First, I am impressed there is an E92 M3 with 30k miles. Second, I am really surprised how after only 30k miles this thing needed new rod bearings. Definitely an educational video.
thank you! glad you enjoyed the video. yep, it's crazy how worn they were after only 30K, especially how focused the wear was on some of the bearings. def part of the way I drive it contributed to the accelerated wear, but more people need to know this
@@DOMS4. definitely a hater. “It’s still a 3 series” umm which is still iconic to this day. 2021 and I still see videos praising how good the E9x M3 is. 🤷🏽♂️
2012 ZCP, 71k miles. IDK what to think. I do warm up my engine and drive it granny style the first 10 minutes. I think after 15 minutes I sink the throttle to the floor. I do this daily. Personally, I have high confidence in these engines.
“The way it was supposed to be” lol it’s not a race car. It’s a 3series luxury coupe. Apparently the motor doesn’t like being driven that way. But props to wetm3 for having a clean well modded m3!
@@mperformance3502 It is not a luxury coupe, it's definetly a sports car. Also, the motor does love revving it out. Just the rod bearings don't. Just test drive one, you'll know what I mean :)
@@Xpertgamingtech rod bearings do love it if you drive it hard if you focus on hard driving like on the nurburgh ring for example the wear will be less on them (sorry for my bad english i am trying XD)
Great video, everything Mike said is correct. Although I did read that the only reason BMW stopped using the lead/copper bearings is because of EU regulations banning the use of lead in car production. Don't know for a fact if that's true, but a softer bearing is always easier on the crank. I had my RBs changed at 40k KMs (25k miles) on my 2010 and while there was a bit of wear on them, it was nothing serious. I went with BE bearings and ARP bolts. Not sure how BE compare to ACL. It's such a mixed bag with these cars. I wonder if the previous owner of your car didn't treat it well/warm it up properly?
I'm 3200 miles away from personally putting 100k miles on mine lol. I did mine at 97k miles and currently at 156k miles. Not gonna do RB again. If she blows it was just her time lol
Not bad at all. ACI model bearings don’t get thin like older generations of M3’s. I’ve done 9 S65 rod bearings replacement so far. 4 of them were LCI and total waste of my time. Ethanol content, E85 piss water, insane oil change intervals and reving too high when cold cause this.
Apparently BMW engineering couldn't do any better with keeping the bottom ends together on the V8 than they could on the inline 6. Not surprising, I guess.
Damn, the previous owner definitely revved the hell out of it without warming up the engine first lol Edit: damn this mechanic is great, wish he wasn't so far from me
I'm not sure about rebuilt kits, the biggest thing is to never get used ones. the plastic gears will have already started to wear down, so if a rebuilt kit has new gears it might be ok, but in this case just get new.
yes that is the promo code for the group buy but please send me an email if you are interested in joining the group buy. I will send over all the details. if you want just parts, wettm3 is the promo code
Well done, everyones a critic with these cars when it comes to bearings lmfao.. Glad you decided to do it now, though it's pretty crazy how fast the LCIs wore out. Drive hard drive fast 💪
Rod bearing issue is biggest fear tactic plaguing the S65. Think about this, clearance is the issue and oil is too thick, when the bearings wear down isn't that creating increased Clarence? How is it even possible that the wear location would continue to wear thinner causing the bearing to collapse in the center which = spun bearing like described by the mechanic. The wear is actually creating the clearance for the oil to lubricate. Warm the engine allowing oil to thin out which gets into the bearings before redlining and you will be fine. Of course if you don't know the history of the car (some exec who had it on lease and flogged it cold out the driveway) but even then I still believe the wear just created the clearance which allows lubrication. If this was really an issue bmw would have done the recall very early on or at least changed the clearance for the later model years. Keep fear out of your lives, be sensible and enjoy this masterpiece engine.
they increased clearance on the newer bearings (as I mentioned in the video) and it still isn't enough. aftermarket bearings further increase the clearance so oil can properly lubricate. www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=892838
The problem isn't the rod bearings, the problem is the main bearings closest to the chain. The chain puts too much tension on the crankshaft making the main bearings closest to the chain work way harder. If you are thinking all you need to do is replace rod bearings to extend the life of your S65/S85 THINK AGAIN. You know how all these shops pull out the rod bearings and look at them on a piece of paper and say "oh yea its great we caught this in time" it's a bunch of bull. Have them take apart the engine completely down to the crankshaft and have them look at the main bearings closest to the chain, THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM! If you actually want your engine to last have them replace both your rod bearings AND your main bearings. Unfortunately you can't just drop the oil pan to replace your main bearings, you need the entire engine taken out and disassembled. BMW Quality!
Sales presentation, nothing less. Less than 1% of ALL M3s have had failures due to rod bearing issues. DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE. I wasted $2000 on a 68K car, and had the tech tell me that the old ones were fine. DO YOUR RESEARCH ON THE 'FEST, IT"S NOT EVEN A MEASURSABLE NUMBER OF CARS!
Mine had 86k on the clock and they didn’t 👀 as bad. I went back with BE bearings new mtr mounts and exhaust gaskets. Ive been using Redline 15w50 because of the excellent shear strength capabilities it has.
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching. check out this link for an enormous amount of info on the S65 Bearings: www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=892838
5:10 they were also required by the EPA to change materials used for compliance. They had to stop using lead and other toxic materials in engine parts and what not.
Try Ravenol my dude, don't use anything other than motul or Ravenol, liqui molly and castrol are shit, drive your m3 1 day in iraq and you'll know what I mean
Sweet man i go to their shop with my m3s too.. Im the exact opposite 🤣. One or two canyon runs a year and otherwise 2,000 miles every year of babying the car and occasionally driving crazy.
Hey mines at 62k miles and wanna get rod bearings done. And I’m pretty sure my throttle actuators are going out. So driving it to Costa Mesa doesn’t sound the best. I’m in San Jose, CA. Does anyone know a good trusted place in the bay area to get this work done. ?
send me an email about the group buy service. it’s only ~350 miles so i’d assume if you kept driving it, you’d cover that in about a month. maybe be worth the trip
Doesn't this mean the actual crank is damaged too? Does just changing the rod bearings mean the crank has worn unevenly and will prematurely start wearing down the new set of rod bearings too?
I don’t believe so, but check on this because I don’t know for certain. my understanding is once the crank is damaged you’d need to do a quite intrusive overhaul of the engine, or buy a new one dependent on mileage/cost of replacement. crank shouldn’t be damaged here, i’m guessing because it’s harder than the bearings, the crank only gets damaged when the bearing spins. again all of this is my thought I have zero certainty about this, maybe someone else can shed some light on this.
I have the same exact car 2013 with 30K and you just convinced me to change my bearings... I was dragging my feet but not anymore after seeing those horrendous bearings. I will go with BE bearings and change them myself since I have a 2-post lift. I disagree they need to be changed every 100K miles especially if you use a bearing that has the right tolerance.
Hi, thanks for helpful video since I am a prospective E92 M3 owner. In S.Korea where I am now, the norm is that you shouldn't really worry about rod bearing issue because it only occurs rarely and if it does, you should get covered by warranty (BMW Korea importer replaced entire engine under warranty when it failed. There were few cases reported that the entire engine failed due to rod issue under 50k KM mileage). I wonder how hard you drove this vehicle, to get this much wear within 30K miles. Were you following all engine warm-up procedure and oil change interval? I know few owners who drives more than 200K KM without rod bearing replacement at all, as a daily driver. It seems that the throttle actuator issue is more prevalent among the E92 M3s.
yes I drive this car pretty hard but I always let the car warm up to operating temp. throttle actuators may seem like it occurs more often but that’s because there is no threat of extreme failure to the engine if they fail. you just simply replace them. if rod bearings fail, then the engine is typically seized and cannot be recovered so you have to buy a new engine, hence why people replace them beforehand and do not let them reach failure
In my country, there is only one 2010 E92 M3 with around 70k miles. I want it but man... Bearing are scary. Should I by the only one available?! No track, old lady driving it as a daily and sometimes kids used it... 😂
At the end of your video you were driving past my hometown San Mateo,CA. You stay in La or the bay? And did you literally drive from the bay to Mike’s shop In LA?
Mahle has released a new set of replacement bearings, much better than the BMW original design or any other brand. Same materials and design they use on their F1 engine components. I just did mine 5k miles ago. Car had 85k and the rears were down to the copper. Previous owner was not very kind to it.
I watched a guy on you tube who went and changed his rod bearings as a preventative maintenance on a perfectly working N54 engine and about 3000 miles later he spun one of them and destroyed his engine, that made me worry about messing with mine.
It’s so weird the discrepancies we get in the states vs Europe ... Misha Charoudin just did a video on this and the guy Fabsan84 said he never had an issue with bearings before ... but when you see someone do the service the bearings clearly need to be changed
Tom at EAS has noticed this as well versus Europe and thinks that part of it might have to do with the shitty gas we have here in US but we still don't really know why it's so different
Great Video Mike, can you provide part# for the ACL Bearings and Carillo Rodbolts your using so I can order, unfortunately I'm in Cnada, otherwise I'd get you to do my Pre LCI 08 E92 M3 rod bearings
The fact that rod bearings need to be changed as a maintenance item is not surprising. The fact that this owner's rod bearings has signs of premature wear at 30K is not surprising. This dude (from his videos) beats the shit out of the car. Bouncing off the rev limiter frequently is sure to cause premature wear.
@@eldrl001 Sunshine, I own a BMW, I drive it everyday, and even though it is breaking my wallet, I still love it. However, it is absolutely asinine that ROD BEARINGS are a consumable item on these damn engines, regardless of how powerful it is.
lol im hesitating a little bit to get one but the job doesn't look that bad im sure i can do it myself.i hear nothing but good things when you replace them and get it over with and since you supplied the link for them makes it even better.
How do you put 7k miles in three years.. it ain’t a Bugatti. But I know a big thing with this M3 is to let the car warm up to proper temperature before you start driving hard, that will help with the overall life of the engine and rod bearings.
Thank you so much for this great video! BMW M3 is my dream car and I've been wanting one for some time now but the rod bearing always intimidated me. This video answered most of my questions and reassured me quite a bit. I didn't even know there was 2 different types of rod bearing! I was wondering if it's possible to put stronger bearings than the copper or aluminum ones? Thank you again.
Thank you so much for posting this. I've a 2012 and knew about the material difference but hadn't collected any cases of people with post LCI bearings showing dramatic wear. Bought mine last year at 47k. Will definitely look to do this now.
