Blue smoke on extended idle. 2006 4.8is.

[Rockit]

Found this on Bimmerforms if it helps....makes sense to me. The valve steam seals are usually good on these cars. See below...I know you have a 4.8.

I am working with my Son on his X5 4.4L 2005 with similar oil smoke on idle and using 1 qt in less than 1000 miles. His smokes more hot, not on start up but after sitting at street lights etc. Pulled the vacuum feeds off that go from the manifold to the valve covers. Both are coated inside with oil and if you penlight the manifold where these enter the engine you can see evidence that Oil has been pulled into the engine. Replaced the PVC in the valve covers first and had no improvement.
The PVC, positive crankcase ventilation system in these is unique; at least I have not seen this type used before. If it is not working correctly you will inhale oil.

This is the problem we are fixing. Not done yet, on second attempt to fix this oil consumption we are having issues getting the Vanos working again but I think we cured the oil issue. Old seals and gaskets leak, in this engine if a valve cover is leaking AIR into the engine you will pull OIL into the intake.
The PVC in these engines pull vacuum in the oil pan and in the valve covers if the vacuum does not match it allows blow by into the intake manifold with oil in the blow by. Any air leak into the valve covers or oil pan can cause this. A leaking Oil filler cap or leaking Oil dip stick is enough. We think this one was pulling air around the vanos seals, they were shot.
If this air leak has gone on for a period the valve cover gaskets many vents and oil deflectors can plug up. The valve cover will need to be removed and a thorough cleaning take place. The underside is full of passages that allow the PVC to work and not inhale oil. They are hard to clean out.
FYI, if you have bad valve stem seals it usually smokes heavy on START UP and then cleans up considerably while running although it can still use a lot of oil, less than 500 miles per qt is possible. Pull your spark plugs, if they all look the same it is not valve stem seals. Valve stem seals will typically dump a lot of oil in one or more cylinder and not dump any in other cylinders and you will see this in your plug reads. If you don't know how to read a spark plug go to Champion, NGK, Bosch web sites and read up or Google how to read a spark plug. ( By the way, Champion makes a great plug for the BMW in my opinion, it is Iridium plug part 9202 fits both the 6cyl and 8 cyl, Iridium's offer a 7 year unlimited mileage guarantee from Champion. I think these are cutting edge. but read for yourself and I will also mention this is not the old Champion company that supplied crappy plugs in the 80's, today they supply Mercedes on new engines and all Formula One engines, Iridium sparks with lower voltage input and will last 200,000 plus with less miss fires than any plug available, but enough of that, sorry )
My son installed New Vanos Seals, valve cover gasket and there are a few other seals involved with this valve cover, cleaned everything and re installed, I am afraid we may have installed the Vanos wrong or messed up the sensors in the Valve cover assembly while cleaning it. The car starts and idles great, revs great in park, runs perfect in 1st gear, in higher gears when you try to accelerate it DIES, obviously the electronics are not working properly but we have not traced the source yet, the problem is Load related.
Follow up to above note. Everything is now fixed and working great on the 2005 N62 4.4L X5. The oil smoke from the exhaust is gone. The engine is running good as new. The problem mentioned above was caused by one mistake, the drivers side electircal plug in was not fully inserted in the Vanos plug in. At one point we talked about taking that side apart again and my son had actually started taking that side apart by unplugging the Vanos Control. Once it was plugged back in everything purred. Without it plugged in the car would run great until you put a load on it and it would switch into limp home mode and cut the power to near zero while throwing no codes.

For all those replacing valve stem seals, please do yourself a favor and look into the PCV system on these cars. Check to see if your engine is fully sealed, no air leaks before spending money. Again, the Spark plugs will show if you are burning oil because of valve stem seals, read them before moving forward to change seals. If one or more spark plugs show heavy oil deposits those are the cylinders to look at for valve stem seals. If some are bad change them all. They typically age at the same rate in all cylinders.
If you put your car in a shop to get valve stem seals they will tear it down and end up replacing all the gaskets we replaced and in most cases fix your issue because of the new gaskets and O-rings most likely not because of the valve stem seals. I hope this saves some people money. Many on this forum have helped us fix our cars in the past so I hope this returns the favor.
My wife and I just picked up an X5 so now we have 2 X5's in the family but we sold off two really nice cars, our 2002 530i at 89 K and the 2001 525i at 150K.

Extra benefit: The MPG has jumped back to 20 + on Hwy at 75 MPH like it did years ago. Recently with the smoking exhaust and vacuum issue it would barely make 18 MPG on same trip.

Thank You for taking time to respond with great advice, we changed the parts listed except for the valve stem seals. The Spark Plugs that came out looked great, no sign of oil burning, no carbon build up, no deposits.
For this reason we ruled out valve stem seals and focused on the PCV system, I think BMW uses another term but function is for Crankcase ventilation.
FYI, did you now that the reason the pan is exposed to full manifold vacuum in these engines has to do with piston rings, racers found they could run lighter tension oil rings on the piston, less friction and more HP if they put vacuum in the oil pan, it helped the oil ring function. Another way to maken an engine more efficient. This was new tech to racers in the 90's but now used in pass car engines.

[bcredliner]

Rocket--great write up!!!

[bpowa]

Well I checked the pcv on both valve covers, there were no tears and I cleaned the area and springs.

I also sprayed some carb cleaner in the throttle body and and sprayed them in the breather hoses.

So far teh smoke is 75% better than when I got it.

Im sure there is another leak somewhere.

However the smoke is bearable at this point.

[4.8isX5]

Ok guys... I have fixed my oil smoke by a good 90%, i will write up more details later as im not at pc...

Mine would smoke bad... Like 45 sec-1min at traffic light while hot idle, i would release a big plume of smoke.

@terminatorx5, i believe idle speed has a play here as well..

Anyways,

I knew if spark plugs would have oil on them is seals, i did a spark plug change recently, no oil, and beforehand i did a huge ton of research and my problem did not line up with bad seals. I also replaced the ccv valves 3 months ago and that didnt help..

Next steps, i changed oil to 10-40 mobil1 full synthetic high mileage, this one has better additives for seals and such then regular mobil1 full syn..

When i took my spark plugs out i had also read about ab able trucks post on pouring a little seafoam into spark plug holes.. Well i didnt use seafoam but i poured something called gunk valve medic into them, not alot, like 1 1/2 tablespoons in each one, then reinstalled new plugs and let it sit for hour or so...

Now before even changing spark plugs and that fluid, i installed 2 catch cans for each side of pcv system, $33 parts can buy it on ebay will give link later,

I poured rest of bottle valve medic into my oil, like half a bottle, i was a lil low anyways, checked level and topped off with little bit of 10-40..

Started it up.. Huge amount of smoke, this is expected, let it idle for 20 sec, give it some revs, then go for a drive (preferably side roads at night, rip it around real good etc)...

Fast forward.. Before i would smoke a ton, now i never see smoke at all driving around, long traffic lights, etc...

I still have a tiny bit but nothing compared to before, this little amount only shows up if you idle it hot like 10-12 mins no rev etc.. Then if you give it a good 3k rpm rev right away some will come out... If you pull away slowly after that long not revving hard right away, itll come out so gradually its almost unnoticeable..

Will post up a pic of how bad it was before, versus me idleing it hot in driveway 12 min and revving..

[4.8isX5]

Ok.. Pics and vid..

This is how bad it was before.. Probably 8-10min hot idle, i sat in car and revved it for about 20 seconds, thats how much smoke would linger in the air... Bad!






Heres vid after all fixes i said above,

Car was running for 12 min, the reason its off as vid starts is cause i had it running through remote start and it auto kills it after 12 min, it was all hot and idleing as i had just been driving it prior, you can see the big difference, and thats me getting on it right away and revving good...

X5 smoke amount after 12min - YouTube

[A B Able Truck]

Originally Posted by 4.8isX5

Ok.. Pics and vid..
This is how bad it was before.. Probably 8-10min hot idle, i sat in car and revved it for about 20 seconds, thats how much smoke would linger in the air... Bad!

Heres vid after all fixes i said above,
Car was running for 12 min, the reason its off as vid starts is cause i had it running through remote start and it auto kills it after 12 min, it was all hot and idleing as i had just been driving it prior, you can see the big difference, and thats me getting on it right away and revving good...
X5 smoke amount after 12min - YouTube

Is the muffler bad - or is that the way you like it?

It took me 2x to clean the majority of carbon on top of the pistons (thru plug holes) & I'm still adding Techron every 2>3 tanks. I'm still getting a little oil thru CCV system. Let us know how your catch cans work. I'm also installing a vacuum gauge to see if it stays within specs. under different driving conditions.

[4.8isX5]

Ab, its straight piped.. Lol

[bpowa]

Can you put up pics of the catch can?

I feel that 2 cans is too excessive.

I was thinking about having 1 can and T off all the lines into 1.

[4.8isX5]

Its better to run 2 separate ones, engine has 2 banks, along with each side may vary in requirements of vacuum etc. Also the routing of the vacuum lines on one side and where they go, is different then the other.. im pretty sure they need to operate independently at their own vac pressure etc.

pics...

in orientation you are standing in front of the hood looking at the engine,,

right side





left side




end product:

[bpowa]

What was the amount of smoke before and after of the installation of just the catch cans?

Can you provide the link of the cans. And what size outter an inner diameter of the hose?

I'm not sure if yours came with the updated breather hose or not. Mines had the older Y shape hose which is shared with all 4 points. So i would think 1 can with T 'd off hoses would look cleaner. Lets all agree that the x5 has way to many wires and hose under the hood. Lol