My x5 hydrolocked and broke a rod, now what
 

So the X5 that I have been driving for a year now finally gave its last f-you to me on sat.

its a 2001 4.4 224k on body, a low mileage 61k motor was installed due to previous timing chain breaking. Motor was done by me, all new gaskets, and CCV parts through BMW. Motor had a 6 mos warranty on it.

well about 4 weeks ago the CCV froze and car started to burn oil and smoke badly. we towed it to my shop (bmw shop I am a tech for) and i went through checking the CCV system I found massive amounts of water and oil goop coming from rear intake cover, the funnel thing also had goop in it. I cleaned and replaced the rear cover for intake, removed intake and drained the oil from it as well. reassembled and added the heated wrap mod to the upper hoses accross the intake. took it for a drive and it drove great. that was the first cold spell we had about 8 deg. Now flash forward to sat it was 10 deg again and snowing blowing. we started car in drive way let idle for 5 min and then drove to store. We drove about 10 min max, as I went to back into a parking spot (so we can load the hatch without wind bloing at us) the second I started to move in reverse the motor made a chug, chug and stoped. Starter just clicks.

I had a friend give me a ride home to get truck and I drove back and tried to jump start it. no go.

towed to dealership. I removed all plugs and found #1 full of oil, #4 full of oil and also oil on #8 plug. all others looked ok. hoses were froze again. even with heated wrap they froze. tried to turn motor over with breaker bar and socket and it would not move. I turned it backwards slightly and it started to move. I then was able to bar motor over clock wise again about two revolutions and it would stop again. looking in the spark plug holes I could see number one piston does not move. :wow:#4 does move which share a journal so crank did not break, it has to be the connecting rod.

so, my best assumption was that oil started to pool in the bottom of the intake. when I put in reverse and started to back up it must have caused it to run to the front two runners and lock the motor up. Damn poor design if you ask me. If I were out beating the hell out of it I would not be so mad but i simply put car in reverse and started to move and bang...

I think I am done with BMW v8 motors.

So sorry to hear what happened.

I feel for you... so crappy!

I clean out my ccv's every month during the cold season and plan to install a catch can this summer after reading all the posts like thing :(

Hope the $40 fix will save me from this disaster!

Where is CCV located and how easy is it to lean it? i am getting a bit concerned with all the posts on this lately and considering we had such a rough weather lately...

Sorry to hear.

What was your usage pattern for the vehicle? Daily mileage, trip duration? Warm-up practices?

Now what? Unless you have access to a used engine and can supply your own labour, it appears it may be time to part it out.

Well mine was not that simple it seems. I have replaced all the components about 4 weeks prior. The problem is my wife drove the car from drive way to work, about 5 min each way, sometimes 10 min. the car never got on freeway to dry oil out. Then when cold strikes it freezes. Really sucks because they are forcasting upper 40s from here on out. But cant tell the future so who knows.

if you remove the engine cover you will see two large rubber hoses going from left to right accross top of rear intake. those are the hoses that like to freeze and plug up with condensation/oil goo... they are designed to draw in vapors/oil from drivers side valve cover and it goes to the oil seperator (funnel looking thing on rear of intake) the oil/vapors are designed to swirl and oil sticks to outer wall while vapors are sucked into the rear cover labrynth on the intake manifold. the problem is these hoses freeze so the crank case vacuum now turns the small hose under the intake into a straw and sucks engine oil directly from engine oil sump into intake. So in a nutshell their design sucks.

a simple pcv valve to the intake would suffice. if they are concerned about oil in the vapors they could have put a baffle on the valve cover. easy peasy. but they over complicate things.

the ccv system on the sedans is totally different and they dont really have the problem with sucking oil directly into the motor.

this is the wrong engine. I have the M62TU as do the others.

ukrcan has a N62... like me

The problem with the hydrolocking is only for m54/ m62 engines. the N62 used a different design that is incorporated into the plastic valve covers. i have seen them fail but usually the high vacuum does not pull oil into motor like the m62 will.. N62 will smoke, make honking noises, and can cause failure of rear and main seals on motor. It gives you warning it seems. but both are problematic.