Oil pan leaking, heavily, at 20k miles. Anyone else?

[M4drift]

Hello everyone,

Curious if anyone else has seen this and if so what caused it? Brought my car in for service for something unrelated and when I got back home from dropping it off I noticed a large pool of oil on the garage floor.

Car was sitting for about 9 days as well prior to me starting it this morning and driving it to the dealer. (It's winter here)

Let my SA know asap that it needed to go up in the air and be looked at. I drove over a little later and looked at it myself. "Appears" to only be wet from the oil pan gasket down. Front main seal area is dry, turbo drain pipes dry, no valve cover leak etc.

Dropping the pan to replace the gasket is no small job and pains me to have the car torn apart unnecessarily. Trying to understand why the pan gasket would suddenly and randomly fail or if there is something we are over looking. Anyone else experience this?

15' m4 dct
Early 15' build date
20k miles
Stock aside from exhaust

[M4drift]

The E46 had a fitting/plug that could also leak behind he head, anyone else ever seen this or just us? Hoping it's really not the pan but after cleaning it's leaking after just a few minutes idling on the lift.

[TurboM]

What type of "service" was done? Did they maybe change your oil as well? Did you look at your service records or vehicle info in iDrive to confirm?

[M4drift]

No oil change, it was in for spark plugs per mileage. Got it back and soon after threw a MIL, went back and was smoke tested due to a lean a/f code. Found leak in recirc piping and so we ordered new pipe from Germany. Car sat for a week or so while we waited and then went back and oil leak was found that morning. Smoke testing it is low psi, so would be pretty hard to pressurize the crank case enough to force a gasket to fail. However who knows this is a weird one.

It's leaking from the rear quarter of the pan where the pan meets the block and trans.

[Brasko]

Yikes! It looks pretty saturated with oil. Could it be the rear main seal or the back end of the the oil pan gasket? I would take it back and have your service center check it out.

[G35POPPEDMYCHERRY]

ugh please dont be a e90 valve cover gasket oil housing gasket lol after owning that car...im convinced i leak oil

[TurboM]

If it was fine before your took it in and they did some work under the hood there's a chance they knocked something loose, such as an oil feed/return line or possibly something in the crankcase ventilation (although the leak from this would be very very slow and only occur when there was enough residue build up to cause a drip).

Oil will almost always look like its coming from the oil pan gasket because that's where it accumulates before it drips. Unless your oil is filthy black, its very hard to see where its trickling down the head/block.

[M4drift]

It's at the dealership now. Pan was cleaned thoroughly and with car at idle it starts coming out of the pan junction within a couple minutes. No two ways about it. Why it failed and failed to this extent so quickly is a mystery. It isn't a light seepage, it's a pretty heavy drip.

I agree that BMW seals and gaskets are a joke and why bmw doesn't use fipg like Toyota (which works excellent and doesn't leak) I have no idea. Must make a killing replacing gaskets and seals...

Regardless no one I have spoken to anywhere has seen this issue before on an S55 so thought I would ask around on the forums and also bring it to everyone's attention.

[M4drift]

Ok as a heads up to anyone else who might encounter this in the future there is a seam that is spot welded together at the back corner of the oil pan gasket. This is right where mine was leaking. The seam is slightly raised which is the only thing we can deduce caused the leak. I'll pop some pics up from my phone later so you can have a better sense of it.

There is no update or revision on the new gasket. It is exactly the same as the original, curious how it holds up. Just an FYI to anyone else down the road who has this problem.

BTW removing and reinstalling the pan is a massive PITA as it requires dropping the subframe, etc.

[derpimpkar]

my 2015 had an oil pan leak too, noticed right around 24k miles. spotted during that spark plug service. it wasn't as messy as yours but definitely there.

bmw fixed it under warranty, definitely some work on their part. responding in case this pops up again amd i can find the root cause easier.

[M4drift]

Originally Posted by derpimpkar

my 2015 had an oil pan leak too, noticed right around 24k miles. spotted during that spark plug service. it wasn't as messy as yours but definitely there.

bmw fixed it under warranty, definitely some work on their part. responding in case this pops up again amd i can find the root cause easier.

Did they say exactly where yours was leaking at? Curious if it's the same spot welded seam on the metal section of the gasket.

[M4drift]

pics

[derpimpkar]

Originally Posted by M4drift

Did they say exactly where yours was leaking at? Curious if it's the same spot welded seam on the metal section of the gasket.

they didn't say. i'll try and see if they made a note though. i'll reply if they did.

[M4drift]

Ok, good to keep track of this if it's a common area that's going to fail. Expensive repair if your not under warranty.

[Racer20]

Do you guys with the leaks have the magnesium oil pan that the early '15 cars had?

[M4drift]

Yes, however and with GREAT disappointment my car is still leaking oil. Turns out it was NOT the oil pan so we tore all of the subframe components off for nothing. Ran on the lift and had no issues but once road tested under boost it was covered in oil when it returned to the dealer. I'm not happy to say the least and still not sure where the actual oil leak is coming from. We are back at square one now.

[clutchdj]

Wow.

[geneatals]

had a similar/same issue in my e90 m3....unfortunately the only way to check was to specifically have the service tech drop the pan and check for leakage....


hmmmmm

[JoeFromPA]

Significant oil leaks very rarely pop up out of nowhere between gasketed surfaces.

If it's as significant as it sounds, look for oil hoses

[M4drift]

It's not the pan gasket, not oil hoses, those couldn't be more obvious, it's deeper then that. We're checking into other things now I'll keep yall updated.

[TurboM]

Originally Posted by M4drift

Yes, however and with GREAT disappointment my car is still leaking oil. Turns out it was NOT the oil pan so we tore all of the subframe components off for nothing. Ran on the lift and had no issues but once road tested under boost it was covered in oil when it returned to the dealer. I'm not happy to say the least and still not sure where the actual oil leak is coming from. We are back at square one now.

When you say "we tore all of the subframe components off for nothing", are you saying they dropped the motor? If so, that sucks for a new car to have the motor pulled for such a silly issue.

The dealers should be able to figure this out pretty easily at this point with the detection tools they have given they know it's not just a simple oil pan leak. Venting on a forum is good for exactly that, venting, but no one is going to know what the issues is. The dealer will figure that out. Good luck

EDIT: On a completely separate and contradictory note, there have been a couple reported issues of pin holes in oil coolers. Given this component is under pressure, oil levels would drop pretty quick with the engine running, but its worth a check.

[M4drift]

[QUOTE=TurboM;21296742]When you say "we tore all of the subframe components off for nothing", are you saying they dropped the motor? If so, that sucks for a new car to have the motor pulled for such a silly issue.

The dealers should be able to figure this out pretty easily at this point with the detection tools they have given they know it's not just a simple oil pan leak. Venting on a forum is good for exactly that, venting, but no one is going to know what the issues is. The dealer will figure that out. Good luck



Actually there is a lot of great information and knowledge on the forums, and some very savy techs/tuners, for example Carythelabelguy, and many others. I'm also a tech/tuner and a mechanical engineer with an emphasis on automotive, so there's that too. So someone here could in fact know what the issue is, especially if they have experienced or seen it before, hence my posting about it. Normally I would tear this thing apart myself, find the issue, and fix it, and report to others on what I found in an attempt to help save someone time. I wish it was a simple oil pan leak, it's quite a bit more. This isn't exactly a venting post, this is an an attempt at an informative "if this happens to you, here's what to expect and try to avoid" thread. It was never the oil pan gasket, so if anyone sees that and thinks it is don't replace it until you keep hunting and most likely pull the trans. Due to the design of the motor and the slight crack at the corner of the oil pan and bell housing a leaking rear main looks like it's an oil pan gasket at the rear corner. There are also two oil passages on the back of the motor that have press fit inserts that can potentially leak as well inside the bell housing also looking like an oil pan gasket leak. Yes we dropped the subframe because you can't pull the oil pan off without doing so. No it wasn't the problem and was a giant waste of time. "Figure it out pretty easily"..... gonna go with no unfortunately. This has been ongoing for four weeks as parts aren't readily available for our cars and generally have to come from over seas. We replaced the oil pan gasket, week +, then pulled trans to find that rear main was leaking, ordered parts replaced rear main, then tested PCV pressure per BMW's tech department, not in spec, ordered new valve cover since it's integrated into the valve cover, has to come from Germany, that's another week from now. Just going through the motions replacing one thing after another for weeks upon weeks and still don't truly know what caused the issue. Rear mains on low mileage cars don't often just randomly fail. When I say that I mean it didn't just develop a slight leak or weep, it failed and oil was coming out steadily. The rear main was still completely seated and didn't push out at all btw and looked perfect.

If someone else had gone through this I sure as hell wish they had posted up about it so we could have avoided dropping the pan unnecessarily and so forth and gone straight for the rear main, but first tested crank case pressure before tearing down, etc. to eliminate a bunch of what if's and weeks of time.

My local BMW dealer has been great about helping to sort things out and resolve the issue. It's been a pain in the ass to track down the culprit and it's still an on going process. They have been accommodating, professional, courteous, and forth coming every step of the way, and have done their best to accelerate the process within the realm of what info they have to work with from BMW and the availability of parts.

For now it just is what it is but once it's finally resolved I'll keep y'all in the loop, unless I'm asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement, in which case this thread will disappear into obscurity lol.