What does this mean? Based on a small 3.0L engine so it's going to be shaky (unreliable). Look at our GS300's on this board. They take VERY well to boost (turboing) and they are based on a small 3.0L engine. Sorry, but either I disagree with your statement or I am missing something.

If you meant that since it's a BMW with a small engine on boost than I would agree but don't make it sound universally across the board that that size engine isn't good for boost. Explain that to jefftsai. lol

 

Well in this case its the turbos that failed that caused the engine to die, turbine blades sheared off from being overreved and sent the blades into the engine where they proceeded to shred the inside.

 

How much power was this guy making with his mods?

All of you guys condemning this engine as if it were unreliable need to realize if you put thousands of IS350s out there with turbos pushing out as much power as this car and all these other ECU-tuned cars were... you'd get some failures too, and believe me they wouldn't be cheap.

Now if you're just saying it wasn't a good idea or want to say that all other things being equal a turbo motor isn't going to be as durable... especially at higher mileage, then I can't disagree with you there.

But when you consider the benefits... tons of power on tap with very little effort, very flat torque curve, and good fuel economy (for the power)... some people are willing to put up with a car that may not be as durable in the long run. The rest of us just lease.

IIRC, The dealer price for a new 1UZ-FE for my GS400 was over 20k. In this case he also has the two turbos, intercooler, and related hardware to replace.

 

Stupidity+streetracing+turboBMW=26k IN THE HOLE!! Very predictable. Everyone on that site sound like idiots.

 

There have been 4-5 Turbos go out so far with this car. However, people are modding the hell out of this car compared to a IS350 so don't even compare that aspect and say, "This car isn't remotely reliable." These people are replacing the whole intake and exhuast piping including the cats. They are retuning the engine boost without controlling fuel maps half of the time. People wonder why I am buying Dinan products for a little more money and this is why. If my turbos go out Dinan will pay for the replacement. The are a proven company by their solid warranty. They won't push the car as hard as several other chips but your engine will still be around after all is said and done.

 

Agreed, most of the gripes I've heard about BMW's in the past (you know the friend's uncle's second cousin stories ) have been related to electrical gremlins. Rarely have I heard about BMWs having widespread engine failures.

 

according to the posts in that original thread, the turbos were spun to 150,000rpm
due to
i think its no surprise that this would happen

 

maybe you didn't hear about the massive recalls on the rod bearings on the e46 m3 engine

it blew up a lot of engines too

 

$26k is pretty expensive...you could literally take a G35, build up its engine to handle ~600hp, install the turbos, intake, exhaust, get a good tune, upgrade the suspension to handle the added power, and still have money to pimp out your car

 

LOL.. My Poland Spring water went through my nose on this one.. So true....

 

I dunno if I really see this as BMW's fault as some of you are so quick to point fingers. BMW seems to have tuned the engine beautifully from the factory. It appears that everything under the hood is in a fragile balance until you start messing with something here or there.

Whenever you mod, you're taking a chance by messing up something that is proven to work, and should it fail you have a warranty saying it SHOULD have worked. Start modding and you take a gamble. Sometimes it blows up in your face (literally).

Playing with fire, people. Not BMW's fault IMO.

 

This is why they don't warranty cars that are modded, case closed. I woudn't pay for it if I was BMWNA either. These guys on this messageboard all lease their cars for 3.5 years and then blow 8k on various parts that they will have to take off after the car has been destroyed from the factory specifications. Be careful with any CPO 335i in the future guys.

 

Very good points but I have heard a couple stories about overheating with the stock, unmodified set-up.

You're smart to use Dinan. I heard from the dealer they really do stand behind their stuff.

 

Ok, lets take a look at BMWs high output models.

1) Past gen M3 - perhaps the most unreliable BMW, ever. Engines were literally "blowing up", and BMW was forced to extend warranty to 100K... Only they would not honor the warranty if they found out you "raced the car". Yeah, like people buy these to take kids to the soccer practice. Not to mention that these engine consume oil, and require the owner to check the level and add oil on regular basis. And it requires synthetic.

2) Past gen M5 - notorious for engine carbon built up, which occurs as early as 20K, and spreads through the entire engine - combustion chambers, head, ports, and chokes the engine down. In fact, if it wasn't for these issues, and if it came with an automatic tranny, I would probably be driving one.

3) Current M5 - not much information about that, but people have been reporting engine compression loss.

4) The current 335 - this thing is a joke. It overheated in pretty much every magazine review. The one that I was test driving on at a BMW event (kind of like taste of Lexus) last year overheated. I know BMW made a half assed attempt to resolve this issue by adding some additional cooler to some of the sport trim models, but most of them still overheat. I wonder if BMW even tested that POS at all before bringing it to the market.

So yeah, I know BMW diehearts are going to attack me, trying to make excuses for BMW, but these problems are facts, and very well documented ones. And a fact is the most stubborn thing in the world. It is my believe that with most of BMW's high power engines, they are not designed as such, but rather they are overclocked, overrevved, overcompressioned versions of regular engines, which weren't designed as such, and thus reliability problem. And before someone says that high performance engines cannot be made reliable, look at NSX and S2K, they have been stellar.

How many people would have the ***** to buy a past gen M3 without extended warranty? Or 335 once its out of warranty?

 

IS350 wasn't designed for turbos, so why even bring it up? Look at Toyotas 15 year old 2JZ-GTE, which matches 335's output and exceed it in durability and reliability. That is because it was properly engineered and designed to handle turbines, unlike BMW's half assed attempt.