530 D - Thought they were reliable

[apex]

After running various "unreliable" TVR's and Alfa's over the years I have my first breakdown in my sensible Beemer.

Didn't realise turbo failure was so spectacular, and after leaving a smoke trail the Red Arrows would have been proud of along the A45 limped back to the hotel.

Is there a weakness on these (akin to the Vanos issue with E36 M3 Evo's) or is 90k about it for a car racking up motorway miles with an Auto box. I've had the car 3 months and I know the previous owner is no Jason Plato... Car is 3 yrs old (out of warrenty - its an import), any chance of any recourse to BMW ?? (I'm not holding my breath)...

[z3stu]

The Turbo's are usualy strong if treated ok. I.E. if you have driven the car on boost before switching off you should leave it running for around a minute and a half to let the oil circulate or it will dry the oil ways up and starve the bearing of lubrication.

The other thing it could be is a object going through and damaging the internals (Damaged Filter or pipe work or engine internals)

Or cheap oil or lack of service at the set mileage.

Hope this helps

Stu

[Andy RB]

Father of a friend of mine has had 5 turbo's go in his company 330d, finally got rid of it after 130K motorway miles (serviced at a BM main dealer) and bought a Volvo S60.

[pentoman]

I've heard of turbos going on these. Suddenly makes the idea of a used, out-of-warranty 530d a bit less appealing, the idea of something like the turbo going and costing ££££!

In fact it makes a petrol 530i seem like a great idea (except for the relative lack of torque). Not sure how much extra fuel you save with a 530d but you'd have to go a long way to make it pay for a turbo!

good luck with yours,


Russell

[davidd]

I did hear a rumour that a lot of the early 3.0 rubos had failures, an ex workmate had a 330d which had to have a new one when it was quite new. They (BMW) supposedly modified the turbos to make them stronger (or bigger or something).

Perhaps someone will be along in a moment to clarify this or state I'm talking shi*e

Anyway I'd have one apart from the fact that I want a new shape 535d touring with a sport pack (dream on).

D

[xxplod]

It is true that early 330d had problems. We have the 330d as our Area Car. The older ones did have turbos go on them. IIRC at around the 100K mark. This is of course 100K of VERY hard driving. The newer ones (with the slightly upped bhp?) seem to be OK. Don't ask me what they've done to cure it, I've no idea.

[apex]

... well all fixed now!!!. Appears that 90-100 is par for the course and according to the guy who fixed it BMW sell stacks of the things.

A secondary (and costly) problem is that if the turbo blows it fills the cats with oil and basically buggers them. I think if BMW did the work they wouldn't do the turbo without the cats being done. Ok if you have a warrenty.

Cost me just over a grand to get it fixed (with a new turbo), which I thought was pretty good, and at least with turbo's they're pretty much a bolt on part, as opposed to some cheap internal component that costs a fortune in man hrs to get too...

FYI and with the benefit of hindsight, the signs were occassional white smoke from the exhaust usually while sitting in traffic. This was intermittent and the car could go days without it happening. When it failed it did so suddenly and along with the smoke screen the car had no power...

[Tabs]

Whilst I appreciate these cars are having a full service history, how frequently is the oil changed mileage wise? Are the extended service intervals causing the problems?