BMW breakdown - grey smoke from exhaust

dhanepud · 23 April 2019 at 11:23AM

Hi

Our good holiday ended with a painful breakdown

. We have BMW 320, petrol, manual, 2010 make, 57000 miles. The car showed Oil warning so we put complied as mentioned in the manual around 2 litres (Castrol, Fully synthetic, stop start). After only driving few miles, the car starting knocking and grey smoke start coming from the exhaust. We instantly stopped our car and rolled to a side road. We called our breakdown and the roadside assistance guy said that a ‘quick roadside fix’ is not possible so he towed us back home ~ 100miles. The breakdown assistance guy said it might be Turbo failure or bigger engine problem.

Few questions for experts & experienced gurus:
- Does insurance cover for engine breakdown or mechanical problems?
- If I used my breakdown cover to get my car from breakdown place to home, can I use it again to take car from home to garage? Given that it was a holiday when many garages closed we didn’t have any option anyways.
- Is it possible that the problem (engine knocking and grey exhaust smoke) is only due to excess oil. Shall we try to drain the oil and see or it can cause more damage? Surely we will take car to mechanic but just want to know if there is a possibility of minor problem or it is definitely engine failure ?
- If/When I can fix my car then I want to sell it. If I sell it and the problem occurs again, then is it my responsibility or new owners? I just want to check if there is any point in selling or better to write off ?
- If I write off or not able to fix it , is it still possible to recover some value from the car ? can some garage etc still buys a broken down car ?

Thanks a lot!!!!

agrinnall · 23 April 2019 at 11:42AM

dhanepud wrote: »

Few questions for experts & experienced gurus:
- Does insurance cover for engine breakdown or mechanical problems? No
- If I used my breakdown cover to get my car from breakdown place to home, can I use it again to take car from home to garage? Given that it was a holiday when many garages closed we didn’t have any option anyways. It's unlikely, but read your paperwork to be sure
- Is it possible that the problem (engine knocking and grey exhaust smoke) is only due to excess oil. I wouldn't have thought so Shall we try to drain the oil and see or it can cause more damage? Surely we will take car to mechanic but just want to know if there is a possibility of minor problem or it is definitely engine failure ?
- If/When I can fix my car then I want to sell it. If I sell it and the problem occurs again, then is it my responsibility or new owners? The new owners, but if it hasn't be properly fixed and you didn't tell the new owners about the problem then they may be able to come after you I just want to check if there is any point in selling or better to write off ?
- If I write off or not able to fix it , is it still possible to recover some value from the car ? can some garage etc still buys a broken down car ? Sell it on ebay, there will be plenty of serviceable parts on the car.

I'm not an expert, other people who know much more than me may offer alternative views (or may just agree with me

).

shaun_from_Africa · 23 April 2019 at 11:48AM

A lot depends on exactly what the "oil warning" caption on your vehicle actually means.

It could be low oil pressure in which case serious damage could have already been done by the time you stopped the engine or it may mean low oil level.

You say that you "put complied as mentioned in the manual around 2 litres" of oil in the engine but did you actually check the oil level before or after putting this oil in?
2 litres is an awful lot of oil for a simple top up. If it actually required that amount then it was extremely low to begin with and if you put it in without checking the level and this amount wasn't needed then you may have greatly overfilled it, something that can cause severe damage to an engine.

How often do you check the fluid levels and tyres on the car?

Castle · 23 April 2019 at 11:55AM

dhanepud wrote: »

- If I write off or not able to fix it , is it still possible to recover some value from the car ? can some garage etc still buys a broken down car ?

I had a 2009 BMW 325i petrol which developed significant engine problems, (very expensive!) at just 61,000miles. I sold it through "sell your problem car" back in 2017 and got £2,500, which was paid by bank transfer without them even seeing the car:-
https://www.sellyourproblemcar.com/

ratrace · 23 April 2019 at 11:58AM

dhanepud wrote: »

Hi

Our good holiday ended with a painful breakdown . We have BMW 320, petrol, manual, 2010 make, 57000 miles. The car showed Oil warning so we put complied as mentioned in the manual around 2 litres (Castrol, Fully synthetic, stop start). After only driving few miles, the car starting knocking and grey smoke start coming from the exhaust. We instantly stopped our car and rolled to a side road. We called our breakdown and the roadside assistance guy said that a ‘quick roadside fix’ is not possible so he towed us back home ~ 100miles. The breakdown assistance guy said it might be Turbo failure or bigger engine problem.

Few questions for experts & experienced gurus:
- Does insurance cover for engine breakdown or mechanical problems?
- If I used my breakdown cover to get my car from breakdown place to home, can I use it again to take car from home to garage? Given that it was a holiday when many garages closed we didn’t have any option anyways.
- Is it possible that the problem (engine knocking and grey exhaust smoke) is only due to excess oil. Shall we try to drain the oil and see or it can cause more damage? Surely we will take car to mechanic but just want to know if there is a possibility of minor problem or it is definitely engine failure ?
- If/When I can fix my car then I want to sell it. If I sell it and the problem occurs again, then is it my responsibility or new owners? I just want to check if there is any point in selling or better to write off ?
- If I write off or not able to fix it , is it still possible to recover some value from the car ? can some garage etc still buys a broken down car ?

Thanks a lot!!!!

Ok, let me try and help you first of all a Bmw 320 Petrol does Not have a turbo its naturally aspirated (non turbo)

When the oil light came on this means that the car was very low on oil or oil pressure, and you may have been driving it with low oil for a while (Before the light came on) You added 2 litres of oil in a 2.0 petrol which has an oil capacity of about 4 litres (from the top of my head)

Im afraid the greyish smoke is an indicator that the car is burning oil maybe with a bit of coolent aswell, there has definitely been internal damage caused by the low oil, it could anything inside pistons rings, valves, bottom end who konws the engine would need to be stripped and investigated

I dont think draining the oil and putting fresh oil will make a diffrence if there is internal damage but for the sake of £60 or so its worth a try

No insurance companys do not cover for mechanical damage

yes you can sell as spares, i love my bm's and had about 10 over the years and they do sell well even for parts as a doner car

Jackmydad · 23 April 2019 at 12:26PM

You might just be lucky.
It might be that you've put too much oil in. Oil light coming on tends to be terminal with modern engines though.
Rattling doesn't sound hopeful.

Don't want to lecture, but for your own safety and economy, in future, you need to know how to check all the fluid levels. Check at least weekly and top up as needed. Check the tyres as well. Pressures, treads and sidewalls as far as possible. It's all in the manual.

Don't rely on the car's systems to tell you these things.

Good luck and come back and let us know the outcome.

System · 23 April 2019 at 2:04PM

Jackmydad wrote: »

You might just be lucky.
It might be that you've put too much oil in.

That isn't lucky. Too much oil and the pistons slap into it every time they reach the bottom of their travel which can result in broken piston skirts and bent conrods. If they've put 2 litres in an engine which was already near the full mark the above may have happened.

Jackmydad · 23 April 2019 at 3:08PM

Tarambor wrote: »

That isn't lucky. Too much oil and the pistons slap into it every time they reach the bottom of their travel which can result in broken piston skirts and bent conrods. If they've put 2 litres in an engine which was already near the full mark the above may have happened.

Yes, I know, and I was thinking the same as I posted, but I think you'll agree that it depends on how much overfilled it was, and the amount of extra oil that particular engine will stand.
As I said the rattling doesn't sound hopeful, but as already said by somebody else, it has to be worth a go to change the oil and see.

Scrapit · 23 April 2019 at 4:07PM

Interesting how tyres are being mentioned on a faulty engine thread.

lewishardwick · 23 April 2019 at 5:15PM

On a 2010 BMW I'd expect the oil sensors to be wise enough to give you an "oil level low" warning before any serious damange occurs.

Certainly did on my 2007 Citroën C2.

Adding two litres if this was the case may well have added too much oil, depending on what the bare minimum for the engine to run would be.

So many variables to consider. Probably best at this stage to send it to be inspected. Any fiddling may just cause further problems.

lewishardwick · 23 April 2019 at 5:21PM

A quick Google seems to suggest a litre of oil between min/max marks. Adding two litres is quite a bit more...

Hope it's not too serious!

BMW breakdown - grey smoke from exhaust

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