Curious what you think about this engine transaction

[dang]

We sold an 08 M3 engine to a shop that seems pretty competent. 69k miles, ran good when it came in and we have a video of it running with the eBay auction and on our website. The shop gets the engine and the first thing they do is put all new sensors and ancillary parts on it, which is pretty common when you get a used engine. It doesn't start for them. They do LOTS of tests and put quite a bit of time into it and could never get a spark. Again, they seem pretty competent and gave us a very comprehensive write up on their efforts.

If you were the one that sold the $8,000 engine, what do you do?

We've already done what we're going to do, I'm just curious what you guys think about it. I'll wait to post my opinion until after others chime in (if anyone does).

 

[Wladek]

I think first thing that normal person do, when is receiving stuff like that, it's checking if the item is the same as in description, read: running as it is!

The other thing from my own experience with newer types of BMW engines is that - if you put sensors other than genuine BMW (VDO/Siemens/Hella) - IT WILL NOT WORK!!!

So, maybe, ask them what brands of sensors they put? But let them answer honestly

 

[dang]

The other thing from my own experience with newer types of BMW engines is that - if you put sensors other than genuine BMW (VDO/Siemens/Hella) - IT WILL NOT WORK!!! So, maybe, ask them what brands of sensors they put? But let them answer honestly

Supposedly, they used OEM sensors and from what we could learn about the shop they seem to work on this kind of stuff a lot. You never know for sure but they seem reputable compared to others we've dealt with, if you know what I mean.

 

[m73]

My .02 cents

1) If they purchased this as a running engine then they should have fired it up to verify post-purchase & then contacted you if there was an issue (entirely different scenario IMHO)

2) Once a transaction is completed, that is as-is in my book although you want to preserve your reputation etc....

3) In this case I would not offer sympathy because item was tampered with -- even by pros -- they should be pro enough to fix it and not contact you......continued onto #4

4) So if your engine is good enough to run these guys....even with mistakes should be able to practically rebuild it to make it work for them

In this instance because of the money spent, reputations & general good-will, best I would suggest is offering them engine at cost + wishing them luck w/diagnostics.

5) Move on to the next deal,

Mo

 

[Gransin]

It was running when you sold it, they recieved it and changed parts on it, now it's not running.
Have they tried to put back the old sensors to confirm they didn't get a "dud" sensor from BMW, or wherever they bought the stuff?
If they are competent, they definitely have a proper BMW diagnostic tool, what does that one say?

From what I read about newer BMW engine swaps, the spark always seems to be a problem.

 

[Arde]

I would put the engine in the car and call AAA.

If you were the one that sold the $8,000 engine, what do you do?

 

[dang]

I would put the engine in the car and call AAA.

Ha! These are the cars at the auction. :eek:

 

[Markos]

I think this one is trickier than what one might think at first glance. I think that a 90 day return policy on drivetrain parts isn't unacceptable. I presume that no lemon laws exist for stand along motors, but I feel like I have encountered such return policies. I'm curious to know what the thoughts would be if it threw a rod 5 days after install. In this case the motor was running fine, they swapped sensors and it's not running. It's obviously something they did, but should a return policy stand? I'm guessing not. If they kept the cylinder head and replaced the head gasket only to have the engine not fire - I would think that would void the warranty. So to cut to the chase, I would say that if they hadn't modified the motor, it should be returned. Since they dinked around with it, null and void.

FYI - I've had enough conversations with folks building motors to learn that sensors, injectors, etc. simply do not work out-of-the-box sometimes. This includes aftermarket and OEM parts.

 

[m_thompson]

I would suggest that the shop put all of the original parts back on the engine and see if it runs. If so, then start swapping in the new parts until it doesn't run.

I fixed a similar problem with a friend's boat. He had a no-spark condition, had replaced just about everything ignition related, and it still would not run. I put all of the original parts back, and started diagnosis. It turned out to be a bad pickup coil, and the new replacement was also bad. I went to the marina with my Ohm meter and went through their stock and found a good one. It fired right up after replacing the pickup coil. I tried the other new replacement parts and found that the new coil and the new brain box were also bad. When we returned the parts to the marina they just put them back on the shelf.

 

[pat cooks]

do they have a DIS or clone? if not what are they doing working of this sort of car? what was wrong with the old engine? did they replace good used German sensors with new Chinese? before I retired I found that once you found the original cause of the failure you spent another day or two sorting out all the things other mechanics had screwed up trying to fix it!

 

[dang]

I found the email we got from the shop regarding the engine and what they did. Remember, we video every running engine and post it on our eBay and website with the engine for sale. If nothing else, I'm really baffled at what the problem could be.

----------------------
The original engine in the customer vehicle was running before it had catastrophic failure and was deemed unusable. This is just to shine light on the fact of all the other components involved i.e. wiring, sensors and such were all in great working order.

Upon receiving the engine from you guys for the swap we went ahead and did as we do on any donor motor and that is as follows; Valve cover gaskets, spark plugs, ignition coils, water pump thermostat and any or all components from the previous engine such as alternator, starter and such are swapped to ensure no possible issues with components on donor engine.

We installed Mr. Chengs engine back into the vehicle the only difference being the core of the engine(hard parts and everything within). Upon first initial start up after priming the engine with oil we had no engine start only cranking and a noise of backfiring through the intake manifold(this right here immediately points toward engine timing in some way). But due to the circumstances we wanted to double check all of our bases and treat it as if it were a no start and we were attempting to diag the problem.

Codes pulled upon first start up attempt were
-2717 DME camshaft sensor, exhaust bank 1
-2719 DME camshaft sensor, exhaust bank 2
-271E DME camshafts synchronization
-2b13 DME speed recording
-As well as all 8 cylinder misfire with cutoff faults

First thing is first we replaced the cam sensors exhaust and intake all 4 with brand new OEM units
As well as a brand new crankshaft position sensor for good measure and since its easily accessible

After this we checked and made sure the engine had spark, fuel and air was adequately entering the combustion chambers by checking throttle body opening.

We then attempted to fire the engine and again and we had the same no start result. At this time we went ahead and replaced the vanos solenoids with known good ones just to eliminate any possible sensor issue that could deal with engine/vanos timing.

Once again we had the same no start issue.

Following this we went ahead and ohmed out the actual wiring harness from the engine to the DME itself. Checking crank position sensor as well as all cam sensors and vanos solenoids. All readings were within factory spec with none being above 0.3ohms.

At this point in time we opted to go ahead and check physical timing within the engine. Utilizing BMW factory timing tool set B119970KIT. We followed all procedures and went ahead and verified that the cams themselves to the crankshaft were in hard timing. The issue with some of these s65 engines is since it is a dual chain timing system and the chains only run around the intake camshaft gear. Sometimes the vanos hubs/units on exhaust sides will fail since they run off of a gear connecting to the intake cam vanos hub. To address this possible issue we then retimed the vanos units/hubs including new bolts and retorqued to spec to ensure precision in the process.

All in all there is something physically wrong within the engine which leads to engine timing. Such as crank hub distorted or damaged in some sort of way or even oil pressure galleys which force oil to the vanos units and so on. At this point in time we have logged over 20+ man hours in diag and it is not worth the labor hours and parts costs to continue further with disassembly of the engine itself to further pinpoint the underlying issue at hand.

 

[pat cooks]

something I found a few times in the distant past, after an engine had suffered a catastrophic failure bits of metal would find their way back into the inlet manifold, when the manifold was fitted onto the rebuilt or replacement engine these bits would get sucked into the engine damaging valves and pistons DOH, I just wonder....... same goes for intercoolers on diesel engines...

 

[sfdon]

My guess is that you have very low compression
Time for a compression test?
How fast is it cranking?

 

[dang]

My guess is that you have very low compression
Time for a compression test?
How fast is it cranking?

When the car came in originally it started right up every time very easily.

 

[sfdon]

It’s the old story..
Spark
Fuel
Compression

Spark
Noid test with fuel pressure
Compression test

Which one one is a fail?

 

[Gransin]

A bit silly but, make sure they tried to start it with a fresh battery. A functional but tired battery can throw all sorts of codes.

 

[dang]

So the final decision was to refund their entire amount and they paid for return shipping. I was not part of that decision.

Next question is, what do we do with the engine now?

 

[dang]

This is the car the engine is out of...

 

[pat cooks]

remove cam covers and check cam timing, look for evidence of the work they say they carried out, compression test, but readings will be low due to bore wash etc. put a camera down the plug holes to look inside the cylinders, the really strange thing is that they said the engine had NO SPARK, no amount of mechanical damage would cause no spark, maybe spark at the wrong time but NO SPARK?????? from reading their email I have doubts about their skill level, in the UK there are plenty of chancers working on high end vehicles,

I spent half my working life sorting out their cock-ups! one I remember was a local "garage" who replaced a starter motor, trapped and cut the injector loom between starter and block, they ended up replacing the timing chain, coils, ecu and ews system and body module, all with cimilar but non compatible items, when we found and repaired the trapped wiring we then had to reset the cam timing, refit the correct original ecu etc..... then they did not want to pay as repairing a bit of wiring should not have taken us two days!

 

[pat cooks]

one last thought, most of the faults they came up with were the camshaft position relative to the crankshaft position and the ECU decided these were camshaft position faults, the thing is that the ECU has no second method of checking crankshaft position, only the ONE crank position sensor, does that work off teeth on the back of the flywheel / ring gear, is it internal working off the crankshaft, or does it work off a thin magnetic disc sandwiched between the crank and flywheel? if the disc type did they damage it or leave it on the workshop floor, don't ask how I know that is possible............. no crank signal, no run, but may well throw cam position faults! their skill level is also in doubt as they suggest possible vanos or vanos oil pressure problems, the vanos units are at rest when starting the engine, not enough oil pressure to operate them either until running,
diagnostic machines start by asking the ECU what is wrong, the ECU tries to work out what is wrong by pre programmed steps but quite often it only looks for failed parts not for something assembled by Mr stupid, BMW assume that Mr stupid will not be working on their cars and so do not write software to look for his handy work......