[Guy H]

Hello, I've joined up to seek your expert help hopefully.

A friend has a co car which the company owns (so not leased). It's a 2003 BMW 320d. The car had done 126K when last week the engine went (very technical I know). The engine has not been stripped down but they believe it was sucking oil into the piston and that has resulted in whatever damage has happened. The car had no power.

Due to the mileage and cost of repair the company is probably just going to write the car off. The car otherwise is in excellent condition. Based on this limited information my question is do you think it could be a potential good buy if it can be picked up for next to nothing and take a bit of a gamble that I could find a new engine or repair it?

Thanks.

 

[xXNealXx]

Could be a good buy if all it requires are oil gasket replacement. Walk away if the oil is going into the turbo.

 

[Guy H]

The car is at a BMW garage and they did initial inspections. I guess without stripping the engine down it's very hard to find out the extent of damage and thus make a good judgement. BMW based on what they know are already quoting circa £1750 for work they'd do. With the car being valued at about £3500 to the company it's just not worth hassle. The insurance co came to look at the car as BMW initially said fuel contamination so they were checking for petrol in the fuel but that has been ruled out.

The car was low on oil the day before the engine problem and was topped up. There'd been no evidence of an oil leek or the engine was using oil. The only evidence I'm told was on the day of the failure when there was a plume of black smoke from the exhaust as the engine died.

Thanks for the reply and maybe there's something in that info which would help make an assessment.

 

[steve_nurburgring]

didnt these engines suffer from the butterflys in the manifold coming off and going into the cylnders????????????????????????
bmw are aware of these problems...........

 

[bal singh]

didn't think BMW diesels had butterfly manifolds, they're all common rail valvetronic.

 

[xXNealXx]

didn't think BMW diesels had butterfly manifolds, they're all common rail valvetronic.

He means swirl flaps.

 

[john55]

You can repair them, but budget £1500 - £2000 for replacing the engine with a second hand one.

 

[Ronnie]

I would be tempted to remove the inlet manifold and check the swirl flaps are OK in there, I suspect not