Quote Originally Posted by pbrown
Heres what happened to me. in december 2003 My 1994 530it ran perfect. No indication of a problem rocking or smoking. One very cold day it would not start, thats when I found out about the nikisil issue. After much debate and troubleshooting we determined if we moved the car a few feet without fully warming up the engine then shut it off thats when the problem would occur. Theory is the the rings don't get a good seal and that the tolerances due to the wear on the nikisil cylinders is bad enough the compression is reduced. And it seems totally logical since every time we had to get it running again we would do it by spraying WD40 or a few drops of oil into each cylinder to regain compression. And it would start. I replaced that engine last april 2004. We haven't had a problem since. I you are considering buying a car with the nikisil engine Do a leak down test at a BMW dealer. But all in all expect the that engine will fail at some point So don't pay what their asking price My replacement engine was $3000k Unknown milage and I did the install myself. I took a about 4 days total
Dealer want 8000k to 10,000k to do it
Was your engine over 100,000 miles? Wont BMW do it for free if its still under 100,00 miles? Mine is at 97,000 and i want to take it in for the leakdown test just to be sure. Will they cover the cost if it turns out it has a problem? Will they charge for the leakdown test? Sorry for all the questions, but im getting a little worried now. My car is idleing kinda rough now and the "check engine" light comes on periodically.