need help. 2011 Bmw M3 advice

sam911 · 02-06-2017, 06:44 PM

i know this not proper place but nobody on BMW board. Hoping you guys know something. This is the story. I find a 2011 3M for sale and guy is up front and tells me it has a salvage/ rebuilt title from flood which he has bought from insurance auction. it has appr 33k. I go test drive and car drives great . plenty of power no lights on in car by computer. wants 15 k below book at around 24k. everything works . so i do some digging and find out through carfax that car was driven into high water by driver at 31500. car is then towed to an actual BMW service center by tow not running and tech removed air box and drained removed intake manifold and drained. . then removed all 8 spark plugs . performs compression test and found cyl 4 low on compression and states bent rod!! then states vehicle needs complete engine. Cost $1200 by BMW service center. so now car goes to insurance auction sells to this dealer who is now selling. as i understand fluids changed by auction house? car now has 33k and drives great. My question is would the car either run bad with engine lights on or just completely die?? am i wasting time to just forget or should i take to another BMW facility for compression test ?? if the car had a bent rod would the car still run great??? confused and need help with good advice from a person real knowable with these car.( preferable a BMW tech adviser?

KNS · 02-06-2017, 06:49 PM

I'd pass on any late model BMW in a flood. Salt water or fresh water?

If you're really interested in it definitely get a pre purchase inspection by a BMW shop, I wouldn't make a move until a BMW guy takes a thorough look at it.

sam911 · 02-06-2017, 06:51 PM

fresh water . owner drove into high fresh water where car stalled out. then towed directly to dealership. is 2011 M3 v8

manbridge 74 · 02-06-2017, 08:31 PM

A quick check would be to scan the ECU for misfire faults that might be present. Even if the CEL is not currently lit there could still be some pending.

Driven97 · 02-07-2017, 03:50 AM

IMHO not worth it. You can get a very very nice no stories E46 or nice E39 M5 for 24k.

Either of those will hold value while you save up for an E90 that hasn't gone for a swim if you can't spring for a good example right now.

If you do buy the Micheal Phelps edition E90, you'll have to find a buyer as much as a sucker as you when you decide to move on - assuming the car still works.

gearby · 05:27 AM

That was really deep water if water was sucked into the airbox. How the electronics werent shorted out is beyond me. Flood damage is long term trouble.
Here's your problem. A piston that has been hydrauliced (spelling?) Certainly can bend a rod and most likely will. If the rod isn't bent very much it will just produce a low compression state which will be very difficult to detect on a V8 motor because you have 7 other cylinders firing correctly. It doesn't mean that the cylinder that got hydrauliced is a dead cylinder. There's no real way to tell without a compression test. If the cylinder is in a low compression state though it has to be repaired. You could have a future major repair if you don't fix that.
I rebuilt a Dodge motor that had hydrauliced a piston. The rod was bent so bad that the piston skirt was hitting the crankshaft counterweights. That's how much the length of the rod had been shortened.
I do own 2 BMWs and I've worked on others. I do own the master Vanos tool kit if you want to tackle this on your own. It will be an adventure. ;-)

1979-930 · 1979-930's Garage

^^^ This. The engine is junk. The rod bearing, or piston, will fail driven that way.
The M3 is not going to be very impressive setting in your driveway with a blown engine.

JJK78-951 · 02-07-2017, 05:57 AM

Cars these days know if they are not working properly so while I would be interested to know if someone fixed it or possibly swapped the motor... either that or they dumped a bunch of gear oil in the engine to quiet it down

Either way sounds like a bad situation, yeah you might get a decent car for a good price, but flood damage can take a long time to show up in the form of corrosion etc. which can have catastrophic effects on electronics/ECUs etc. of which I can't imagine how many are in a 2011 M3 that high up. Plus as others mentioned unless you plan to keep it forever and maybe turn it into a track car one day, resale of that car is going to be real tough~

I think the best advice here is to just walk away.

sam911 · 02-07-2017, 06:58 AM

happened over a year ago. now car runs great. everything works inside now. this was invoice!! wonder if dealership helped guy buy new car?? one owner car purchased from them and always serviced by them. somebody told me if bad compression and bent rod lights should be going on and stored in computer??? car now has 33k and runs great /shifts amazing. hell i think 120 mph in seconds!!looks like only way to know is have compression test done again!!!would a BMW dealership lie to insurance company

SkunkWorks · 02-07-2017, 07:19 AM

Sounds like you're deadset on it. If you like gambling then well, it's your money.

gearby · 07:31 AM

Cars are very intelligent but there are things that they cannot detect. A check engine light will not come on for low compression unless the cylinder is misfiring.
I would take that repair estimate at face value, however, if they're doing it for only $1,200 that means they're not pulling the motor. In fact, I don't know how they could do it for that cheaply no matter how they do it. Even pulling the head off it's going to cost more than $1,200. In your original post I assumed you meant 12,000 but left off of a zero.

sam911 · 02-07-2017, 07:37 AM

i know it would cost way more than 1200$. that's just what the BMW dealership charged to look at the car with compression test!!!

gearby · 07:42 AM

Something is amiss here. In the quote they say it needs a complete engine. An entirely new engine or a complete engine what? Just the head gasket set and the new stretch bolts are going to cost you most of that $1200 I would think.
I'll bet that $1,200 was just for the work they already performed. I'll bet that invoice isn't an estimate, it's a receipt.

JJK78-951 · 02-07-2017, 07:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SkunkWorks

Sounds like you're deadset on it. If you like gambling then well, it's your money.

Starting to sound like that to me, you're just looking for someone to say "Go for it!"
Not smart.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sam911

i know it would cost way more than 1200$. that's just what the BMW dealership charged to look at the car with compression test!!!

+1 That is 8 + hours of work to diagnose the problem, has nothing to do with the cost of fixing it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gearby

Something is amiss here. In the quote they say it needs a complete engine. An entirely new engine or a complete engine what? Just the head gasket set and the new stretch bolts are going to cost you most of that $1200 I would think.

See above - $1200 was the diagnosis cost.

So if things go well you get a car for a nominal discount due to the fact that someone ran it into a lake and caused the motor to hydro-lock.

If things go bad a used motor on Ebay goes for about $7K-$10K plus installation.
Then if there are any leftover problems from the flood that case cause you to have bad ECUs and wiring harnesses, all of which are not cheap.

Clearly you want to buy this car though so i'll make it easy for you

YOLO *****ES! GO FOR IT!

sam911 · 08:01 AM

gearby after the bone head drove the car into high water which i don't know how high insurance obviously took over. car was towed to dealership.the Dealership tech told the customer engine needs to be replaced. . insurance company declined and totaled out which sent it to AIA insurance auction house and that is when it went as damaged/rebuilt title from water damage. insurance company sold car to a dealer running which is selling car with salvaged title

Mehoff · Mehoff's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by sam911

gearby after the bone head drove the car into high water which i don't know how high insurance obviously took over. car was towed to dealership.the Dealership tech told the customer engine needs to be replaced. . insurance company declined and totaled out which sent it to AIA insurance auction house and that is when it went as damaged/rebuilt title from water damage. insurance company sold car to a dealer running which is selling car with salvaged title

There's just no arguing with this statement. Car was salvaged because it needs a new engine; did it get a new engine? If not, run away.

gearby · 02-07-2017, 09:23 AM

"performs compression test and found cyl 4 low on compression and states bent rod!! then states vehicle needs complete engine. Cost $1200 by BMW service center. "
Okay I get it. This statement in your original post made me think that the estimate to repair the car was $1200.
Yeah you better check if the repair was done and how it was done. You want to make sure the outfit selling the car didn't just pull the one piston out and hone it by hand with the block still in the car.
$24k is a lot of money for a car with this many question marks.

SkunkWorks · 02-07-2017, 10:23 AM

Just buy it.

You already made up your mind before this thread was posted. What's the worst that can happen??

Driven97 · 02-08-2017, 04:52 AM

Do the smart thing, buy one that isn't a salvage car.

zedsn · 02-08-2017, 02:54 PM

If the car had a bent rod then the motor likely has been replaced or maybe a mis diagnosis on their part. There could be electrical gremlins that may present themselves at a later date. I would not buy this car even at a deep discounted price.