A few years ago my brother Ian had to decide whether to buy his dream car. He found a low-mileage 2011 BMW M3 convertible for sale for $29,500 in Florida, and though he wasn’t 100% sure it was the best deal, he bought it. For years, he enjoyed the fruits of that decision, hooning the absolute Scheisse out of that 414 horsepower 4.0-liter V8, feeling the crisp shifts of that ahead-of-its-time DCT automatic. But a few months back, disaster struck.
The reality is that my brother drives like a madman; I know for a fact that that S65B40 has touched over 7,000 RPM hundreds of times. Is that a bad thing? No; that’s what you pay for when you buy the greatest enthusiast’s M-car ever made. But the downside of buying a BMW is that you have to deal with BMW problems, and in the case of my brother’s low-mileage M3 whose rod bearings had allegedly been replaced by the previous owner, those problems have become dire.
A few months ago, after the car had sat for 6 months, my brother took his convertible M3 for a trip up the coast near his home of Boston, hooning it as he always does. “A couple miles from my garage on the way back I start hearing lugging / thudding noises (not too crazy),” he told me, “but the car is driving fine.”
My brother then parks the car in the garage and listens to the idle; the engine seems to be lugging. He shuts it off. He fires it back up, revs the motor to 7,000, and observes a noise that he describes as “not great.” He shuts the motor off, fires it up again, and it idles, then shuts off. From then on, it would no longer start. “It doesn’t crank again, and every time I press ignition it just gives a puff sound,” he tells me of this tragic incident, whose aftermath you can hear/see in the videos he shot below.
“I then let it sit for months before bringing it into BMW of Boston, which claims it is seized and needs a new motor.” BMW of Boston posted a video of its tech trying to turn the crank with a breaker bar; here’s a screenshot:
“We are on the crank right now … and unfortunately the engine does not crank over. I try to go back and forth, but it’s a no-go … I will be checking the filter to see if there are metal shavings. It’s highly possible that you do need an engine.”
Ultimately, the dealer determined that my brother’s M3 needs a new engine. How much will that cost? Check it out:
Holy crap! Over $40,000 after tax to replace a motor! That’s madness!
$10,458 of that is service, leaving the remaining $28,000-ish to parts costs. That’s an expensive motor! And I’m not even sure that “short engine” includes a crank and rods.
Needless to say, this is too much money for a convertible automatic M3, which is probably worth what my brother bought it for, assuming it was still, you know, running. So what’s the solution here?
The dealer’s quote is a lot, but it’s also a lot of work, so there’s no way my brother can get out of this cheaply without doing the work himself. I suggested he take it to an independent shop and see what they have to say. They can yank the motor, look inside, and see if it’s salvageable. If it needs new bearings and maybe honing and new rings, that’d be a best-case scenario. If it needs new pistons and rods, plus new bearings and a bore-job, that’d still be cheaper than the dealer’s estimate.
Worst case, the motor is toast, and my brother snags a used one on eBay. Looks like they go for between $5000 and $8000. I’d say get one that turns over and runs for closer to $5000, then have an engine shop go through it and replace the innards. I reckon you can get an independent shop to take out your old motor and look at it for a few grand. If the motor can be saved, I bet an engine shop can do that for $8-9 grand. And then the install might be another couple of grand. If he has to buy a new motor for $5-6 grand and have it rebuilt and installed, I think it’d probably cost about the same. I think my brother could get out of this for under $20,000. Maybe.
Whether it’s worth it for a car that’s worth maybe $30,000 is up to him, though. One thing I can say: Paying that $41,018.08 estimate from the dealer is clearly not the move.
Top graphic images: Ian Tracy; iOS
That’s like crate RB money. I just had my last service at BMW and I’m looking forward to saving money from here on out. I’ve loved my m2 comp, but I’ve missed Japanese cars the whole time. The BMW is not fun to work on, and pricing for everything is insane.
I wonder what the opposite of this story is?
As in what is the cheapest dealer replacement engine in a modern production car? Is the Mitsubishi Mirage MT “cheap” to do this same job?
Yeah, pretty much.
I paid $6k to have a bad chevy 350 replaced with a new Jasper crate 350 last year.
One advantage of domestic vehicles is cheaper parts. I snagged a new Dodge crate motor for $6000 this year.
B M Troubleyou. Bite My Wienie. Big Money Wasted. Etc.
I learned these terms when I owned my ’73 Bavaria (3.0, 4 speed). The brake job cost more than the car did. Every time I left a stop light I left a plume of oil smoke that got people honking at me. Rusted shock towers. Super fun car though. And that straight six sound – so good.
BMW M3 engine replacement is expensive!
Next in: Water is wet!
I mean, sure, this is bad luck and all. But Your brother got a 400+ horsepower German sports saloon and enjoyed it like god intended. What part of that sounded cheap?
If you wan’t to rev your engine and go full trottle all the time for cheap? Get a moped.
BMW… Break My Wallet
Burning Money Wildly…..
I used to bring my Mini there for oil changes when I lived less than a mile from it. That dealership’s service department is exceptionally expensive even by BMW or Boston standards.
My only BMW was an R650. And your article reminds me of why.
Bavarian Mechanik’s Werk…
yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes… sorry dude. I hope it works out for him.
I saw the priced warranty paperwork for the dealer-replaced engine on my S13. If it was accurate, Toyota paid the dealer ~$22k to replace the engine in a car I paid $24k for when it was new.
Added to the other warranty claims / recalls, they lost money on me.
Caaaaaahming up…this looks like a job for Sreten.
Buy used engine from wrecked car. Do nothing other than maintenance stuff to it. Pull old one, install new one. Rebuilding a stock engine is something that nobody does, if they can avoid it. Too much labor/cost.
With that quote, sell it for whatever he can get and move on. Go buy another. Write it off. Don’t let sentiment guide the logical decision.
For whatever it’s worth, my friends GT350 had a valve spring break 1 month before his powertrain warranty expired. If it wasn’t covered under warranty he would have been looking at a just under $43k bill at our local Ford Dealer. High performance Flat plane crank V8s are a delicate but expensive thing
150 comments in: did anyone wonder why 88 units of oil are needed?
At 8.8 qts (making the math easy), that looks to be 88 3.2oz bottles.
EDIT: looks like someone forgot the decimal point.
The probably have a bulk dispenser and a unit is probably a deciliter (10th of a liter, for those who don’t do metric). 9 liters looks like a lot, but there may be an extra fill in there.
The VW dealer I work at dispenses oil in 10th’s of a quart. so 88 units of oil is 8.8 quarts which sounds right.
I wonder what poor sod has to translate BMW service guides into America unit?. They must get an American to do it, because I imagine a German engineer having to describe a perfectly rational number of litres in ‘quarts’ would probably drive them round the bend.
“Hans! If I have to convert one more torque measurement into these ‘foot pounds’, I will pound my own feet with a hammer!”
My buddy has a 2011 sedan he bought in 2014 and sent to dinan for full boltons.
His sounded like that first video in 2019. He parked it and I’ve now hauled it and his equally traumatic Bentley arnage to two new houses. He swears one day it’s going to dinan for a full rebuild. The arnage goes to a local specialist once a year for its annual feeding. And then drives like 600 miles before something sidelines it again.
Gut wrenching noises though. Having driven his in anger a couple of times before it failed
Atleast your brother doesn’t have an arnage to deal with too?
Several commenters have pointed out that his own muppetry turned a big repair bill into a truly massive repair bill. While that is likely true, who among us hasn’t done something expensively stupid with/to their vehicle? My fellow Autopians – have sympathy! Don’t kick a man when he’s down!
(I’m mostly writing this comment in order to curry favor with the cosmos. Like any other Autopian, I could use the good karma. Car gods – see my virtuous nature and spare me your wrath next time I do something expensively stupid!)
I know I killed at least one car through my own stupidity. I’ll cut him some slack.
I have personally fucked up an oil change, not once, but twice!
The first one required a sump replacement, the second time I trashed the bearings (I assume, there was a lot of glitter in what was left of the oil). And no, it wasn’t as simple as just forgetting to put the right amount of oil back in.
I need to hear this story.
Simple anything you do will be cheaper than what the dealership will charge. The old BMW saying is still true today ” You can pay me now, and you can pay me later”.
While it definitely sucks to lose a car like this, it isn’t the financial disaster everyone makes it out to be if you consider the price bracket these live in. New M3s start around $100k, it’d probably cost $1k a month to lease one, and you lose it after 3-5 years anyway.
Spending the same amount to own what is arguably a better car for the same time period isn’t that bad. True, losing the engine is basically worst case scenario, but at least going into it there was a chance it’ll last longer than a lease would have.
Sell or part out what’s left and move on, I guess.
Too bad its one of the few modern bmw engines that doesn’t seem to have a class action mandating certain things. There were people allegedly getting n20 short blocks from bmw for $2k or less. Is there any other kind of out of warranty bmw then mechanically totaled.
Good luck finding an independent shop that can/will rebuild an M engine though. There might be a handful in the country. BMWs are great, till they blow up.
My friend had a valve spring go out on his E90 M3. A place here in Sacramento took care of it, including prophylactic rod bearing replacement, for around 8K. I know the guy I take my cars to can also do major engine work on these cars. I don’t think it’s that hard to find indy places that can rebuild these engines.
Highly dependent on where you are. California, yeah you’re probably good. Here in the Midwest? Hope you’re ready for a looooong tow.
How much for a LS swap?
In my professional opinion as I sit here at my desk as a service advisor in a reputable independent German shop, 20k is about the ballpark I’d put that in as well. Looks like it will probably need to go to an independent anyway as the short block is showing as NLA on that parts list.
Nothing about that car makes “economic sense” so really its buyers choice on how they want to continue their adventure. But not at the dealership. :-)