Red Line 10W-40, 11,593 mi, '89 BMW 325i (E30)

[glennc]

Last week I received from Blackstone Labs among the very worst UOA results I have every seen for any car, let alone one of my own cars! I made several important mistakes in allowing things to get this out of hand, and maybe this can serve as a useful warning to others as to what can happen if apparent problems are not addressed quickly.

The story is this: My car started losing coolant partway through this OCI, at ~310k miles. I was concerned at first, but found an apparent seep from the radiator and made the (obviously incorrect) assumption that the seep fully accounted for my coolant loss. Consequently I decided against doing either of the two things I had initially considered: changing the oil preventively at that time, just in case I did turn out to have coolant leaking into the oil, or drawing a sample and sending it off immediately. I should have done both. Next, when it came time to change the oil at my intended 10k interval, I let typical day-to-day events get in the way of actually ordering the replacement oil, and by the time I'd changed it I had ~11,600 on the oil. Normally it might have been interesting to have data from such a long OCI on Redline (don't know of any others), but in this case it was a mistake.

I did add some Stop Leak to the system to slow the "radiator" leak, and that has apparently helped, stopping the loss completely as far as I can tell, but obviously, considerable damage was already done.

Here are the results:

Sample Date..............2/9/08....3/19/08....5/12/08....7/13/08….8/18/08
Miles on oil:..............6,166.......5,781.......6,268......6,634…..…11,593
Oil.........................Delo LE.....Rotella T...Red Line...Red Line…Red Line
Grade.....................15W40.....15W-40.....10W-40....10W-40….10W-40
Miles on Car:.............288,907...294,688....300,956....308,038….312,997
Make up oil:..............0 qt........1.5qt........0 qt.........6 oz…….…18 oz

Aluminum:................5...........5.............0............5.………….14
Chromium:...............1............1.............0...........0….………..1
Iron:......................14...........28...........7............9……..…..209
Copper:...................7...........12............5............7……..…..24
Lead:......................4...........6............10............7………....408
Tin:........................0...........0............1.............0….….…..19
Molybdenum:.............76..........20...........584..........561..……..525
Nickel:.....................0...........1............0.............0…………..2
Manganese:...............0...........1............0.............0……...…..2
Silver:.....................0...........0............0.............0…….…....0
Titanium:.................0...........0............0.............0….……....0
Potassium:................2...........2............3.............4….….…..66
Boron:.....................305........77...........29...........30.………..99
Silicon:....................7...........12...........16...........17.………..59
Sodium:...................6...........25...........17...........21………...1858
Calcium:..................1,589......2167........2476.........2083.…...2511
Magnesium:..............365.........106.........19...........9…….…....57
Phosphorus:..............1013.......1019........1010.........987..…….1139
Zinc:......................1269........1234........1121........1001...…..1474
Barium:...................1............0............0.............0……...…..0

Sus Viscosity at 210F:...72.7........69.9........68.8.........72.3..……..79.1
cSt Viscosity at 100C:...13.65.......12.94......12.64........13.57.…...15.31
Fashpoint in F:...........395.........370.........395..........415…….…..415
Fuel Percentage:......... Antifreeze:................0.0.........?............0.0...........0.0…….…..3.72
Water:.....................0.0.........0.0.........0.0...........0.0…….…..0.0
Insolubles:.................0.5.........0.2.........0.4...........0.4…….…..0.8
TBN:........................2.6.........NA.........3.0...........NA……..…..7.0

Blackstone's comments: Some new developments have surfaced in the latest analysis. From the exponential increases in
sodium (especially), potassium (substantively), and silicon (tangentially), it is evident that coolant has found
its way into the engine en masse, and has wreaked considerable havoc. Bearing wear is cautionary, with
lead, copper, and tin reading very high. Iron at 209 ppm is also cautionary. The TBN was 7.0; additive
remains in quantity. Insolubles were over the acceptable limit at 0.8%. We tried to call you but couldn't get
through. This engine is on the ropes. Caution!

Additional comments:

I immediately changed the oil after getting the news, turning the subsequent Redline run into a very expensive ~500 mile flush. I put in Pennzoil 10W-40 YB. I plan to run the PZ about 2k, unless somebody convinces me that would be a bad idea, and change/sample again to see if the coolant is under control and how the engine is doing.

I have not decided what to do about the engine itself and am open to suggestions. Obviously it is already a high mileage engine, and now has a fairly massive amount of additional damage/wear. Options include everything from doing nothing at all to planning on a brand-new engine at some point in the future.

By the way, nothing about the appearance of the oil or the way the engine runs ever gave any hint of a problem. The oil looked like normal used oil at the end of the OCI, and even the level didn't change enough to notice. The engine still runs great - a little more top-end noise than I would like, but that has always been the case.

I guess that's enough for now. What do you all think?

 

[buster]

Yikes....viscosity and tbn are great.

 

[MolaKule]

Sorry, the AF is not providing lubrication and sometimes these things creep up on you.

It appears the copper, aluminum and lead indicate severe bearing wear, and the 20 ppm/1k of iron wear indicate severe ring/cylinder and cam wear.

No fault of the oil type used.

Better find a new engine or think about a rebuild.

Are the 308k and 312K viscosities interchanged?

 

[Pablo]

What kind of stopleak did you use? The metallic kind?

 

[Steve S]

Head gasket leak or head??????

 

[Steve S]

Did the engine overheat? Head gasket leak or head?????? I would do a comp test it the throttle body coolant heated? pull the head and inspect.

 

[saaber1]

Originally Posted By: glennc
I have not decided what to do about the engine itself and am open to suggestions. Obviously it is already a high mileage engine, and now has a fairly massive amount of additional damage/wear. Options include everything from doing nothing at all to planning on a brand-new engine at some point in the future.


Wow, sorry to hear this about your engine. It is obvious you have taken care of this car to reach this many miles. Since you really got your use out of this car I wonder if now is a good time to consider moving on from it? These go very cheap now in some areas so the car's value compared to the cost of a head gasket job, cracked head, cracked block, or even a junkyard engine might be worth really looking at. Of course if you love tearing into engines, fixing it yourself, etc. that is another story.

If you want to get another engine car-part.com is a good place to search junkyards. I would guess an engine would be around 600-1000 plus installation?

Sometimes you can find a bmw rebuilder who may have an engine. They often buy wrecked cars from salvage auctions for the body parts and sometimes have good running cars just laying around with a smashed rear end and no front clip f.e.. Probably a long shot though. Just throwing out ideas and feel free to ignore.

 

[Audi Junkie]

Wow, Sn. Don't see that very often. Some bearing crunching going on.

 

[glennc]

Well, thanks to everybody for the feedback so far. I'll try to respond to everybody:

Steve: The engine never overheated, no question about that. The TB is heated by coolant but through external lines. It seems to me that it is pretty hard for coolant to get into the oil in this engine anywhere but through the head gasket. Or, I guess, the head itself.

Pablo: Good question! It never occurred to me to think the metal could come from anywhere but the engine. I used this stuff:

http://www.barsproducts.com/msds/C16R6_msds.pdf

and don't see any hint of metals in the MSDS.

Mola: No typos, viscosities are as reported by [censored]. The oil did seem a bit thicker than normal at the end of this OCI, both on the dipstick and when drained, but not alarmingly so.

Saaber1: Good comments, much appreciated. I've thought of most of the things you're suggesting, except junking the car. For more reasons than I'm willing to bore you by listing, it is a keeper one way or another. I could see it becoming a parts car for another 325i four-door someday, but not yet. For one thing, to get another and duplicate this car's current maintenance condition, not to mention subtle-but-important mods that make it work for me, would wind up being more difficult and expensive than replacing the motor.

Buster: Do you think the TBN is accurate? I was assuming that the coolant contamination most likely caused an increase in pH not really attributable to the oil itself and [censored] blindly reported it as good remaining TBN. But, hey, look at that flashpoint!

-----------

I'm hoping at this point that the engine can be saved, at least for the intermediate future. I have too many projects and obligations to undertake an engine rebuild or replacement unless absolutely necessary, and I don't want to pay somebody else to do anything on this car that I can do myself. If I were to pull the head, it would be foolish with this mileage not to send it off for a complete re-conditioning, and if I'm going to go that far, then it would be foolish not to just pull the whole engine and at least replace the lower-end bearings and the rings. So, it seems to me, the best options are either to hope for the best with the stop-leak over the next 50k - 100k, under the assumption that if things do deteriorate then there will be plenty of warning; or to start thinking about either a full rebuild or a new engine. I understand - though I haven't actually checked - that a brand-new engine from BMW is not all that more expensive than a good rebuild. Then again, possibly the best option would be to get a junkyard engine and rebuild it myself, somewhat at my leisure, and plan to have it ready over the next year or so, accelerating the pace if this one fails to hold up.

Or, ???

Thanks again for the replies,

 

[addyguy]

You got ONE extremely bad result in a 'sea' of good results....if you get the coolant issue fixed, then the engine will probably keep going fairly problem-free....TallPaul had a disconnected PCV hose that led him to a UOA w/476 ppm lead...fixed that, did a couple of flush runs, and now get fairly normal UOA results. AFAIK, truck runs just fine still.

 

[JoeFromPA]

Glenn -

All this metal just means you've helped shave off some mass from your car. It probably performs better than ever!

Personally, I say if it's running fine then it's running fine...

Take it to 500k!

Joe

 

[Taylor]

sorry to hear that, the last uoa looked so good....guess i need to send a sample of mine in too

 

[glennc]

Originally Posted By: addyguy
You got ONE extremely bad result in a 'sea' of good results....if you get the coolant issue fixed, then the engine will probably keep going fairly problem-free....TallPaul had a disconnected PCV hose that led him to a UOA w/476 ppm lead...fixed that, did a couple of flush runs, and now get fairly normal UOA results. AFAIK, truck runs just fine still.


That's sort of what I'm hoping. I think a lot will depend on my next UOA. If it's bad, I'll have to do something to physically repair the engine, and at that point the options will all be on the table. If it is good, I will probably do nothing, and hope for the best.

I have a timing belt due in about 10k, at which time I could do some head work if necessary.

 

[glennc]

Originally Posted By: Taylor
sorry to hear that, the last uoa looked so good....guess i need to send a sample of mine in too

I sure would... with all the work you've done on that car, and the unexplained loss of coolant. Hope it will be better news than mine.

 

[buster]

This is a good example of where oil analysis is extremely useful.

 

[ZZman]

If you are sure coolant got into the engine you might want to do 2 short dino OCI's to flush that stuff out of there. By short I mean 500-1,000 miles.

 

[saaber1]

What happened to Glennc btw? No posts since October. He used to be pretty active here.?