Hello,

My brother has a E46 M3 2002 with about 15 K. Last week I noticed the car has been leaking oil from the head, so i took it to the dealer and they told me that the Head is leaking oil. I was wondering if anyone here has also experienced the same problem, and if I should worry about anything such as proformance and reliability since the head is going to be opened up.


The dealer is fixing everything under the warrantee. Thanx a lot.

Being under warranty you shouldn't worry about it. They will have to get it right even if they fuck it up the first time.
the mechanics are reasonably competent. :D

Why would the head gasket go south after only 15k? That's kinda freaky.

I have a '99 E36 M3 (different engine than E46, despite same displacement) that was leaking oil on the exhaust side of the head gasket at about 40k miles. It wasn't yet a real problem, but I complained about it to the dealer and had a new gasket put in under warranty. I speculate that the previous owner overheated the car and ever so slightly warped the head. Since the dealer work, there has been zero leakage (one day at the track and 2500 miles), so apparently they planed out any irregularities. I usually think heat trouble when head gaskets leak like that (compression was good across the cylinders on mine). If you were losing compression, it might be related to damage from excess pressure or combustion chamber heat (usually more of a forced induction problem, but the e46 is certainly pushing the limits on compression ratio). My $.02.

Originally posted by bashar368
Hello,

My brother has a E46 M3 2002 with about 15 K. Last week I noticed the car has been leaking oil from the head, so i took it to the dealer and they told me that the Head is leaking oil. I was wondering if anyone here has also experienced the same problem, and if I should worry about anything such as proformance and reliability since the head is going to be opened up.


The dealer is fixing everything under the warrantee. Thanx a lot.

A friend of mine is having the same problem before his E46 M3 engine "blew". It was a loose head gasket BOLT, not a blown head gasket.

Had to have that bolt replaced twice.

So your friend blew his engine.

My brother is just worried, he wanted some direction on this topic. Thanx a lot people

Originally posted by bashar368
So your friend blew his engine.

Semantics, but on the E46 M3 drivers don't blow their engines. The engines blow on the drivers. Sure, there are a handful of cases where the driver DID cause it, but there are almost 120 documented engine failures due to nothing the driver did. BMW has a problem with this engine and are keeping very silent about it.

Originally posted by bashar368
So your friend blew his engine.

My brother is just worried, he wanted some direction on this topic. Thanx a lot people

Have your brother read up on all the blown E46 M3 engines...And check to see what his production date is.

If it falls anywhere between October of 2001 to December of 2001, he is SCREWED. Out of all the failed E46 M3 engines, something REDICULOUS like 60% came from those three months of production.

My friend's car was produced in December of 2001.

I think it was produced around that time, he bought it in december 20 2001 :mad:

Check out http://members.roadfly.com/jason/m3engines.htm to see if the E46 M3 falls in the similar date category as the other "failures". Even if not, pressure the dealer to do the fix...under warranty of course.

Wes
'95 M3