How to tell when your engine is effed.

[static667]

2012-07-04 13.08.35 by static667, on Flickr


2012-07-04 13.08.18 by static667, on Flickr

Yeah....that made my 4th a happy day... :/

I believe what caused this problem to get to this level is really my fault. Before I realized that I had such an issue with my oil filter housing gasket, I ran it low on oil for too long. This low running caused some major wear issues with my piston rings and cylinder walls and now I have some bad oil burning issues. Like 1.5+ quarts a week bad. Once I pay my car off I may be looking for a new engine or I'll drive it till it dies.

Anyway, the moral of the story is, CHECK YOUR OIL REGULARLY!!!!!!!!!!

[nike001]

Holy shit man. That's not good at all.

[M0nk3y]

Not a good way to end the day

[Beau B]

That does not look good.. sorry to hear that

[BRGcoopahS]

I have an oil/engine issue as well, or so I believe. That made me realize more that I should check the oil more often now. Luckily I only have to fill a half a quart a month.

[Crestwood1001]

I check mine every other day, religiously

[WOLFN8TR]

Dam! Man that Sucks.


Bayerische-Motoren-Werke

[NorCalZman]

my sympathies. How much would a new ZHP engine cost?

Also, I am new to E46s, but don't we have a warning system to prevent just this incident? It shows a yellow light when it starts to get low. Isn't that supposed to be your buffer time to add oil before it gets too low and the light turns red?

[johnrando]

I would have hoped a warning would have signaled too. Sorry to hear that. Along w/junkyards, check the parting out section of e46f.c, there could be some engines for sale.

[wsmeyer]

Damn, them are some ugly plugs.

Oil gets into the cylinders either from worn piston rings, leaking valve seals, or oil getting into the intake charge itself. The fact that all the plugs look nearly identical kinda rules out the first two. A quick compression test would help rule out rings too. The material used for intake gaskets won't hold up to oil and I suspect oil leaking from your filter housing was puddling up somewhere and eventually got through an intake gasket and into the intake manifold somewhere.

William.