'm not sure if any of you guys have had this issue on your cars, but I've been reading up that the S55 motor is somewhat prone to it.
http://www.***********.com/content.p...oblem-solution

I'm still on the phone with BMW NA every day to get them to realize this is a result of a bad design and not neglect or wear and tear, but I'm running out of options. Any suggestions on what i can do? I'm kinda in a bind.

The boat anchor in all its glory:

Thats ice btw..

[SkullV]

Send an email to the executives at BMWNA. They ended up covering 50% of my dash replacement after the base 1-800 level BMW representatives said no. I emailed jess.cusumano@bmwna.com, their customer relations manager. I got an email back within 24 hours and a resolution within a day or two after. Good luck!

[Gangplank]

Not good, not good at all. What work was done prior that would cause this to happen? If nothing then I'd it just bad luck?

[dsocold]

bmw left my motor mount bolts off on both sides of my car so anything is possible

[mike@x-ph.com]

Sorry about that

[Greyhound007]

Originally Posted by SkullV

Send an email to the executives at BMWNA. They ended up covering 50% of my dash replacement after the base 1-800 level BMW representatives said no. I emailed jess.cusumano@bmwna.com, their customer relations manager. I got an email back within 24 hours and a resolution within a day or two after. Good luck!

Thanks for the contact. I'll send him an email and see what happens. I'm getting ready to pull the car from the dealership this week.

[JC135i]

Really hate to hear. Bummer...

[Ric in RVA]

That link is masked. How did the crank bolt wipe the motor?

[SkullV]

Originally Posted by Greyhound007

Thanks for the contact. I'll send him an email and see what happens. I'm getting ready to pull the car from the dealership this week.

Good luck, as an aside, I am also from Chicago originally. What dealership is your car at? I have a friend who is the GM of another Midwest (several hours away from Chicago) dealership who may be able to help. He used to work at several of the dealerships in Chicago and Northwest Indiana.

Keep us posted on the response from BMW NA.

[SkullV]

Originally Posted by Ric in RVA

That link is masked. How did the crank bolt wipe the motor?

Copy and paste this into google. First article:

"The-BMW-F80-M3-F82-M4-S55-engine-crank-hub-spinning-issue-comparison-to-S65-E9X-crank-does-TPG-Tuning-Gintani-or-Maximum-PSI-have-a-problem-solution"

[Cavpilot2k]

Buy a Ford Voodoo engine and swap?

But seriously, hope BMW helps you out, but you don't really have much of a leg to stand on if they don't. Hopefully they will see more value in good customer relations than pure $$.

[Gangplank]

Originally Posted by SkullV

Copy and paste this into google. First article:

"The-BMW-F80-M3-F82-M4-S55-engine-crank-hub-spinning-issue-comparison-to-S65-E9X-crank-does-TPG-Tuning-Gintani-or-Maximum-PSI-have-a-problem-solution"

Interesting read...

[Jeff@TopGearSolutions]

Well the motor can be replaced for a lot less when sourcing a used (good condition) engine yourself ($2500-4500) and have an independent shop install it.

I'd continue to fight with BMW NA and see if the shop wants to help with install of the new motor for a nominal fee.

[Greyhound007]

Originally Posted by SkullV

Good luck, as an aside, I am also from Chicago originally. What dealership is your car at? I have a friend who is the GM of another Midwest (several hours away from Chicago) dealership who may be able to help. He used to work at several of the dealerships in Chicago and Northwest Indiana.

Keep us posted on the response from BMW NA.

Thanks for the help guys. I'm getting no where with BMW NA right now.

Status so far; I contacted Jess and BMW NA and haven't heard anything back as of yet. I received and out of office reply (out until Oct 17) and forwarded the message to BMW NA customer service for management. Might as well have deleted it because theres been nothing but crickets.

The car is at a dealership in Winter Park, FL at the moment. Drove it down last December and left it there for the year. The dealership its at now is being very shady in regards to evaluating the car. I'm not getting clear answers to the questions I'm asking; what could've caused it to fail, whats the condition of the spark plugs, was there fuel in the cylinder etc, and they are pushy to get it out of there.

I wish I had the car up here with me when this occurred, but appreciate the lookout.

Originally Posted by Jeff@TopGearSolutions

Well the motor can be replaced for a lot less when sourcing a used (good condition) engine yourself ($2500-4500) and have an independent shop install it.

I'd continue to fight with BMW NA and see if the shop wants to help with install of the new motor for a nominal fee.

So I contacted the shop and they quoted me about 10K for a motor installed. Lol I couldn't believe it! They said the motor itself would be 7K to find one with 60K miles on it. I have seen them in the 2500-4500 range like you mentioned, but I'm debating putting another N54 in or putting in something else. Until I'm able to get the car back up to Chicago, I'm not ready to leave it with another shop for work in Florida.

At this point I'm looking into taking legal action since everyone I speak to is deferring fault.

[M_POWERED_BMW]

Ship the car back to chicago.

[tommyb13662]

I want to put the 35d in my 135... same power but double the economy... and since its not a diesel to start none of the carb crap on the engine. Only drawback lower redline... but hey totally worth it in economy aspect.

[Dackelone]

I remember back in 2009ish... some guys had this problem with the front crank bolt. I seem to recall it was due to a lot of these guys launching the cars hard from a dig or during very hard shifts - the engine would bounce around and the front crank pulley would make contact with the front cross brace. Most were repaired under warranty.

As for your extended warranty... you should contact your state's Insurance Commissioner. Usually getting them involved with these kinds of cases applies some fire to the feet of the extended warranty company. Or maybe even contact your insurance company and ask about a comp claim or maybe they will go to bat for you against this third party coverage.

Good Luck,
Dackel

[Greyhound007]

Update:
Received a call from a manager at BMW NA regarding the car repair and he said that he is going to contact the service manager about what they can do for assistance on the 19K repair.

I'm heading back down to Florida next weekend to talk with both the dealership and the shop that had my car last; see if I can get any more information on why it failed. BMW thinks it locked up because of water intake or failed from overheating. Doesn't make sense why they would assume this if there is no water or coolant in the oil (they confirmed) and it was a sunny day when this occurred. Were there bearing issues on the N54?

Thanks for the insight Dackel. I heard about that issue as well, and if that was the case, I'll end up pursuing it with the shop. I never realized that it pulled the crank off though. I thought that it only affected the serpentine belt. I'll check out the pulley when I get in FL.

[playground]

just buy a new motor, or a used motor and transplant it in. a used n54 long block is cheap these days. I wish my 1 was a n54 instead of a n55...

[Greyhound007]

Originally Posted by playground

just buy a new motor, or a used motor and transplant it in. a used n54 long block is cheap these days. I wish my 1 was a n54 instead of a n55...

I'll swap something else in, but I want to know why it failed before I do. Last thing i need is to put another motor in, and the same thing happens

[playground]

Originally Posted by Greyhound007

I'll swap something else in, but I want to know why it failed before I do. Last thing i need is to put another motor in, and the same thing happens

well honestly, I doubt a crankbolt will come loose again on your new n54 motor. I haven't heard that as a common problem.

[Greyhound007]

UPDATE:

Went to FL this past weekend to get my car sorted. After a great deal of unnecessary political BS with the service director and advisor, I was finally able to talk to the tech about my car. He showed me a few things that were never disclosed to me by phone, email, or on my service reports.

Turns out that when they drained the oil, they didn't find chunks of metal, only shavings. No other faults were recorded prior to the event (bolt coming out), and it indeed did happen at a lower RPM than what BMW and the director at the dealership stated (3300rpm vs 5500rpm). He also told me that he reinstalled the crank pulley and turned the crank by hand about 10 degrees before it stopped. His theory is that the tech bent a rod on the test drive when it happened. This mimicked a hydro lock and the crank bolt came out. It makes sense to me seeing as I'm running higher boost with the Dinan Stage 2 tune and the upgraded DVs. I know a lot of guys are still running stock internals, but I think the misfires may have played in to it some how over time.

Either way, it seems like the crank bolt operated as intended and I'm hoping that the block and head are salvageable. We'll see....

Thanks for all of the help guys and I appreciate the feedback with this issue. BMW NA was a waste of time to say the least and I hope none of you have to go through the same nonsense I did.