A Bit Of Advice/ideas Needed

[AlexLah]

Hi all fellow piston heads.

I see there are some very knowledgeable people here and I would like to ask you what could have happened with "The Bitch"

"Da Bitch" was indicating it needed some cooling fluid (0.5 Ltr) about once a month, since last week it was asking for about 1.5 Ltr a day.

I was suspecting a leaking hose or radiator so was planning to bring it to the service center this Saturday.

Went to buy some food this evening and suddenly was hearing some faint rattling noise, turned a corner and the engine shut. Tried to restart the engine and it took a while before it was running again. It only kept running when forced on high rev, as soon as I released gas pedal it died.

On my way back home I kept it on high rev but had to stop before entering security gate of my condo. Security pushed my car aside and I tried restarting again which worked after a few attempts but I noticed smoke was coming out of my exhaust and it smelled bad.

Rattling became a bit louder so I parked it in the first available spot.

What could it be, a broken piston or ring or worse?

"Da Bitch" is a BMW 330 E46 and just a few weeks ago had a service 1.

Any thought on what it could be would be highly appreciated.

[Tywais]

Suspect it overheated and very likely have a warped head now. Nearly identical symptoms to my Nissan Bluebird - the noise, the starting issues, the smoke later. Had a leaking hose but didn't see any symptoms until the pinging from the engine which got louder then died. Had to have the top head re-ground, fortunately the bottom one (the block) was still ok. Cost a few thousand baht including gasket, hoses, regrind (milled), etc. to repair it.

//edit - the shop that did the repair showed me several other engines being repaired including warped heads due to overheating. Seems common in Thailand.

[Dave the Dude]

Agree with all said. E46 has got alloy head.

At least its not an M3 block!

Edited June 1, 2010 by Dave the Dude

[WarpSpeed]

Yeah sounds like it was leaking water through the head gasket or hopefully not a cracked head since it was using water but you didn't see any obvious external signs. It also sounds like it is developing hydraulic lock in the end which is why it stalled and had problems starting etc. may have water in one or more cylinders.