Apparently the most common cause is overheatng. Is the price good?
Thanks for the tip. Yes, price seems good for year/model: £11.6k but might get a teeny bit off. What do you think?
Anton
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Apparently the most common cause is overheatng. Is the price good?
Thanks for the tip. Yes, price seems good for year/model: £11.6k but might get a teeny bit off. What do you think?
Anton
Others here are far more knowledgeable than me when it comes to engines so listen to them. Many of my friends and acquaintances have BMWs, many of them undoubtedly drive like nutcases. One has a huge scar on his chest from open heart surgery after he drove his BMW into a tree. £11.6k is not a huge wodge, I wonder what maintenance costs are like? My concern would be that the engine had been thrashed. I wonder if there is a way to check the state of the engine short of taking it apart? Perhaps there are other signs of hard driving such as excess brake wear, or unusual tyre wear. And of course you want to ensure the gear changes feel smooth when you take it out for a drive, as a thrashed gearbox will wear more quickly. Perhaps others here can comment further?
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Others here are far more knowledgeable than me when it comes to engines so listen to them. Many of my friends and acquaintances have BMWs, many of them undoubtedly drive like nutcases. One has a huge scar on his chest from open heart surgery after he drove his BMW into a tree. £11.6k is not a huge wodge, I wonder what maintenance costs are like? My concern would be that the engine had been thrashed. I wonder if there is a way to check the state of the engine short of taking it apart? Perhaps there are other signs of hard driving such as excess brake wear, or unusual tyre wear. And of course you want to ensure the gear changes feel smooth when you take it out for a drive, as a thrashed gearbox will wear more quickly. Perhaps others here can comment further?
Thanks for your further advice. The car was test driven and felt very smooth: brakes were a bit worn but effective, no sign of excess wear & tear. Perhaps the engine had indeed been thrashed - a new head at only 20k miles would otherwise be hard to explain. Yes, some BM drivers are nutters! I was overtaken by one an hour ago, very fast on a suburban road, blind bends, way over the limit... Changed my mind about the car - will look for a better example.
rgds Anton
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. I wonder if there is a way to check the state of the engine short of taking it apart? Perhaps there are other signs of hard driving such as excess brake wear, or unusual tyre wear. And of course you want to ensure the gear changes feel smooth when you take it out for a drive, as a thrashed gearbox will wear more quickly. Perhaps others here can comment further?
A wet compression test will tell you if the engine is worn out or not. Ask for a mechanic to do this and give you the written results. Should be from memory over 140psi or thereabouts.
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From what i have read, the main problem affecting the Ford 1.0 ecoboost is relating to overheating, and the fact that the coolant capacity is not big enough. Presumably in the never ending quest to make engines more efficient. I wonder if this is the same issue?. This is the same engine as used in various Mini's, so might be worth looking at owners reviews and forums for them to see if this is a common thing?.
But, ultimately, despite what you feel you may know, BMW's (apart from 6 cyl petrol) are not particularly reliable.
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From what i have read, the main problem affecting the Ford 1.0 ecoboost is relating to overheating, and the fact that the coolant capacity is not big enough. Presumably in the never ending quest to make engines more efficient. I wonder if this is the same issue?. This is the same engine as used in various Mini's, so might be worth looking at owners reviews and forums for them to see if this is a common thing?.
But, ultimately, despite what you feel you may know, BMW's (apart from 6 cyl petrol) are not particularly reliable.
Thanks - good tip about Minis, never occurred to me they might use the same engine, though now you mention it it's obvious. I wonder to what extent driving style might contribute to overheating: prolonged constant high speed on the motorway, over revving...? Re reliability I take your point, though I always considered BMWs might be a bit over-rated, and they're not magical supercars. A family member bought an oldish s/h BMW116 and had constant problems, terrible.
rgds Anton
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From what i have read, the main problem affecting the Ford 1.0 ecoboost is relating to overheating, and the fact that the coolant capacity is not big enough. Presumably in the never ending quest to make engines more efficient. I wonder if this is the same issue?. This is the same engine as used in various Mini's, so might be worth looking at owners reviews and forums for them to see if this is a common thing?.
But, ultimately, despite what you feel you may know, BMW's (apart from 6 cyl petrol) are not particularly reliable.
Thanks - good tip about Minis, never occurred to me they might use the same engine, though now you mention it it's obvious. I wonder to what extent driving style might contribute to overheating: prolonged constant high speed on the motorway, over revving...? Re reliability I take your point, though I always considered BMWs might be a bit over-rated, and they're not magical supercars. A family member bought an oldish s/h BMW116 and had constant problems, terrible.
rgds Anton
If the overheating problem is due to insufficient cooliant capacity then driving style will almost certainly be a big factor, but probably not due to motorway driving. At motroway speeds, most cars (again, in the never ending pursuit of efficiency), having very 'long' gearing, will be turning a pretty low rpm. Much more likely to be caused by thrashing it around country roads, traffic light grand prix, etc.
I'm also curious about why you are looking at a 1 series given you think BMW's are over rated, and having a family member who had nothing but trouble with one?. It would certainly put me off!.
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If the overheating problem is due to insufficient cooliant capacity then driving style will almost certainly be a big factor, but probably not due to motorway driving. At motroway speeds, most cars (again, in the never ending pursuit of efficiency), having very 'long' gearing, will be turning a pretty low rpm. Much more likely to be caused by thrashing it around country roads, traffic light grand prix, etc.
I'm also curious about why you are looking at a 1 series given you think BMW's are over rated, and having a family member who had nothing but trouble with one?. It would certainly put me off!.
Long story - but your advice (and the other guy's) has indeed put me off. I'll keep looking for something with a FSH and no oddities such as replacement cylinder heads. Re the family member's car I mentioned, it was 10 years old and I would have advised him not to buy any sort of fairly high performance car of that age, let alone a BMW with extortionately expensive spares & servicing.. Bought also from a small dealer who seems to have taken it on from another dealer, without sufficient care & attention.
rgds, and thanks - Anton
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I can't believe that thrashing a modern engine could damage it unless it had a fault. Driving with very low or no coolant could warp the head and of course the harder it's driven in that situation, the faster things will go pear shaped. Could be a failed water pump with the same result. Maybe it had been chipped? In that case all bets are off.
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I can't believe that thrashing a modern engine could damage it unless it had a fault.
That is exactly the suggestion i was putting forward, that the BMW 1.5 3 cyl has a design flaw resulting in the engine overheating through hard use. Do you really find it so unlikely for this to be the case?, given that this seems to be the problem (or at least one of them) with Fords 1.0 ecoboost. What i have read is that many of the failures of this engine is down to insufficient cooling capacity. If you accept this then you must surely also accept that using the engine hard (certainly for prolonged periods) will inevitably result in it overheating. Combine this with the twin factors of, A, most people these days do not 'own' their car (therefore have no vested interest to look after it mechanically), and B, most drivers these days have (or seem to have) absolutely no mechanical sympathy whatsoever.
Having said that, further searches in the relevant reviews on this website for both the BMW 1 series and the Mini's which use this engine reveal no noted instances of the cyl head needing to be replaced. So maybe in this case there was some other factor involved, but it would still put me right off this car even if i wasn't already 'not really a fan' of the marque.
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My impression is that 3-cylinder engines tend to suffer disproportionately from HG failures.
IF this is true, it could be inherent to the generic design, or just because they tend to be smaller so get pushed/boosted more.
Seems to be true of Charades. A lot of them are turbo'd but my NA one had a HG failure in its previous ownership.
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Small capacity 3 x cylinders from many makes had / have issues.
Small capacity 3 cylinder turbos giving greater go & more MPG - the greater go was there, the economy & reliability were not in most cases.
The early 1500cc BMW motors (118i s) were no exception - complete new engines, not just cylinder heads were the order of the day. Not on the scale of Ford engines but common enough to avoid IMHO.
Buy a 4 cylinder petrol engine & sleep peacefully.
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Small capacity 3 x cylinders from many makes had / have issues.
Small capacity 3 cylinder turbos giving greater go & more MPG - the greater go was there, the economy & reliability were not in most cases.
The early 1500cc BMW motors (118i s) were no exception - complete new engines, not just cylinder heads were the order of the day. Not on the scale of Ford engines but common enough to avoid IMHO.
Buy a 4 cylinder petrol engine & sleep peacefully.
Really? Do you have links to stats for the BMW engi es? My 2018 Polo with a 1 liter 3 pot engine gives remarkable fuel economy, about 64 mpg at the moment. Of course if you drive it enthusiastically, you’ll see the economy plummet, but that’s to be expected. I think the real problem with these engines is that heavy footed people expect better mpg, but don’t get it, then they complain that the engine is at fault.
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My impression is that 3-cylinder engines tend to suffer disproportionately from HG failures.
IF this is true, it could be inherent to the generic design, or just because they tend to be smaller so get pushed/boosted more.
Seems to be true of Charades. A lot of them are turbo'd but my NA one had a HG failure in its previous ownership.
I’d disagree here. There’s no correlation between having fewer cylinders and more common head gasket failure in my experience. 3cyl motors are more efficient and are cheaper to build as there are fewer moving parts. The reason they weren’t popular until recently is that they’re inherently unbalanced and typically less refined but much effort has went into redressing this. Some highly stressed modem turbocharged triples are suffering failures but historically three or five cylinder engines are no weaker than fours or sixes. I personally like the offbeat sound too.
Edited by SLO76 on 01/05/2019 at 15:33
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