Burning Question..BMW.

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Long time listener...first time caller here. A brief intro..have a few old school 60's..do own maintenance. Well versed..first time owning a BM trouble U.

Here are the facts. Bought a CPO 2013 335 with 19.7k on the odometer. Carfax (ha) showed no maintenance (oil change) up till lease turn in other than a tire replacement. Car was inspected and serviced.2 weeks after purchase..pulled the e brake..cable snapped and locked the left rear wheel for about 100 yards or so..then freed up. Well..made an appt. to have the cable replaced (could hear rattling on plastic shield. Before I could get in for warranty, mpg decreased from 23 to 19, and the pins holding the e brake pads sheared off due to heat and caused the backing plate and E brake to drag..causing the decrease in mpg. Well..BMW warrantied and changed the oil and filter again at 21,560 with 0w 30. I changed oil at 28,650 miles (80% highway) with BMW 5W30. Changed oil at 35490 after putting in 16 ounces Seafoam and 90 miles later. After an hour drive, drained immediately and found multitudes of mainly aluminum flecks in the oil and probably 100 to 125 fine aluminum flecks filter pleats. I changed oil with 5w40 Liquid Moly and after a hundred miles...I drained a quart and found more fine aluminum and some copper flecks in oil (clean pan). MPG had again gone down from 23.1-23.6 to 19.9 to 20.4. Granted the change in fuels from summer to winter accounted for and did 8 to 10 separate resets on computer calculating mpg on a mean avg.

Other than the 4 mpg difference in mileage...no noises..no SES lights..nothing unusual. I typically warmed engine when below 10 deg. for 5 to 10 minutes. When I did a hard break in on my LS3, I expected to see what I saw. However, 36k and 5 oil changes later? Btw..I'm a fast driver on freeway... and I don't rag on this car. Aluminum itself not necessarily harmful suspended..but had my curiosity piqued.

Sent off for Blackstone for the definitive opinion...but for the interm, any thoughts..insights?
 
So much for CPO. The debris you see is probably break in swarf, a good reason for early OCI that wasn't done.
This car sound poorly maintained and with tires needing to be replaced at 20K may have had a hard life. Not much you can do at this point but do a couple of shorter OCI with new filter and see if the swarf diminishes.

I would pay a regarded specialist to go through this car with a fine tooth comb, maybe change the other fluids, look for undocumented body repairs also, there probably is non but you want an overall and accurate assessment of this car just in case.
 
An excellent example of why I would never buy any used car. Lease cars in particular are problematic. There is no motivation for a lease car driver to do anything but the absolute minimum maintenance to keep it running until turned in. According to our BMW dealership 80% of new cars the move out are leased.

BMW has some fault in this. We bought a new 2011 328i and the OLM showed the next (first) oil change was due at 18,000 miles. That might appeal to a lot of BITOG members but not to me. Our 2011 got 6 month/5,000 mile OCIs for the 6 years we owned it. Our new 2017 330i estimates 10,000 miles for the next (first) oil change (It already got is first change at 3,500 miles which was the 6 month point). Our service advisor said BMW changed the intervals due to serious engine problems in many of the cars with extended drain intervals. The new requirement makes more sense but our 2017 will get the same service as the 2011.
 
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carfax info is submitted by the servicing dealer, independent shop. or owner or NOT!! 2011 nissan frontier i just got just under 28,xxx notice from carfax only showed yearly inspect + one dealer visit NO Details, at least i found out it came from salty Mass. + it looks like it. prolly why CarMax offered no service info, but my fault for not checking + asking!! byer beware
 
My son's 328i(E90, N52N) has had the oil changed no more often than 15k miles using BMW 5W-30 or 0W-30. The valvetrain looked immaculate at 108k when I changed the valve cover gasket. It's still running great. My M235i(F22, N55) calls for an oil change every 10k and that's the regimen I follow. The reduction in OCI was a result of Munich switching over to a 100% turbocharged fleet; the early cars did not fare that well with the 15k oci, but do fine on the 10k interval.
 
Seafoam crankcase only. One tire was changed as well as the wheel as its an aftermatket OEM Ronal wheel. The other tires are dated within a month of chassis build.

I was simply curious regarding the drag causing parasitic drag on the driveteain back in December of 16 when the right wheel bearing failed. Mileage was 23.4 mpg then. Fast forward to this winter..thinking now that an engine bearing issue may have a negligible contributing factor with all things being the same...same drive...same distance..all wheels were removed and trued on press..New tires first week March and alignment. Was toed in some but the corrected alignment had no effect on mileage. Tires religiously checked every few days. Run 2 psi over spec as I drive 17 freeway miles each way and by the time I het there..they are usually where they would be. I've elimated just about everything.

The only other "issue" may be that I had to fill coolant with Pentosin back in October. Was 1/3 gallon low. Oil isn't milky and don't see any appreciable film floating in coolant reservior.

I will pull the filter in another 500 miles and keep posted.
 
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