2001 X5 4.4i engine Failure?!
 

I just bought this X5 3 months ago and it has been a living nightmare, I have taken it to 2 Reputable shops in Houston. One is telling me that its the timing chain and it will cost $4300.00 to repair. The other shop is saying that its not the timing chain and that they found metal shavings in the oil filter and on the dip stick. Their estimate is $5000+ to go in and repair. The car starts right up and drives but sounds like "valve clatter" mixed with "piston slap". Basically like shaking a box of rocks.

Any ideas? I am at the end of my rope with this car, I just spent $2,000 on a brand new a/c system for the car. I paid cash for the car so thankfully there is no car note

car has 122,000 miles

I'd stop driving the car immediately. I had a complete timing chain guide failure on my 740iL (same engine) that in the end cost me around $12k after it was all said and done...4000 miles into ownership. The problem is the guides are made out of plastic and wear out. Removing the front cover is a complete bitch to say the least. These blocks are strong, but everything bolts to them is what gets weak. Unfortunately it's something you're going to have to get the engine torn down a little and see what happens from there. Try www.e38.org for links to threads of indy's in your area and see if you can find a more affordable shop, otherwise i'd say start searching around on www.car-part.com or www.bavengine.com for another engine. Sorry man.

get rid of car and run for the hills...it will be a lifelong hemmorage of money

I ended up swapping the entire engine which was sounding like yours + no oil pressure was present and metal shavings in the oil.
The chain tensioner got unbolted causing all that failures,I heard it's a pretty common failure for m62 engine on 7th series.
The swap was around $ 7000 canadians,but I have a lower kms engine now.
Metal particles in the oil,well,it doesn't mean anything good, tearing the engine apart just to know what is really going on...it will be expensive...

Good god, threads like this really make me nervous. 12K!?!? thats is insane... your almost better off driving it off a cliff.

Mine was 12k only because I had the motor torn down to be bored and sleeved for boost, lightweight pistons, shotpeened crank, ported and polished the heads, 3 angle valve job, custom cam, new seals, etc. I plan on keeping my 7 for a long time, so I put in the money needed to keep it around for another 12yrs.

You can find junkyard engines all day long for a few thousand, but then you get a questionable warranty. It now comes down to how long you like your X and how long you wanna keep her.

thank you for the advice, I am currently looking for a used engine. I expect to lose at least $5,000 if i sell it as-is, its kind of a catch 22 but hopefully if i can repair it by swapping the engine I can sell the car and try to get some of my money back since I paid below blue book

BMW X5 ENGINE 4.4I MOTOR 02 03 04 05 4.4 COMPLETE X5 : eBay Motors (item 260537453578 end time Jan-23-10 12:51:18 PST)

Not the most comfortable way to buy an engine. It did the trick for me for 4k. I did swap it myself with an engine hoist and stand.

GL to you

I had a similar issue as m5james. My 2000 4.4 with 120k had the plastic (plastic! PLASTIC!!!) chain guides go, which took 35 hours of labor (at $100 per) to fix. Add the "as long as it's torn apart" stuff like tensioners, waterpump, etc., it was $5,500 to fix. Ouch. Has tainted my view of BMW's, maybe forever.

Now I have the infamous Vanos noise. Yes, I have 140k on her, but for the money and the reputation, these should be typical German 300k cars. Now I am waiting for the tranny to go. Thinking about pulling the ripcord...

we all keep reading these failure topics
big decision
keep reading or pull the ripcord .