e39 523i high oil consumption

hi all

i have a e39 523i on a 97 plate.it is using a lot of oil.i am currently monitoring it just to see how much over a set milage.

it idles perfect

no smoke out of rear

no power loss

is there a way i can tell if it still has a nikkasil engine

any help would be appreciated

thanks

Hi Sterly and welcome along.

Sorry to say that it does have the ring of classic nikasil symptoms about it.  While there was a spate of these type of problems a few years ago the rate of them has tailed off dramatically on this and other BMW forums in the last year or two.  It seemed that most engines that had survived would continue to survive at this stage but your experience may disprove it.

There is a formal leakdown test protocol to confirm if its a nkasil issue.  Its a bit more rigourous that just a compression test, i.e. the engine should be tested from stone cold, etc.  If you do a search on here with the keywords of leakdown test then you should find plenty of guidance from a couple of years back.  Alternatively, most half decent BMW specialists should be able to perform the test for you.

Just out of curiosity, what mileage has your car got?  My old one (a '97 too) had 145k when I passed it on to a pal early this year and its now rapidly heading for 160k and still doesn't use a drop of oil between changes.

I have a couple of images of a physical difference that will tell you if you have a nkasil or alusil block (on the nearside side of the engine block).  Rather than trying to upload them somewhere, if you want them just PM me an e-mail address and I'll pop them off to you.

540 V8 wrote: I think the signs of nikasil failing engines usually comprise of poor starting when cold too.

To my knowledge, the cold start problem usually occurs when the nikasil wear is very advanced.  The bore wear means that the car struggles to gain enough compression to fire up.

Chances are Andrew that a 97 plate car was built before March 98

The cars can and do use up to a litre of oil per 1k miles without BMW showing any concern (not that they showed a huge amount of convern with the nikasil issue).

There are pics of both engines (alusil and nikasil) here.

Its done 157k
i'd hoped at this milage it had survived this issue(is that possible?)
if it is nikasil issue what can i expect to happen and how quickly?
As the only sympton it seems to be suffering from is the high oil
consumption at the moment

thanks

kbannon wrote: There are pics of both engines (alusil and nikasil) here.

Those are the images I mentioned above.

To OP - if its starting fine and using less oil than petrol then just keep going.  Having got this far, I'd expect it to continue to gradually deteriorate but there may well be 10's of thousands of miles before it gets to a point of failing entirely.  When it does, as mentioned in another post, the compression will have diminished, probably on several cylinders, to the point when it can't muster up enough compression for a cold start.

With my last 523i, the '97, I increased the frequency of oil and filter changes after it hit 100k miles.  All servicing was done by the Service Interval lights but roughly at the half way point (6-7k in my case) I had an extra oil change with filter done.

As I said earlier, that car is now heading for 160k miles and, service changes apart, the only time I ever put oil in it was a few months after I bought it in 2003.  It took a half litre.  So they can last quite well.  There are plenty of nikasil cars about with well over 200k miles and still going strong. 

The cause of the nikasil failures was the high amounts of sulphur found in fuel which continued into the late 90's. The sulphur would react with the nikasil in the bores and cause pitting and imperfections in the smoothness of the bore which is what leads to the piston rings not being able to seal the bores properly. Fuel we use nowadaysismuch improved and the sulphur content was slashed for environmental reasons a number of years back. If your engine is a nikasil lump and is still runs ok, I see no reason why it won't continue to run without issue for many years to come.

So on the note..... HAPPY MOTORING!

Mike

Andrew Rolland wrote: kbannon wrote: Chances are Andrew that a 97 plate car was built before March 98 Rule #1  Read the original post, properly!

0 out of 10.

Detention for you

Hi Sterly, welcome!

I just sold a 190k nikasil 540 which had no problems, so they can rack em up.   I also think that the nikasil issue is a bit of a bogeyman, and tends to get the blame for any little niggle, leading to undiagnosed problems in other areas (eg plugs, coils, injectors, oil separator valves, engine mounts etc etc).

Monitoring the oil usage is a good start, but I'd also do a leakdown test, just for peace of mind.

As others have said, there is no reason why your bore lining should disintegrate today with today's petrol, so progression ought to be bearable even if the nikasil is to blame.