2013 X5M Engine Failure

[daveingigharbor]

84,000 miles. A BMW master tech said it was probably failed main bearings and there would be metal in the oil filter. There was. Of course, it could be something else, but with the engine seized, I did not want to spend money taking a look. Clearly needs to be rebuilt, replaced or the car sold or parted out.

[Sophisticated Redneck]

I remember hearing rumors of S63's with defective oil pumps in the F10 M5, the oil pump is chain driven and the shaft was not welded correctly to the hub and after 60-80k miles it would start slipping and eventually become loose enough to loose oil pressure...

Speaking of, I can't believe BMW still to this day is allergic to oil pressure gauges. That's fine not installing them in normal cars but in the M's it should be mandatory. Most people would start to notice the fluctuations in oil pressure and have it checked out before engine failure, or at least catch it soon enough so you could get away with just new bearings and not complete rebuild.

I am installing one in my N63 this weekend, since the install will be the same on the S63, I'll post up a walkthrough in this thread too, something every S63 owner should have done just for piece of mind.

[Thecastle]

Originally Posted by Sophisticated Redneck

I remember hearing rumors of S63's with defective oil pumps in the F10 M5, the oil pump is chain driven and the shaft was not welded correctly to the hub and after 60-80k miles it would start slipping and eventually become loose enough to loose oil pressure...

I believe the S63 engine was unique to the 2010-2013 X5M/X6M. The F10 M5 actually has the S63TU engine. Regardless though, its possible the same problem on the F10 M5 exists on the X5M. I do not know if the oil pump design is different between the S63/TU

Though has anyone actually noticed a bad oil pump on an S63? I can't recall if folks have seen the idiot light come on for oil pressure, or if they noted it before the engine went.

This is probably the 3rd or 4th tuned X5M I've read that has potentially trashed its rod bearings.

Another theory... I wonder how many of those with trashed rod bearings had owners who used too thick of an oil weight like 10W-50 or 10W-60. It's known to cause problems with oil starvation on tight tolerance bearings and can cause them to wear early. This also seems to be a "popular" on the forums anyway modification on S63s with no supporting evidence this is a good idea, especially on sick engines that are burning a lot of oil anyway.

[SkypirateX]

I replaced the oil pump on the 2012 X5M I just bought. The newer one has a different design that seems to prevent a potential low pressure pocket on the intake side. I also threw some Loctite on the threads just in case. As a precaution I'll be doing rod bearings around 75k as it will be time for motor mounts and a upper oil pan gasket by then.

[Dawgz]

Originally Posted by Sophisticated Redneck

I remember hearing rumors of S63's with defective oil pumps in the F10 M5, the oil pump is chain driven and the shaft was not welded correctly to the hub and after 60-80k miles it would start slipping and eventually become loose enough to loose oil pressure...

Speaking of, I can't believe BMW still to this day is allergic to oil pressure gauges. That's fine not installing them in normal cars but in the M's it should be mandatory. Most people would start to notice the fluctuations in oil pressure and have it checked out before engine failure, or at least catch it soon enough so you could get away with just new bearings and not complete rebuild.

I am installing one in my N63 this weekend, since the install will be the same on the S63, I'll post up a walkthrough in this thread too, something every S63 owner should have done just for piece of mind.

Thank you... Looking forward to the post

[quick]

Originally Posted by daveingigharbor

I am the third owner. Car had the Velos tune, exhaust tweaked, turbos tweaked, etc.

Tuning is the modification of a car to optimize it for a different set of performance requirements from those it was originally designed to meet.

There's lot more to modifying a car than just increasing the boost or doing things in tits bits... Tweaking the turbos (stage 3) increases the air flow to the engine and while raising the boost (tune), supposedly increases the fuel to the engine.

So you now have increased air flow (turbos-mostly exhaust-heated air), increased boost (the tune) which takes the stock power 550 to close to 700, pretty impressive, right?

All car manufacturers have some sort of safety allowances already built in to save the engine for various reasons, like poor weather conditions, bad gas and of course engine component malfunctions like bad spark plugs/Injectors.

There's lot more to tuning than just being able to read the ECU, change the AFR maps and viola, the tuner now claims 175 more.

Every engine is different so it's very important for a tuner to be able to know the engine design, strengths and flaws of a specific vehicle before modifying the engine

What amuses me with X5M platform is, with known Injector flaws, increasing the boost, what happens if the injector fails?

What about the intercoolar to cool down the exhaust gasses, what about the EGT's, what about the compression ratio's, cylinder wall strength's etc?

We all bitch about the DINAN, but there's a reason why they don't want to squeeze every bit of power from these engines.

Bottom line is, if you want to increase the power by 30%, you gotta work on the engine internals too... You either do it before or after a tune it's your call, and there's no way around it.

If it was me getting the tune, I would definitely dyno tune it where I can see the AFR's through out the RPM's for safety reasons.

Hope this helps

[eDubz]

Ditto...I'm wondering if I should pull my Velos tune off and go back to stock? It's running great though at 89K.

Just did a Liquimoly change with Ceratec, plugs, coils, k&n drop ins.

I finally feel like I have her dialed and she's running great, but these failures with the Velos tune scares me...

[quick]

Safety should be the first parameter when ever tuning any platform. One should always factor in, the type of the gas, the maintenance especially the oil changes, the oil type, the EGT (exhaust gas temp), the boost gauge (to monitor any boost creeps), frequent oil analysis for any unwanted metal specs and the weather (should be tuned to your particular climate) to name some

Few questions to ask the so called tuners:

What R&D have they done on our X5M platform?

What's the limit of the power that our engine can tolerate safely?

Do we need an upgraded IC?

Do we need to upgrade our Injectors for more fuel?

Where is the AFR and just cause you have a good AFR say in California, would all your tunes have the same AFR anywhere else int he country?

Do we not need an EGT and a boost gauge?

[daveingigharbor]

At this point, I am not sure if the Velos tune was responsible for anything. I almost did not name them, because I do not want people to be worried about their product. There were many mods done to the car along with the tune. Any one of them could have been a contributing factor. From what I can tell, the car was dealer serviced by the first owner, then the second owner used the proper 0wt-30 oil that BMW calls for.
The seized engine may have been the tune, may have been other mods, may have been injector failure, may have been "it's time". I do understand that a car that has been modified/driven harder will have a higher likelihood of breaking. Just wish I could have enjoyed it a bit more before it broke and wish the fix was not more than the car is worth.
Sure was fast before it wasn't.
Has anyone replaced the S63 engine with a N63 and had good luck?

[TwinSnailz]

Tuned or no tuned, these engine will go in different ways. Tuning just gets you there faster.
If parts were priced accordingly to their poor quality, repairing wouldn’t be so bad. Then again, it’s the labor that kills because it takes a tear down just to access a stupid part.

[Sophisticated Redneck]

Originally Posted by SkypirateX

I replaced the oil pump on the 2012 X5M I just bought. The newer one has a different design that seems to prevent a potential low pressure pocket on the intake side. I also threw some Loctite on the threads just in case. As a precaution I'll be doing rod bearings around 75k as it will be time for motor mounts and a upper oil pan gasket by then.

Been thinking about doing this to mine also since its up there on Mileage (155K). How bad of a job was it and any tips on replacing? Looks to be not bad of a job on newtis, setting chain tension has me somewhat concerned though.

[TwinSnailz]

Originally Posted by Sophisticated Redneck

Been thinking about doing this to mine also since its up there on Mileage (155K). How bad of a job was it and any tips on replacing? Looks to be not bad of a job on newtis, setting chain tension has me somewhat concerned though.

With your skill set, it would be a walk in a park considering what we have seen you done. I’ve replaced mine and it was pretty simple. There’s no room to fit any kind of measuring instrument to get a 10mm slack. I just measure a piece of stick to a T shape and use that as a reference.

[SkypirateX]

Originally Posted by Sophisticated Redneck

Been thinking about doing this to mine also since its up there on Mileage (155K). How bad of a job was it and any tips on replacing? Looks to be not bad of a job on newtis, setting chain tension has me somewhat concerned though.

As stated above, based on what I've seen you up to in your threads I don't think you would have an issue. I dropped my X5M off at a good friends shop and left for work so I can't speak personally on the difficulty though lol
Knowing it's done sure helps me sleep at night after reading around on the M5 boards.

[Thecastle]

Originally Posted by TwinSnailz

Tuned or no tuned, these engine will go in different ways. Tuning just gets you there faster.
If parts were priced accordingly to their poor quality, repairing wouldnÂ’t be so bad. Then again, itÂ’s the labor that kills because it takes a tear down just to access a stupid part.

Maybe a lot faster.

I've seen a lot of tuning companies that don't know shit about actual tuning.

Anyway usually what kills rod bearings is debris in the engine, poor lubrication including wrong oil and too high of a load. Detonation from poor tuning, turbo surging, lugging.

The X5M is hardly the only car blowing rod bearings when tuned. Subaru STI's, LS1's and etc. Its a sort of you gotta pay to play.

Frankly the S63 engine was a 450hp n63 engine tuned to 555hp. The rod bearings are the same in the x5m according to real oem 11217576760

So when folks are pushing the cars to 600-700hp, thats taking the stock bearings to 150-250hp above their original design. The more they use the extra the more quickly the bearings fail under tuned conditions. Frankly no one here has done much more than speculate as to why this happens occasionally on the X5M. Might help to log which cars and which tunes are having failures.

[Dawgz]

Originally Posted by Thecastle

Maybe a lot faster.

I've seen a lot of tuning companies that don't know shit about actual tuning.

Anyway usually what kills rod bearings is debris in the engine, poor lubrication including wrong oil and too high of a load. Detonation from poor tuning, turbo surging, lugging.

The X5M is hardly the only car blowing rod bearings when tuned. Subaru STI's, LS1's and etc. Its a sort of you gotta pay to play.

Frankly the S63 engine was a 450hp n63 engine tuned to 555hp. The rod bearings are the same in the x5m according to real oem 11217576760

So when folks are pushing the cars to 600-700hp, thats taking the stock bearings to 150-250hp above their original design. The more they use the extra the more quickly the bearings fail under tuned conditions. Frankly no one here has done much more than speculate as to why this happens occasionally on the X5M. Might help to log which cars and which tunes are having failures.

Great idea

Those who have had failures can u post milage...and if you were tuned? If tuned...by who?

[Sophisticated Redneck]

Originally Posted by TwinSnailz

With your skill set, it would be a walk in a park considering what we have seen you done. I’ve replaced mine and it was pretty simple. There’s no room to fit any kind of measuring instrument to get a 10mm slack. I just measure a piece of stick to a T shape and use that as a reference.

Thanks Ok cool I will keep that in mind when I change it out.

[Sophisticated Redneck]

Originally Posted by SkypirateX

As stated above, based on what I've seen you up to in your threads I don't think you would have an issue. I dropped my X5M off at a good friends shop and left for work so I can't speak personally on the difficulty though lol
Knowing it's done sure helps me sleep at night after reading around on the M5 boards.

Ya I am getting pretty nervous myself after reading all of these failures and I am going to do it soon just for peace of mind like you. First up doing the oil pressure gauge this weekend. I can't stand being in the dark on such a critical measurement. Plus I am a gauge nerd.

[Dawgz]

The oil pump issue was something I did look into. The install doesn't look at that crazy per the TIS instructions.

I think it's a good safety maintenance item at 40-50k

[quick]

Originally Posted by Dawgz

The oil pump issue was something I did look into. The install doesn't look at that crazy per the TIS instructions.

I think it's a good safety maintenance item at 40-50k

Can you post pictures of the install instructions. Thanks

[Dawgz]

Originally Posted by quick

Can you post pictures of the install instructions. Thanks

I haven't done it yet as my motor only has about 15k miles on it.

I did look it up though in TIS because I was looking up what makes these engines fail...and what similar platforms like the m5 with s63TU had for recalls etc.

They have a recall for the oil pump so I looked that up.

[jgleckum23]

I have a 2012 with rod knock and am wondering what the car is worth in that condition. Dealer says a new engine is ~$34k installed and obviously that's not going to happen. It is a 2012 X5M with 55,000 miles (yes, only 55,000). Thanks all!

[TwinSnailz]

Originally Posted by jgleckum23

I have a 2012 with rod knock and am wondering what the car is worth in that condition. Dealer says a new engine is ~$34k installed and obviously that's not going to happen. It is a 2012 X5M with 55,000 miles (yes, only 55,000). Thanks all!

Well kbb trade-in excellent cond is around $16-19k. New engine is $34k. So you’re in neg equity of -$10k plus.
Basically you’re giving it away and paying someone to deal with the problem. A vehicle with no running engine is just dead weight.
Sorry that was no encouragement. Just stupid facts that I was on the same situation few weeks ago. Doing the work myself as im typing this. Goodluck to you and others.