BMW X5 40e White smoke at startup after 3 or 4 days notinuse.

[RodG]

SeanC

I apologise for not responding sooner.  I missed your post and won't bore you with excuses.

I've not followed up on the smoking issue -  the transfer box replacement knocked a hole in my budget so I'm holding fire on what might be an expensive turbo fix.

I did talk to a non dealership BMW bloke and he mentioned turbo,valve seals, etc,but without taking the car in he couldn't be sure.

Again, I'm sorry for leaving you hanging.

 

R

[RodG]

Hi  CarloL.

If you can see my response to SeanC you'll see that I've not progressed with the white smoke.

The guy that I briefly talked to ( and will probably bring the car back to),is BM Modification Works in Western Ind. Est D12.

Hope this helps.

R

[Seanc]

Thanks Rodg. I'll let you know what the problem with mine is. Booked into a main dealer again next week, hope there's a bit of goodwill with bmw after changing an oil line to the turbo which didn't fix the problem... 

[RodG]

Good luck with that, SeanC.

I'm a bit surprised that this is a not uncommon problem. ( Well, maybe its just you, me and CarloL in the whole world).

I regret trading in my 2011 3ltr diesel X5 😞 Thought I was saving money on the road tax, but a new transfer box and a rear axel rebuild put that one to bed..

Il ook forward to hearing how you get on.

Regards,

Rod

 

[PeterJ]

Hi all

joining this bandwagon as I’m having the same issue. Thought it was the oil return feed that needed the upgraded pipe with check valve but seems someone else here had it done and no joy.

 

spoke to an indie who’s notorious among the bmw heads as one of the best around. He said it could be valve stem seals but the 40e isn’t known for the issue. That said, there aren’t enough hitting high mileage to know for sure. He mentioned the breather system could be having issues and leaking oil. I had a boroscope put into the heads to check and there’s definitely oil in the cylinders (also some scoring so not sure if this is related). There was also some oil around the spark plugs which again points to valve stem seals. Also worth checking the seals on the turbo but I had planned on getting this reconditioned as preventative maintenance.

 

if anyone gets it resolved I’d appreciate if you shared what the solution is. No doubt there’s going to be more to follow in the coming years. There’s also an indie in abbyfeale, Limerick, Bavarian Autoteknik. The guy used to build engines for BMW in Germany for years. Supposed to know his stuff if anyone is around that direction he might be of help.

i priced an engine swap and he’s quoting 8K supply and fit but hoping it won’t come to that. 

 

[RodG]

Hello Peter.

Thanks for the info.

I certainly don't fancy an engine change !  I'll take all this information to the mechanic when I eventually decide to have the problem addressed.

On an other topic but just out of  curiosity, what kind of range are you getting from the battery ?  I'd say I'm getting 20 mles out of mine.

Rod

[CarloL]

3 hours ago, RodG said:

Hello Peter.

Thanks for the info.

I certainly don't fancy an engine change !  I'll take all this information to the mechanic when I eventually decide to have the problem addressed.

On an other topic but just out of  curiosity, what kind of range are you getting from the battery ?  I'd say I'm getting 20 mles out of mine.

Rod

Set to auto edrive , I reckon 16km to 18km for me

 Costs me 4.80 euro a day to keep it on full battery 

I have started putting it in esave mode , to see if it is more cost efficient using petrol, it is costing me over 6 euro to go back and forth 30km to the child minder on auto edrive

Maybe max edrive may be the cheaper option

As far as I can see the only benefit of the 40e is the cheaper motortax , battery is a gimmick in them 

45e or new 50e seem to make sense on paper , 50e is a claimed 100 plus km on a charge

[Seanc]

Amazing this seems to be a uniquely Irish issue. 

Thanks for that info Peter. I assume the value stem seals and breather system are relatively cheap fixes? 

Any info on where you were thinking of getting the turbo done? 

If it gets as far as an engine replacement we'll need to band together for discounts haha 

 

PS getting about 30km on full electric (with aircon off). I've recently had a battery cell replaced though. 

[RodG]

Hi SeanC

RE your battery cell replacement. Could you tell me how you found out that you needed it and if it was expensive and if it took a long time ?

Rod

[Seanc]

I noticed the range had dropped down to only about 14km over a few weeks. Then I got some drivetrain warning and car went into limp mode. 

 

It was free to replace. I'm not sure if this was warranty or goodwill though, Main dealer discussed it with head office. Car was just over 5 years old and 100k km. 

It took 2 months! Long story but annual leave, sickness, excuses... 

The X5 is a great car but I hate main dealers and the effort required to get anything outside of an oil change done. 

[Seanc]

Update on this. Main dealer Wang to replace the turbo. No good will from head office. Price would be close to 5k. Time to get some quotes from indys! 

[RodG]

Ouch!

Why does everything from BMW start at 5k ?

[RodG]

Just to say.

The bloke in BMWmods mentioned a reconditioned turbo (if, in fact the turbo was the problem) for around 2k euro Inc. labour 

[Greydog]

Morning Rod

Everything BMW starts at 5k because someone has to pay for the free coffee 🤣🤣

Remember guys BMW do not make Turbo's they buy them in. They like to try to convince their customers that theirs are "special" by charging a special price. I brought my E70 3.0d cheap (really cheap) as it had a Turbo issue and the quote from BMW scared the daylights out of the owner who sold it "spares or repairs, lucky me.

I brought an exchange turbo from Turbo Solutions who remanufacture them, cost with all hoses and gaskets £400 . All stripped and fitted in my home garage. 

My advice stay well away from BMW go to a Turbo Specialist

Dave

 

[CarloL]

Off topic, but did anyone buy any of the connected drive packages? I.e connected drive booster package, useful? Was thinking of buying a map update(not sure if part of booster package)or getting an independent to install android auto

[Greydog]

These days my personal choice Android Auto purely for the Flexibility it gives

Dave

[RodG]

I'd love to get Android Auto on my X5 but it's too old !  Another reason to sell it...

[Greydog]

Hi Rod

I replaced the headunit with an Android unit £300 from Ebay. A 1 hr Plug and Play exercise better Sat nav, Bluetooth and several othe apps plus Android Auto all built in Easier to upgrade plus it retains all the BMW functions in the OEM unit all controlled from the i-Drive controller 

Have not discovered any downside yet (2 years in)

Dave

[RodG]

Yep the BMW satnav is.... eh, not great.

Google maps is the way to go. Oh.  I just made a joke.

[Greydog]

As a Beemer driver a sense of humour is compulsory 🤣😂

[Seanc]

To hopefully bring this thread to a conclusion, I got the oil changed (twice) which did not fix the smoke. This week I got the turbo rebuilt. According to the indy, the seal in turbo is a common problem with lots of bmws. Need to let the car stand for a few days to see if there will be a build up but so far so good. Will report back. 

[RodG]

I'll wait for your report.  And if the guy does a good job, maybe you could pass on his name

 

R/

[Seanc]

On 1/19/2024 at 2:09 PM, Seanc said:

To hopefully bring this thread to a conclusion, I got the oil changed (twice) which did not fix the smoke. This week I got the turbo rebuilt. According to the indy, the seal in turbo is a common problem with lots of bmws. Need to let the car stand for a few days to see if there will be a build up but so far so good. Will report back. 

That should have said oil line to the turbo was replaced twice. 

Car was stood for 4 day and no smoke on start up so for me the problem was replaced. 

Some numbers for the others with the same problem, all Dublin prices. 

Bmw main dealer:

Oil line replacement is about 1200e ( 100 for the line, rest Labour) 

Turbo replacement is about 4.5k (3.5 turbo, rest Labour) 

 

Indy:

Replacement turbo (same turbo as main dealer!) is about 1.5k

Turbo rebuild is about 400e

Labour 1.5k, which is more expensive than main dealer rate but best I could do. And kinda understandable as the car was taking up a lift while the turbo was being rebuilt. 

 

I use bm modification works for the labour. Good service, will use again. 

 

 

 

[RodG]

Firstly, I'm happy for you that it worked. 

Thanks for posting the price comparisons.  

I'd dropped into BmwMods before Christmas and the very helpful guy I talked to said said it would be 2K to investigate and fix the problem.

Did you take charge of the turbo rebuild or did the garage send it out ?

 

Best of luck

 

Rod

[Seanc]

Nice to be able to drive again without the fear of all the oil spilling out! 

Garage sorted it but went with who I want been quoted 400e for the rebuild. 

If you're getting it done, may as well get the oil line done too for the extra 100e.

If you could do it yourself it would be a very cheap fix lol