Oil's all gone!

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Just had an interesting experience. Just riding home from work, my BMW F800S picked up a sudden loud rattle on the power at about 3-4k rpm. No loss of power, just a big rattle. I stopped to look it over and couldn't find what it was, and couldn't reproduce it with the bike in neutral. I carefully rode it the 10 miles back and gave it a more thorough going over.

To my horror, the dipstick barely registered any oil in it! It's coming up for it's 18k service, but I'll buy some oil and do a full change / filter in the morning. In the meantime I have two questions:

1) How much damage have I done to it?
2) Where has it all gone? There's no noticable leaks or puddles, unlike previously where I've noticed a leaky oil cooler or valve gasket cover. It was changed at 12k and checked at 15 (I know, I know), but it's not obvious what's gone wrong here.

Help :(
 
VoG said:
1. Depends on what kind of bearings the crank runs on, where the oil scavenge port is for the oil pump, & how long it's been low on oil. oh & obviously how much stick you've been giving it whilst low on oil.

2. If it hasn't leaked then it's been burnt, do a compression check.

The loud rattle under load would have me looking at the crank, the last time i heared that kinda of noise it was on a plain bearing Z750 crank making it's presence known.

Change your oil & filter tomorrow, have a damn good look at your filter & old oil for swarf, as loud rattles are usually an indication of lack of oil by which times it's normally too late the damage is done, either to a bearing, or a bearing surface ( think twixt head & cam cap ).

fingers crossed for you ;)
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If it started rattling today, would that indicate it's been low for a while, or that it passed a certain threshold? There's been no indication on the oil light, I'd expect if oil pressure were to drop due to low oil then I'd see the light coming on?

Stupid question: what's a compression check?

If there has been damage, am I looking at expensive parts / hours and hours of labour, or might it not be that bad?

acemastr said:
Can't see how it's used so much, my RR was changed at 11k miles, now on 15k and hasn't used a single drop, still rather clear and the same level.

Agree with the above posts, BMW might help you too, generally good guys
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Will buy oil from them tomorrow and have a chat then.
 
I did the oil change.

Difficult to measure how much came out, it was a fair bit, and I'd guess about 2l. Bike takes 3l in. Oil looked free from contamination / metal bits and I filled it with 3l of new Castrol stuff. Running it at idle, it sounds fine, but the real test will be loading the engine up at around 3.5k rpms, so we'll see.
 
**Update**

So after taking it to the dealer at the end of last week and letting them do it's 18k service, it broke down on the A1 this morning. The dealer's opinion last week was "We don't know what it is, but if it were something serious you'd hear it rattle at all revs. Keep an eye on it and let us know".

This morning, started up, rattle was a bit quieter, so I'm thinking "It's gone away. Good." Then as the bike warms up, the rattle becomes a clatter and gets both louder and more prominent higher up the rev range. As I hit 10 miles in, it's now everywhere under power, and I'm losing power. I pull up on the hard shoulder and start to hear it clattering at idle. A quick listen indicates it might be bottom end. I give it a gentle rev, and see the oil light blink at me before it just dies. I don't even try and start it again. Dipstick says oil on the Max line, so my initial thought is oil pump failure.

It's back at the dealer now. Not exactly happy.
 
I'll just say it's a local BMW dealer to me at the moment. I don't want to give the appearance of slagging them off when they might come good. I also need to have an ongoing relationship with these guys.

Engine is silver. Bike's March '08.
 
hillbilly2 said:
I'm guessing you don't have extended warranty on the bike.The silver engines were not very good.They had a piston issue where the pistons would wear severely in the bores,causing them to thrust in the bores.They sound like a rattly diesel.BMW are still rebuilding the engines at full or partial contribution,but it depends if you have had full dealer servicing.They really wear a poor engine.The newer black engines are far better.
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Is that the piston slap issue? I believed this was sorted end of 07 engines - I've certainly never had a slapping problem in the past. It's a noisy bugger for sure, but all of the 800's I've ridden, new and older, have been like that.

Just had a call from the dealer. They need to strip the engine and agree it "sounds quite bad". Hmmm.

*edit* just got an extended warranty quote at GBP25 per month. Wished I had got that earlier :(
 
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Just had a call from the dealer. Big end failure. Needs a new engine.

He did say that when they drained the oil, there was a huge amount of copper specs in it. Now, when I pulled the old oil out last week, it seemed to be pretty smooth and black without any metal bits in it.

The dealer's also saying that because I changed the oil myself just before the service, they couldn't have picked up on the problem because (a) they didn't see the drained oil and therefore couldn't examine it for signs of failure and (b) the new oil 'fixed' the problem and clattering noises temporarily making it difficult to diagnose.

I'm currently staring at a bill for £1000's for a new engine now. Utterly disillusioned.
 
At the end of the day, if the engine went bang, it doesn't matter whether it did it before or after a service, it shouldn't have happened full stop.

I'll get onto BMW HQ if no luck with the dealer. I'm also going to take a sample of the old oil down to them tomorrow to prove there was nothing there when I drained it, so invalidate their excuse.
 
Just had both the dealer and BMW Cust services on the phone. They're offering to pay for half the parts cost. Leaving me with a bill of £3,070.

I don't have £3,070. I've literally no idea what to do next.
 
hillbilly2 said:
Do you have full dealer service history?
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I do.

Seems I've a number of choices:

1) Cough up £3k. End up with an 08 bike with a brand new engine with 2 year warranty. Bike worth is probably about £4-4.5k now.
2) Negotiate a p/x with the dealer on a similar bike. Cheapest F800 they've got is a £5k ST ('57, 11k miles) - if I can convince them to give me £1500 for the parts, that's £3,500 outlay for a replacement.
3) Sell for parts and buy something different. I'm working on the basis of a £1500 parts value of the bike sans engine. The smallest amount of money it seems I need to throw at something to get something half decent is around £3k, so I'm looking at finding £1.5k for that.
4) Spend £1000 on a s/h engine from another broken bike and twist dealer's arm to fit it on the cheap. End up with bike only worth about £2.5-£3k with zero warranty options.
 
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Problem is, legally, BMW don't owe me anything. They're 100% within their rights to just walk away. So anything I can get out of them is goodwill.

They were fairly firm in their assertion that half the parts cost was 'fair and generous' and point blank refused to give any more leeway. I'm not sure what more shouting down the phone will actually achieve. Ditto watchdog etc.

I value my time more than any drawn-out victory. At the moment, I'm willing to write off any losses and just buy something that isn't a BMW next time. Which is a shame, because I live next door to a dealer (convenient) and had my eye on a beemer as my next bike.
 
Labour's surprisingly cheap - once the top's off you just pull the whole thing and drop a new one in. Brand new engine is around £5,000 - I'd only be paying a couple hundred for the labour.

I also got the dealer to give me an estimate of the bike value once all work done. They said £4k private, £3.5k trade-in.

What a joke.
 
I did tell them that I'd done the oil change myself and that I wouldn't be requiring to spend money on new oil + filter at the service. They're using the whole "ah, but if we'd changed the oil, we'd have spotted the problem" excuse.

I actually took a sample of the old oil to them, and they agreed that there wasn't any metal in it. In other words, them doing the oil change wouldn't have told them anything new.

I'm torn. A part of me loves the bike, so wants to just spend the money (I'll pull it out of the mortgage) and write it off as experience. The other half of me thinks that a dealer that doesn't recognise imminent engine failure needs to have the **** slapped out of them. But that said, I don't know what my first step would be, legally.

Any advice?
 
VoG said:
Well, i suppose it comes down to a number of things.

First, what exactly are they going to do to repair the damage, are they going to give you a brand new motor for your money, or are they going to rebuild your blown motor, reusing what parts they can salvage in the process, & the rebuild being carried out by the same bunch of incompetant chimps who gave you such shockingly poor advice in the first place?.

Second, if you do bite the bullet, how long do you plan on keeping said bike, if it's years, well atleast you'll get your monies worth, if it isn't that long term, then it just doesn't strike me as sensible at all.

As for the legal side of things, sadly i can't help you on that score i'm afraid, tho i still think writing to Watchdog for advice etc might still be worth a punt, just in case your not the only Beemer owner in your area to fall foul of said shower of incompetant chimps.
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The price I've been quoted is for a new engine. Looking at the parts listing (a while ago, memory is hazy), I think it comes as complete unit including gearbox, clutch etc. Will double-check.

As for how long I'm going to keep the bike, I've no idea. I love it to bits, but have two principal criticisms - 1) it could do with a bit more than 84bhp and 2) it's not the most comfortable on longer journeys. To be honest, before this all happened I was browsing to see how much something like an R1200R would set me back as it's got more poke and is more comfortable, yet very insurable at the same time.
 
I'm going to have a chat with Motorworks to find out a) how much a s/h engine is and what it comes with and b) they're estimate as to the value of the bike pre- and post- engine swap. In my experience they've usually been really helpful, so should be a good techincal second-opinion. I've also got a couple of mates who are experienced in the mechanical dept to help me do the swap if I want to go down that route.

To re-cap, order of events:

  1. I ride bike
  2. I notice coming home up the A1 that there's a rattle that's appeared. It appears at about 4k rpm in the rev range under power. In lower gears, the rattle is more like at 3,750rpm, but still only under power.
  3. I get home, and check the oil.
  4. I see the oil is barely registering on the dipstick, just below the min level.
  5. I change the oil+filter, thinking the rattle was caused by lack of lubrication.
  6. Oil comes out black, smooth, and free from metallic parts.
  7. I phone the dealer to book in 18k service, explaining that there's a rattle and that I've done the oil/filter myself.
  8. Dealer says "bring it in tomorrow" - I was expecting availability at some point the next week.
  9. I ride to dealer, rattle is less when cold, but re-appears when warm.
  10. I get to dealer, re-explain all of the above in person
  11. Dealer bills me for service and states that they're not sure what it might be and that I should "keep an eye on it and phone them the next week to let them know if it's gotten better or worse". They didn't ride it, but did spend a bit of time revving it.
  12. I set out on Monday morning. Rattle gets progressively louder and present at all points on rev range. Bike starts to lose power. I pull over on hard shoulder of A1 about 10 miles from start of journey. Get off and listen. Sounds bottom-endy and is now rattling on idle. Give it a slight throttle blip and the bike dies with the oil light flickering right at the very end.
  13. Say hello to the RAC man and take it back to the dealer.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it :p
 
Currently looking at second handers. Can get a silver (yes, I know - just finding out age) one with 8k miles on it for £800, complete without alternator. Alternative is a 2006 with only 2k miles for £1000. Concerns about dodge valve cover gaskets on that second one though.
 
hillbilly2 said:
But if you are putting in a s/h engine,then it's very easy to change the rocker cover gasket.It is only 4 bolts and new gasket(the new kits come complete with both gaskets and new bolts),and a bit of silicon.
Silver engine :eek:
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Agreed, shouldn't be a difficult change.

No black engines to be had right now :(
 
Update.

Just dropped £950 on a s/h engine from motorworks. Decided to get a new belt at the same time (old one was splitting), so total bill is around £1270 delivered.

Engine itself is a 2006, described as 'very clean' with only 2k miles on it. Both me and motorworks are very aware of piston slap issues on the early engine and they've given me a 6 month warranty on it and will sort it if it causes any issues. I'll be putting 6k miles on it over that time period, so hopefully any niggles will make themselves apparent then.

Motorworks have been brilliant, not a bad word to say about them. Got a free oil filter out of it as well (hurray!).

Now I just need to bribe a mate with a hoist to come round and help me fit it.
 
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