Catastrophic Radiator Failure

[Pete L]

I know that the E-34 radiator starts to leak around 90K miles, so I watch it closely. This weekend, the upper radiator outlet broke off, allowing all the coolent to spew out. By the time my wife know it and stopped the car, all the lights were on. In checking for water in the oil, I found no oil reading on the dipstick!

Questions: It seems like BMW should step up to the pump on this one, for using defective materials, but that seems pretty unlikely. But there is always hope: has anyone had any luck in getting factory help in this situation?

2. How likely is it that the bottom end is trashed? It appears that she drove < 1/2 mile to safely stop off the freeway after the oil light came on.

TIA

Pete
'95 525ia
Looks like new, 92K miles

[632 Regal]

synthetic oil of course?

[ryan roopnarine]

there aren't many oils that won't start to burn off and turn to varnish when the engine has been driven for x+<.5 miles overheating and <.5 miles with oil pressure light on. i guess you have to pour oil in there (or however you want to do it) until you determine how much is actually in your crankcase by checking the movement per addition on the dipstick.


I know that the E-34 radiator starts to leak around 90K miles, so I watch it closely. This weekend, the upper radiator outlet broke off, allowing all the coolent to spew out. By the time my wife know it and stopped the car, all the lights were on. In checking for water in the oil, I found no oil reading on the dipstick!

Questions: It seems like BMW should step up to the pump on this one, for using defective materials, but that seems pretty unlikely. But there is always hope: has anyone had any luck in getting factory help in this situation?

2. How likely is it that the bottom end is trashed? It appears that she drove < 1/2 mile to safely stop off the freeway after the oil light came on.

TIA

Pete
'95 525ia
Looks like new, 92K miles

[632 Regal]

drove my 1st ex wifes truck to my house, bad head gasket, from 24 miles away, freeway miles, exhaust manifolds were glowing red, melted all wiring including the starter. mobil one 5w-30 and the bottom end was fine, no cylinder scratches and no knocks when I popped a new head on.

cant do that with ANY type of dino oil.

However on the BMW's aluminum blocks and heads they cant take that heat abuse but as for the bottom end I think it will be fine if he was running synthetic.

[ryan roopnarine]

drove my 1st ex wifes truck to my house, bad head gasket, from 24 miles away, freeway miles, exhaust manifolds were glowing red, melted all wiring including the starter. mobil one 5w-30 and the bottom end was fine, no cylinder scratches and no knocks when I popped a new head on.

cant do that with ANY type of dino oil.

However on the BMW's aluminum blocks and heads they cant take that heat abuse but as for the bottom end I think it will be fine if he was running synthetic.


when my waterpump died and my temps pegged themselves in the red for about 5 mins after i shut down (i turned the motor off, put the heat on, and coasted in Neutral to the side of the highway), i lost less than 1/2 quart of maxlife conventional 10w30 (it was free, so i used it in case one of my other fuel injectors died), and i have basically the same motor as him. it was still clear though, even though it had seen about 1500 miles in the motor. i wonder how long the car was overheating for if that much oil evaporated.

on another note.......
i drive my car for work purposes. during a 6 hour shift, the car is idling/city driving for about 4-4.5 hours. using mobil 1 10w30 and 0w40 in the past meant that i lost about 3/4 quart per 6500 miles. even though i've put 2000 miles on the 0w30 german castrol, i've lost ABSOLUTELY NONE of it. why is this so notable? because there are almost brand new japaneese cars there that use at least some oil (likely conventional) doing the same service. i can only smell faint gasoline smell (within normal for any motor) in the oil so i doubt because the extra is being made up with gas. i think that when i take this oil out of service in about 4500 miles (a month or so), i'll scoop some out and send it away to be analyzed. its almost a 40wt in viscosity, so i don't really worry about thickness in my motor. hopefully it fares well for me. its just that the german castrol is such a PITA to find in autozone or walmart....and the counter person looks at me like i'm a froot loop when i ask them to check their back shelves for bottles marked "made in germany".

[Mobius]

Questions: It seems like BMW should step up to the pump on this one, for using defective materials, but that seems pretty unlikely. But there is always hope: has anyone had any luck in getting factory help in this situation?Defective materials? How do you figure? By this logic, any part on a car that needs replacing due to age is made from 'defective materials'.

Radiators, metal and plastic, don't last forever. 90k miles is a pretty typical service life for any radiator. It sucks that yours failed catastrophically - instead of just developing the typical small cracks and leaks - but at the same time you HAVE to be wary fo such things with parts get ten years old and have so many miles on them. Them's the breaks.

[billb]

My wife was driving home from work in March 2000, when the water pump let go catastrophically. Impeller was plastic, and it was spinning on the shaft, plus the bearings failed allowing all the coolant to come out the front of the pump. She probably drove it for about 1 mile with it heating up, until all kinds of warnings came on and she pulled over. Lost most/all coolant, but oil level did not go down significantly. We were running Castrol 10W30 at that time, and had about 60k on the car. I replaced the water pump, thermostat, belts, and coolant, did an oil change, crossed my fingers, and fired it back up. It's been running fine ever since, with maybe only a trickle loss of coolant (maybe not anymore, as I just changed the water pump again at 121k, and noticed that it HAD been leaking). Replaced radiator preemptively at 100k miles, and it was still in okay shape. These cars are not bulletproof, but maintained on intervals, will last. I'm just keeping my eye out under the car for tranny fluid now...

[Pete L]

At the shop, the car started fine, no funny noises. Replaced the oil, radiator, thermostat, coolant, etc. When started, found there was oil flowing into the coolant. :( The head is coming off for a diagnosis. Hoping it is not cracked, that it only a head gasket failure, but I am not optimistic.

I previously had the water pump fail at ~60K miles over a holiday weekend. I was able to drive it 40 miles by using thermosyphon cooling and a lot of coasting. Car was fine. This is a lot worse, because all the coolant went away.

Damn plastic parts. I still think it is an unsuitable material for water pump impellers and for radiator tanks!!

[Mobius]

To be fair, most basic metal-tanked radiators fail just as often.

It's just easy to blame the plastic - only real difference is that you can't weld up a crack. Besides, there's a whole ton of other plastic in your cooling system. :)

Pastic water pump impellers though, are dumb.