Small metal shavings in oil filter

[Reu]

Today I did an oil change on my M4 and noticed very small metal shavings in the oil filter. Not only that but the engine oil had the smell of fuel.

This immediately worried me as 4 months ago my F30 320i seized and when draining the oil it had the same smell of fuel and of course a lot of metal shavings.

I have a 2018 ZCP M4 with 22,450km (13,949 miles). It has been running Bootmod3 Stage 1 93oct OTS map for the past year and 3 months now and I never had any issues. On the other hand my 2013 F30 320i ran bootmod3 Stage 1 93oct OTS map as well for about 6 to 8 months but unfortunately that engine seized. My mechanics told me that the engine oil of my F30 literally was like water due to having too much mixture of fuel in it, therefore having no lubrication at all. I believe that I had a leaky injector but what I'm trying to say is this: When both the M4 and F30 were stock, the engine oil never had the smell of fuel. When tuning them, engine oil started smelling like fuel. What causes this ?

Yes, I did reach out to BM3 regarding my F30 when I was having issues but from their side everything was fine(of course I sent time data logs). Now, I'm worried that my M4 is going down the same path as my F30 and I don't want a broken S55 as it is literally my pride and joy.

It has very low miles since I drive it once or 3 times a week but only short distances since I live on a small island. This is the second time I changed my oil since owning the car. It is now the 4th oil change since coming out from the factory. Last time I changed the oil was when it had 15k or 16k kilometres, where at that time i still haven' tuned the car and clearly remember smelling no fuel within the oil. I always change engine oils every 5k to 7k kilometres with every car i own and I take good care of them so its bizarre to me that I'm finding metal shavings in the oil filter and my F30 seizing(it had only 62k miles).

I always give it 98ron(93oct) fuel. This is the first time I'm changing the oil with the car tuned and I'm smelling fuel in it and of course PTSD kicked in. The oil looked fine to me but a bit on the darker side.



My thoughts that are causing such problems:
I believe that 5w30 oil is not good especially in my country. I always buy the oil directly from the BMW dealership so I don't believe I'm giving my cars the wrong oil. What I believe is that for my country 5w30 is to thin of an oil as it gets very hot here but the wired thing is that my F30 died in winter so I'm just guessing at this point.

Is there anyone who noticed any shavings when using a tune or no tune with this low of mileage ? I'm providing images that i took of the oil filter. Would apricate any help !

thanks all.

[5thscaleracer]

well thats not good...

I'm not sure what else you could do at this point?

finish the oil change and keep using the car and later down the line trade it in or rebuild the motor when the time comes?

The damage has begun it's not like you can turn back the time, its just a matter of what additional precautions you can do moving forward to help prolong the life of the motor before it goes kaput.

do oil changes every 3-5K Miles vs 10K
Swap to a better oil with more friction modifiers like Redline Euro, Motul etc.
Run a different weight oil like 5W40, 10W40 or 10W50 (this will depend on oil brand)

Have you done the crank hub? maybe it's metal shavings from the crank hub starting to let loose.

[krudmunk]

Do you get any knock counts in bootmod logs? I would look into this.

It will look like Knock Detected [0/1]:0 or Knock Detected [0/1]:1

Also, are those shavings magnetic? Try putting a magnet next to it.

[G MONEY]

Trade it in!!!!!!

[M3orbust]

Wow that's pretty serious, if your smelling fuel in the oil you are probably running wayyy to rich. The metal in your filter could be from you washing your bore with gas not having any or very little lubrication.

If I were you I would take a magnet to those shavings and send a sample into Blackstone for a analysis. I wouldn't drive the car till you figure out what is going on. If those bits really are metal shavings you probably did some damage already but there's no need to make it worse.

I've never had bm3, from my past experiences with modding other cars off the shelf tunes are kinda safe. I dont know if theres a option in bm3 to adjust fuel trims on top of a ots tune people have gotten into trouble with scenarios like that

[Ejones4541]

Thin oil that smells of gas says that you've not been burning all the fuel mix…similar to running on 5 out of 6 cylinders intermittently, poor tuning, etc.

Time for a leak down to see where those metallic flakes were once living prior to setting up shop in your oil filter.

[Reu]

@5thscaleracer:

What I was thinking was to use 5w40 or 10w40, drive it for lets say 1000 kilometres and check again the oil and oil filter and see if this time any metal shavings are present.

No the crank hub has never been done since in my country there is no one qualified in doing that kind of job so I'm quite stuck here. To prevent that form happening I never do any sort of kick downs to prevent the engine from producing huge amount of torque.

Will take your suggestion into consideration mate thanks !

[Reu]

@krudmunk:

I was going to perform this test later today as i remembered my F30, 2 days prior it seized, I detected some knocking on the live logging on BM3.

I will get a magnet and see if they are magnetic. If they are magnetic what does that mean if i may ask ? thanks mate

[Reu]

M3orbust:

I'm so frustrated as i watched and did plenty of research regarding BM3's reliability. I never heard bad stuff from their OTS tunes especially in the F80X platform so that is why I opted in using their tune. I cant believe what is happening to me honestly. First my F30 and it only had stage 1 and now my M4 which is also stage 1. Again, both seem to not burning the right fuel mixture and I can't figure out why. I never heard of an OTS map from BM3 doing this kind of stuff I'm so confused and angry. Maybe I'm that 1 in a million guy that got unlucky who knows.

What i'm thinking of doing is to tune the M4 with the Stage 1 91oct map, which is 95ron, but still put 93oct(98ron). It wont do any harm as I remember one of the BM3 tech supports told me that going higher oct levels wont do any harm, only when going lower then what the car is tuned to have would create harm.

I never heard of people discussing that the OTS maps have high lambda values that would trick the ECU to inject extra amount of fuel in their cars. For some reason it is happening to me the second time so of course i would be worried that this is all because of the tune.

Will send a sample abroad for analysis thanks mate !

[Reu]

Ejones4541:

Do you believe that it is cause by the OTS map ? As I previously said, I never seen someone having this sort of issue with an OTS map which baffles me why this is happening to me for the second time now.

Will book an appointment with my trusted mechanic for a leak down test. Thanks mate

[Reu]

@G MONEY:

I wish that system exists in my country I would have already done that for sure XD. I'm considered in putting it up for sale as in my country second hand cars are more expensive then brand new cars, LITERALLY ! This is because registering cars in my country is so expensive. To give you an example, if someone wants to register a Lamborghini Aventador, they have to pay like close to EUR200K just to register it on the road as seen in this screenshot !! So basically if someone bought the car for EUR250k second hand, he/she need to pay another EUR200k just to drive it on our shitty roads.

If you want to see how outrageous it is to register a car in my country here's the link: http://www.valuation.vehicleregistra...orVehicle.aspx

[ried]

Stop running the tune.

[krudmunk]

Originally Posted by ReubenXuereb

@krudmunk:

I was going to perform this test later today as i remembered my F30, 2 days prior it seized, I detected some knocking on the live logging on BM3.

I will get a magnet and see if they are magnetic. If they are magnetic what does that mean if i may ask ? thanks mate

Those shavings look like aluminum only. The piston and rings are forged aluminum. Compression and a leakdown test will confirm if rings are bad.

If you see copper like shavings then it's rod bearings. But looks like no copper in there.

The S55 engine block is forged aluminum but the cylinder walls are coated with molten iron. Iron can be magnetized. But those shavings do not look like iron.

So I'd be surprised if those shavings magnetize.

Stage 1 OTS map is really easy on timing. I'm surprised.

Have you tried a new oil filter and a fresh oil change? Do you get same amount of shavings?

I'm pretty sure you'll fail the compression or leakdown test on the cylinder that had the leaky injectors.

[MMMM3]

Return it to stock and re-test....

[M3orbust]

Originally Posted by ReubenXuereb

M3orbust:

I'm so frustrated as i watched and did plenty of research regarding BM3's reliability. I never heard bad stuff from their OTS tunes especially in the F80X platform so that is why I opted in using their tune. I cant believe what is happening to me honestly. First my F30 and it only had stage 1 and now my M4 which is also stage 1. Again, both seem to not burning the right fuel mixture and I can't figure out why. I never heard of an OTS map from BM3 doing this kind of stuff I'm so confused and angry. Maybe I'm that 1 in a million guy that got unlucky who knows.

What i'm thinking of doing is to tune the M4 with the Stage 1 91oct map, which is 95ron, but still put 93oct(98ron). It wont do any harm as I remember one of the BM3 tech supports told me that going higher oct levels wont do any harm, only when going lower then what the car is tuned to have would create harm.

I never heard of people discussing that the OTS maps have high lambda values that would trick the ECU to inject extra amount of fuel in their cars. For some reason it is happening to me the second time so of course i would be worried that this is all because of the tune.

Will send a sample abroad for analysis thanks mate !

If your not going to stop driving it before a oil analysis or a leak down test I would recommend flashing car back to stock put in fresh oil and check it in 1 k miles or less

[Reu]

krudmunk :

Thanks for this information. Currently my mechanic is quite busy and is available in 3 weeks time so I'll have to wait quite a bit before performing any leak down tests.

Later today I'll test if they are magnetic or not and will inform you all about it.

Will also perform another oil change and change the oil filter to see if any more metal shavings could be seen. I'll be using 5w40.

[Reu]

MMMM3 :

Yes i think its a good idea and the way to go. Want to test out and see if without the tune, will the oil have the smell of fuel again since before it did not.

Before I'll do any driving though i will perform a leak down test for sure. thanks mate

[Reu]

M3orbust :

Yes I agree with you here. I've decided not to drive the car before I do the leak down test.

And yes I will send the oil for analysis as well.

[Reu]

Whilst responding to your comments BM3 sent me this:

"Hello

Please go to the Diagnostics screen, do a DTC codes readout and send us a photo if any errors codes show up.

Please do a few datalogs for us done between 3rd and 4th gear WOT. We will review them and get back to you.

https://bootmod3.atlassian.net/wiki/...+with+bootmod3 "


I don't think it's a wise thing to drive the car at this point before any leak down tests are performed. Will tell them that I'd prefer to do a leak down test before any data logs can be recording to hinder any further damage to the engine just in case.

[krudmunk]

Originally Posted by Reu

Whilst responding to your comments BM3 sent me this:

"Hello

Please go to the Diagnostics screen, do a DTC codes readout and send us a photo if any errors codes show up.

Please do a few datalogs for us done between 3rd and 4th gear WOT. We will review them and get back to you.

https://bootmod3.atlassian.net/wiki/...+with+bootmod3 "


I don't think it's a wise thing to drive the car at this point before any leak down tests are performed. Will tell them that I'd prefer to do a leak down test before any data logs can be recording to hinder any further damage to the engine just in case.

I think you should flash back to stock map first. And then do a fresh oil filter and oil change. You will most likely find more metal shavings when you flush your current oil. You can save these shavings and oil for lab analysis or whatnot.

You should be ok to drive with fresh oil change to your mechanic. Pull out all the spark plugs and put a borescope down to see the inside of the cylinders close up. You can see everything including piston and valves and so on.

If any of the piston looks different than the others, then you will need an engine replacement or rebuild the engine. Once you see the condition of the pistons, and everything looks ok then you can do the oil analysis.

[Reu]

krudmunk :

Ok will do exactly that then thanks for all the help.

Will keep you all updated on any news.

[sly1types]

What did the oil in your filter housing look like? My rod bearings were shot at 70k…

I think some oils like liquiMolly have a low HT/Hs rating, so now I'm running redline 5w40

https://youtube.com/shorts/hng4z07OXxY?feature=share