I'm not surprised, some BMW V8 valve stem seals have been a known problem for a while.
Do you own a BMW? Better carry a case of oil in your trunk
According to Consumer Reports, the BMW 5 Series V8 engines are 27 times more likely to burn excessive oil. What other models from BMW top the list?
Originally Posted by Mr Nice
Oil overfilled or this car didn't have regular oil changes.
15K mile oil change interval are crazy.
Acceptable for many styles of driving with certain engines; certainly nothing a mfg should be recommending however. Did they not cut it back to 10K? (you know, the OCI Toyota recommends lol)
I had a Honda Accord puffing blue smoke with around 60k, as bad or worse. The fix was valve stem seals which I did myself in the driveway, not that bad to do. Just needed to make an air pressure adapter out of an old spark plug to keep the valves up. Maybe the 83 Accord was trying to get me to buy an EV?
I looked up the plates and the car is a 2011 model year, so no telling how many miles on it. It's a 550i, so it has an N63, which is a known oil burner. Not good to see, but not terribly uncommon given the car.
Originally Posted by gregk24
Maybe it was abused, maybe this is a design flaw. Either way I was surprised to see this while I was out driving yesterday...
N63 engine. Valve stem seals, bad turbo coolant and oil lines.
The problem is architecture of an engine and turbos sitting in V bay. Engines runs extremely hot, and normal coolant temperature is 110c. It is to improve efficiency. It is ballistic missile of an engine and still returns decent mpg. But penalty is in issues around valve stems and turbo lines.
BMW had customer care package for owners of N63 and S63 (M version) where they covered replacement of these parts on BMW dime regardless of warranty. Now, whether this owner did it or not is in the air.
In 2012 BMW introduced N63TU and S63TU (technical update) where they redesigned bunch of these problematic parts. These engines are still in use, and did not hear them having issues anymore.