Subject: This months Roundel has a story about this.. Author: doublevanos : member since July, 2004 : 9 posts Posted on: 2009-04-05 01:54:28

It seems one of the writers had an oil separator "incident" on his 1999 528i. Pumped so much oil into the intake tract that he thought he had hydrolocked the engine and ruined it. He ever went so far as to declare the car toast and put it up for sale on eBay as a 5 series wagon that needed an engine.

By chance a friend of his (a noted BMW technician) came to look at the car. Even though the engine had put up bad figures on a compression test, he pulled the spark plugs and used a coat hanger in the spark plug holes to measure pairs of cylinders and see if there were any bent rods. Not an exact science for sure, but he wasn't convinced that the engine was toast and proceeded to turn the engine over sans spark plugs and blew all the oil out of the cylinders. A set of new spark plugs later the car fired right up and was fine. This writer is driving the car today.

I am highly suspicious of your dealers virtue. With the economy the way it is today I think many BMW dealer shops are told charge the customer as much as they can bear to help prop up the sagging new car sales dept.

I was just recently at my hometown dealer (BMW of Houston North)buying parts and was told by some parts personel that sales were horrific; people don't want a new Bimmer, they just want their old one patched up. This sounds a heck of a lot like your case.

If you can, get hold of the April 2009 Roundel magazine and check out Rob Siegel's (the hack mechanic) story on page 99. Right up your alley.

Hopefully, things might not be as bad as they sound...Good luck! DV

PS. If you'd like, you can email Mike Miller with your story and he will tell you exactly what a bad oil separator will do and what your options are. Email him at: techtalk@roundel.org and be sure to include your name, addresss, BMW year,model and mileage.

• oil separator ruined engine???? - dblnomad 2008-01-07 15:02:52 (1108 views)
  • This months Roundel has a story about this.. - doublevanos 2009-04-05 01:54:28 (180 views)
  • Re: oil separator ruined engine???? - bfalcone 2008-12-30 00:41:48 (388 views)
  • Re: oil separator ruined engine???? - oembimmerparts 2008-01-13 14:33:24 (755 views)
    • Re: oil separator ruined engine???? - dblnomad 2008-01-14 11:42:39 (603 views)
      • Re: oil separator ruined engine???? - renny 2009-02-03 22:47:58 (209 views)