BMW 328i premature bore wear

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Sun 1 Jul 2001 18:39
BMW 328i premature bore wear - Ian D
I am looking for an E36 BMW 328i (made from 94-98) and am reading that they can suffer premature bore wear caused by high sulphur content in some UK petrol. The car I am after must have a full BMW service history and to be in my price range will have to be an earlier car and probably have to have 60000+ miles, how do I go about safeguarding against buying one with premauture bore wear? Were most of them recalled or is it only a small percentage that suffered? I may buy from auction in which case is looking for smoke on start up a good enough indicator?

Any advice greatly appreciated.....
Ian
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Sun 1 Jul 2001 22:08
Re: BMW 328i premature bore wear - Guy Lacey
There is a previous thread on this with topic "Supermarket petrol" methinks. The rather slow-mind on a Sunday eve after a 3-day "ALL-DAY-BENDER!" thinks that this was a problem with early BMW's but I thought mainly 5-series (same engine I expect!)

Suggest you search on above topic.
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Sun 1 Jul 2001 22:42
BMW 328i premature bore wear - David Lacey
I don't personally know which BMW model suffered from bore wear (See the car by car breakdown here) but some engines had nikasil linered bores which wore at an alarming rate causing oil consumption
Many engines were changed by BMW under warranty
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Sun 1 Jul 2001 23:41
Re: BMW 328i premature bore wear - Dai Watchalowski
I heard about premature bore wear in Citroens - but that was usually in the owner !! Seriously didn't the ("just before K100") BMW boxer engines have these
niakasil liners in thme which led to a great deal of consternation in the motorcycle press of the time ( early 80s)
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Mon 2 Jul 2001 16:57
Re: BMW 328i premature bore wear - honest john
All alloy block 320s, 323s, 328s, 520s, 523s, 528s, 728s and Z3 2.8s were vulnerable to this problem until late 1998/early 1999 when they began to acquire steel bore liners. E46 3 series are all okay. The only way to be sure is to buy an iron block 325i, or to buy a later car which has had a new engine fitted by BMW. (NOT a replacement engine as at least one reader bought one of these only to find that the independenly replaced engine also had a Nickasil bore lined block.) The main two reasons why these blocks turn into oil burners are dirty oil and prats starting them up just to run them out and leave them on their driveways all day long to impress the neighbours. This results in the over-rich start up mixture trickling down the bores taking the oil off so next time the engine is started the Nickasil liners get worn away.

HJ
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