Quote:
Originally Posted by NoPwrOvrMe
Yes if you read through the thread the previous owner took it to bmw for all services with records. As you know bmw is shit with their services and most likely didn't even do them. Also their recommended 15k service interval is Bull. Every car I've owned I've done 3k intervals. As bmws naturally burn a lot of oil a 15k interval would build up tons of sludge overtime. This is the first car out of 6 others that has had sludge problems. Also this is a n54 which has more known oil issues to include a lot of oil burn off and sludge build up. Also like I said in the thread I opened my valve cover to change the gasket and found a ton of sludge.
How is looking through the oil filter a false negative when I clearly stated when I drained it after it was pitch black? Also "looking through holes" doesn't show anything. If you want to see real sludge take your valve cover or oil pan completely off.
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LOL. I'm not looking to fight about this, but looking though holes does help indicate if the engine has sludge. If the valve train is sludged up it's not going to hide away from where you can see cylinders 1 and 2 valves. I've pulled the VANOS solenoids 4 times now and none of the small orifices had any sludge. The hole in the oil pan where the oil sensor mounts is about 2" in diameter, so when the car is on a lift you can easily look in and see most of the crankshaft. I found no evidence of sludge anywhere. 2nd pic is my N52 at 131,152 miles (January 12, 2011) after jut 8 oil changes (you can do the math). 3rd pic is through the oil sensor hole in the pan in August 2013 at 225,000 miles (14 oil changes).
An oil filter will look dark brown 5 minutes after oil is run through it, so the color of it indicates nothing.
Further, I have a 1997 Z3 with the M44. I just replaced the timing chain case and valve cover gaskets, along with the OFHG (it's different than the profile gasket the N52/54 uses). I had the entire valve train exposed from the crankshaft all the way back to the rear of the head and the oil filter housing completely off. The engine is 18 years old with 170,000 miles, sees oil changes in accordance with BMW's OCI, which for the M44 from 1997 is about 9,000 to 11,000 miles (my wife drives this car, so it gets oil chnages about every 18 months or so). The car sits quite a bit in the colder months. In the late 90's synthetic wasn't even called for, so the engine used non-synthetic for years. Since 2003 or so I've been using synthetic in it. In 2006/7 I switched to BMW's oil for it. The engine didn't have a spec of sludge anywhere. Here's a pic for you viewing pleasure...