330D M57 Engine Issues

Hi,

I have a 2000 E46 330D which has recently had a faulty diesel injector. I
have discovered some facts about the engine during my experiences in getting
the injector replaced.
I just thought I'd put something up here so that you can all share my
experiences and post your own comments so we can discuss this issue.

---

On the M57 engine there are injector retaining studs that hold each injector
in place and stop it coming out under the combustion pressure in the diesel
engine. These studs go through holes in the rocker cover and screw only
into the cylinder head. This means that if the rocker cover needs to come
off for whatever reason, then all of the injectors will need to come out
first. But with diesel engines such as these, the injectors frequently
seize into the engine and seriously refuse to come out. These injectors are
big and are solid machined metal about an inch diameter and about 8" in
length. There is a special BMW slide hammer tool to remove these injectors,
however when they seize it's no good and no amount of thrashing at the tool
will get them out. Dealers will soak the area around the injector in
Coca-Cola (no-joke!) to eat at the corrosion to hopefully free up the seized
injectors before trying the slide hammer again. If this still doesn't work
then I believe that they have to resort to drilling the injector top and
forcefully pulling it out with a towing hook type device connected to a
winch. Obviously, this will ruin some of the injectors as they are removed.
The injectors cost about £250 each. In addition, the dealers will charge up
to 2.5 hours labour for removal of each seized injector.

Now, you can see that if some work needs to be done to the cam,valve gear or
head, then this will be VERY costly indeed.

---

Comments welcome, please...

Surely someone must have something to add to this?

> Surely someone must have something to add to this?

Remember that a large number of readers here are from the US, BMW don't
sell the M57 there. Also it's a relatively new engine so many folk don't
have experience of it.

--
Who needs a life when you've got Unix? :-)
Email: , John G.Burns B.Eng, Bonny Scotland
Web : http://www.unixnerd.demon.co.uk - The Ultimate BMW Homepage!
Need Sun or HP Unix kit? http://www.unixnerd.demon.co.uk/unix.html
www.Strathspey.co.uk - Quality Binoculars at a Sensible price

I get your point about the US, but the M57 engine dates back to about '99 in
Europe and so now so getting quite old and many with high miles. I believe
that the injectors are already one of the known high failure items so as the
car gets older I expect many others will encounter this problem.

The intention of my comments here is just to give an honest review of my
experience as when I needed help I drew a blank trying to research this for
myself on the WWW. Now that I've created a thread for comments on this
issue then what follows can be useful for others. I believe that these
newsgroups are searchable via Google.



"John Burns" > wrote in message
...
>> Surely someone must have something to add to this?
>
> Remember that a large number of readers here are from the US, BMW don't
> sell the M57 there. Also it's a relatively new engine so many folk don't
> have experience of it.
>
> --
> Who needs a life when you've got Unix? :-)
> Email: , John G.Burns B.Eng, Bonny Scotland
> Web : http://www.unixnerd.demon.co.uk - The Ultimate BMW Homepage!
> Need Sun or HP Unix kit? http://www.unixnerd.demon.co.uk/unix.html
> www.Strathspey.co.uk - Quality Binoculars at a Sensible price

quite interesting to know about this I am kind of researching about
possibly buying a 530d ( E39 ) which I think has this enginer doesnt it
? I know that Peugeot injectors are quite expensive as well, ( about
100 ukp ) and I also know that they are quite tight. I don't see any
reason why it would effect that many injectors though, perhaps spraying
a little oil around them might stop the corrosion from getting in and
prevent the problem ? Inkectors probably need replacing/ cleaning
adjusting after some amount of time anyway..

M C wrote:

> I get your point about the US, but the M57 engine dates back to about '99 in
> Europe and so now so getting quite old and many with high miles. I believe
> that the injectors are already one of the known high failure items so as the
> car gets older I expect many others will encounter this problem.
>
> The intention of my comments here is just to give an honest review of my
> experience as when I needed help I drew a blank trying to research this for
> myself on the WWW. Now that I've created a thread for comments on this
> issue then what follows can be useful for others. I believe that these
> newsgroups are searchable via Google.
>
>
>
> "John Burns" > wrote in message
> ...
> >> Surely someone must have something to add to this?
> >
> > Remember that a large number of readers here are from the US, BMW don't
> > sell the M57 there. Also it's a relatively new engine so many folk don't
> > have experience of it.
> >
> > --
> > Who needs a life when you've got Unix? :-)
> > Email: , John G.Burns B.Eng, Bonny Scotland
> > Web : http://www.unixnerd.demon.co.uk - The Ultimate BMW Homepage!
> > Need Sun or HP Unix kit? http://www.unixnerd.demon.co.uk/unix.html
> > www.Strathspey.co.uk - Quality Binoculars at a Sensible price