E46 engine internal wear. Burns oil like crazy.

Hi peeps.

My BMW has been burning oil rather excesively for a while. Its got full BM service history and has covered 111k miles. Iv just had it in to the garage and spent £600 on it including service, breather valve and pipes, coil packs, a bit of soldering, heater resistor and probably some other bits I cant remember.

Anyhow since having the breather valve changed The car now smokes like hell, its embarassing! 530 miles after the work I have had to put nearly 3 litres of oil in again!!!

Iv had it back to the garage and they have told me its internal wear and baisically a new engine is the cure.

Obviously im a bit p#$t that iv just spent £600 on an engine that I now need to change.

So Im looking for an engine(2.2 6 cyl) at a reasonable price.

P.S I was told around £900 to fit an engine and roughly £900-£1000 for the engine and then our friend V.A.T. on top. Does this sound reasonable??

Thanks in advance 

I have to say that engine wear in the 6 is very rare...we get them in with 250000 miles and no sign of any problems.

Little concerned as it was burning a little oil then it has a new breather and suddenly its thomas the tank.

How did they come to the conclusion its the engine wear..what tests and the cause.If you are burning that much oil from piston ring wear then you would be down on power and probably rough running.

Have they checked the fault memory by any chance?

when they say they replaced the breather valve,do you mean the cyclone under the inlet manifold.....I have come across one of the breather pipes to the cylclone collapsing,this causes a large increase in crankcase pressure and sending the oil into the manifold.

Get a compression test done, that will tell you if the engines worn, if it buring the amount of oil you say it is I doubt very much it would be running well, i.e. "no loss in power and the engine is quiet and smooth when revving all the way through the range"

They probably didn't do a compression test or they would have figures to back up there diagnosis of it being 'donald ducked'.

Was it smoking like a trooper before they 'serviced' it?

Thanks for the help guys!

Yes it was smoking quite a bit and burning more oil than it should be but its smoking like mad now. Especially on start up and if i press the "loud" pedal.

I think I'll be visiting halfords in the next couple of days. I'll report back the outcome

Thanks again.

Right iv got a test kit so I'll post the results up once Iv had chance to use it

Thanks guys.

Sporty1 wrote: Test with engine stone cold... sitting over night and then warm.

Ok will do.

Also can anyone tell me where the MPI fuse is so I dont make a mess of the engine. Sorry Im not a mechanic so a little bit dumb

Thanks again

Sporty1 wrote: This should help you.... http://e46fanatics.com/howto/howtodetail.php?howto_id=44

Thanks

Iv done the compression test and the results are

(1 to 6 being from the bumper towards the windscreen)

1 - 200psi

2 - 210psi

3 - 210psi

4 - 210psi

5 - 200psi

I couldnt do the 6th as the extention i was using was too long but the 5th was 200psi so the 6th should have been fine right ?!

the plugs were fine and it actually fired up on 1 cylinder with the copression tester in it ( I left the other plugs in situe until it was their turn)

There is soot in the exhaust no oil residue so its definately burning oil not blowing it out of the back.

Soooooo......

Where next?

I was going to try putting some Wyns oil addative in to see how that fairs up and maybe putting some 5/30 oil in rather than the mobil1 0/40.

What do you think?

Regards.