BMW engine blow up!

gibbsy

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Following a 15 reg BMW 3 Series this afternoon up a very steep hill known locally as the Dyllas or killer of fire engines as I have found to my cost, this happened. The Beemer started to accelerate as the road began to even out. Then it seemed to shudder, pale grey smoke came from under both front wheels with fluid pouring out from under the car. Driver had enough momentum to pull of the road. Same colour smoke was then coming from the front grill and under the bonnet, so not an engine bay fire. Now I could see fluids and some oil coming from underneath.

Was going to ask the driver if he needed help, although what assistance I could give was in itself a mystery, but he just sat there hitting the steering wheel with both fists. Clearly he was more than a little miffed at a very new engine should have failed.

Any thoughts on the cause?
 
Not necessarily an engine failure, could just be a hose or other connection to oil cooler etc.
Factories do make mistakes on assembly.
Once had a Ford Fiesta on our fleet that broke down within 20 miles of delivery.
Turns out the alternator has never been connected and the car was just running off the battery, until that flattened.
 
As with all failures they tend to follow a bath tub curve. Hence if nothing fails very early on (i.e. problem during manufacture) then chances are it will not then fail for some time until it comes to end of life.
Using this then you always run the risk of an issue buying something new. You hope this risk is very small due to good quality procedures/checks at the point of manufacture but there is still a risk there. Once something has been proven to be OK with a bit of use then the risk becomes less until you start getting to the point when wear and tear take over and the risk increases again.
 
As with all failures they tend to follow a bath tub curve. Hence if nothing fails very early on (i.e. problem during manufacture) then chances are it will not then fail for some time until it comes to end of life.
Using this then you always run the risk of an issue buying something new. You hope this risk is very small due to good quality procedures/checks at the point of manufacture but there is still a risk there. Once something has been proven to be OK with a bit of use then the risk becomes less until you start getting to the point when wear and tear take over and the risk increases again.

This is fair comment, but although the car itself was new, it isn't new technology.
The F30 variant has been around for 3 years now.
And most/all of the engines were around before the new bodyshell too.
 
Its hard to judge on what caused the failure, it could be many things including owner error.
 
I was more think about it being newly manufactured more than new design etc. so more around unknown defects in materials or just not well put together in the first place.
 

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