Originally Posted by Russianblue

was yours knocking by the time you brought it in or did you catch it in time? any crank damage?

I had actually planned to take the car in to have an oil pan gasket done. I suppose if the damage is not too too bad, rod bearings would be a fairly straightforward add-on to that repair no? does that take a lot of time if everything is already dismantled? bearing kit is what? a couple hundred bucks.

to your point, I kept wondering myself about how if I just shorten the change interval, obviously things are going to improve (you would think).

I love these cars but this is a real kick in the pants to be honest (after the recent head gasket change on my other Xer). This car was supposed to be my dependable one but it really does appear that I have a fairly serious problem with it after reading up on this topic.

It's just crazy that of all the issues with the M54 and the hundreds of hours of reading for the past 10+ years I don't think I have EVER seen anyone mention rod bearing problems. Not that they don't exist, but that's not typically something i'd have ever bothered to check even if there was a way to do it.