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      05-27-2021, 03:26 PM   #1
ElenaI
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engine died on hwy - never had any warnings

First-time, real newbie here, I m more curious if anyone ever experienced something similar and who or what is to blame (a bit too late for that but anyway).

So less than 3 weeks ago we got x1 f48 (late 2015) from a second owner. It had more than 200.000km but his maintenance paperwork and service book were perfect, we checked it online and it never had any issues, serial numbers were matching, few cosmetic spots and that was it. The previous owner (second we are no 3) did the regular service maintenance end of march and changed the oil filter/oil. Car went on inspection before it could get registered and passed.
about 10 days ago it got super cold here (7C) and we tried to turn on the heating and it wasn't working (AC / fans were working and there was no error). After looking at the manual we realised that it ran out of antifreeze. My husband got the recommended liquid and the heating started working.
Today we were on the highway (80km per hour) and there was soma strange clinging noise coming from the right front side and a few seconds after a white smoke mist was coming from the front right side. We stoped immediately, opened the hood and there was a very faint almost mist-like smoke coming from the plastic engine cover. I could sense a sort of a plastic / electric burn smell but nothing too overwhelming.
We immidietly called the towing service and went to the first car expert.
IMPORTANT THING! We never got any warning inside the car, no error code no flashing light in any color before and after. This is super weird since the car was reporting the error and faulty inside trunk light ( which was actually working).
When we got to a mechanic the gay said there was no water, the oil filter looks almost buried fired and sticky and you could see some silvery dust particles inside and the engine was fried (because it was working without any liquid and oil).
How is this possible?
This is our third car and first BMW there was nothing strange before that, the car was tested before, passed inspection less than a month and we ere using it very lightly (granma style very slowly).
Any ideas about what happened? should we try to sue the previous owner or the company that got this car tested???

We are traumatised and I sort of feel very naive and stupid.
Thanks to anyone who could help us to understand what happened here
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      05-27-2021, 07:18 PM   #2
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White smoke is antifreeze burning.(actually light blue in colour). If it's oil it would be black.

Sounds like the coolant sensor wasn't working and it either wasn't filled up all the way or leaked out. I'd still expect to see a engine temp warning on the dash though.

Are there still no errors on the dash?
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      05-27-2021, 07:26 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ZZZZ View Post
White smoke is antifreeze burning.(actually light blue in colour). If it's oil it would be black.

Sounds like the coolant sensor wasn't working and it either wasn't filled up all the way or leaked out. I'd still expect to see a engine temp warning on the dash though.

Are there still no errors on the dash?

@ZZZZ

Absolutely nothing... If we had any experience with any car we would probably check everything when the heating was not working and there was no liquid. But as i said there was no warning lights then (and now i know that bmw has many), and there were no warning lights today to indicate that the engine was overheating etc (no error codes or any sort of warning lights)... and at the same time the car had a warning light that the trunk light is faulty... (trunk light was fixed between those two events and coolant was added less than a week ago and today the mechanic said it was completely dry). We never saw any kind of liquid under the car...

Last edited by ElenaI; 05-27-2021 at 07:45 PM..
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      05-27-2021, 11:44 PM   #4
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You sure the coolant was put in the correct fill port?

I have seen what you are describing happen when coolant was accidentally put in the oil port and boiled after 30 mins of driving cracking the case and spewing blue white smoke with total engine failure.

Oil all fell out the crack and out the bottom of the engine as steam spewed out, it was over in 5 seconds from start to finish.

Was this the first drive of any length since you topped up the coolant?

I had to help the family escape the car as there was so much smoke the cabin filled and they couldn't see where they were going.

Happened as they passed me travelling in the opposite direction.

Driver had no indications until the cabin filled up.
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      05-27-2021, 11:49 PM   #5
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I also believe that having no anti freeze won't stop a heater working it has the opposite effect the heater is super efficient as the heat is higher and not being moved away by the radiator.

Lack of antifreeeze coolant in the radiator may have lead to the head cracking and caused head gasket failure allowing the coolant you did add to get into the oil system with similar result to what I detailed above.
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      05-28-2021, 07:51 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CnSky View Post
I also believe that having no anti freeze won't stop a heater working it has the opposite effect the heater is super efficient as the heat is higher and not being moved away by the radiator.
No, they are correct, no coolant = no heat since there is no coolant circulating through the heater core to transfer into heat into the cabin.
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      05-28-2021, 07:56 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ElenaI View Post
So less than 3 weeks ago we got x1 f48 (late 2015) from a second owner. It had more than 200.000km but his maintenance paperwork and service book were perfect, we checked it online and it never had any issues, serial numbers were matching, few cosmetic spots and that was it.
What I'm not seeing is that you had your own independent shop/mechanic evaluate the car before or after purchase, this is something I view as a must do, even if you or a family/friend feels they are enough mechanically inclined.

I'm not saying you did anything wrong, but no antifreeze is something that should have been found by a pre/post purchase check since I long ago learned to respect "trust, but verify"
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      05-28-2021, 08:29 AM   #8
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So the coolant was added to the right place(it is really hard to mix oil, coolant and windshield tank even if it is your first time since each has a original cap with a different color and illustration).
My question is - how is it possible that when there was no coolant the dashboard sign never turned on, than after 3 days that same tank was empty (still no sign or error codes anywhere (sensor not working?) . Than second thing, even if that sensor (coolant level sensor) was not working , how is it possible that while the engine was destroying itself - not even one dashboard warning sign or code showed up? Oli sign, overheating sign or any other warning on a dashboard. Is it possible that someone somehow turned off some of the sensors to cover a big issue before selling a car? Will diagnostic show anything?
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      05-28-2021, 09:27 AM   #9
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Don't think you can code out sensors but would be worth looking at where they connect to the wiring harness to see if it was tampered with.
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      05-28-2021, 11:28 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dianebrat View Post
What I'm not seeing is that you had your own independent shop/mechanic evaluate the car before or after purchase, this is something I view as a must do, even if you or a family/friend feels they are enough mechanically inclined.

I'm not saying you did anything wrong, but no antifreeze is something that should have been found by a pre/post purchase check since I long ago learned to respect "trust, but verify"
you are 100% right, It is our fault that we didn't take the car immediately for a check-up. One of the main reasons was that that car passed technical inspection the day before our purchase (how is it possible that the car got license registration/renewal and passed official inspection if there was a huge problem?). And on top of it, it had an actual service tag from a mechanic/shop where it was written that oil and filters were changed on the 30th of March 2021 and that the next appointment is after xx.xxx kilometers.
The heating (coolant) problem appeared after a week (and as I said if it wasn't for a big drop in temperature we wouldn't even notice it, since we would be using a heater if it was warm outside). In less than a week engine started smoking. All in all, we had a car for 16 days.
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      05-28-2021, 11:56 AM   #11
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This sound like a coolant to oil leak and vice versa probably head gasket went, the oil gets into the coolant and vice versa but it would give you over temp errors definitely.

If the cars checked for fault messages using BimmerLink or the garages equipment I'm sure there would be a list of older errors

I have a memory of an article I read that many BMWs don't check oil level every time you drive only if requested via Idrive. I remember you had to ask for oil level check in a few BMWs I owned can't remember if the same is on our X1.
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      05-28-2021, 12:59 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CnSky View Post
This sound like a coolant to oil leak and vice versa probably head gasket went, the oil gets into the coolant and vice versa but it would give you over temp errors definitely.

If the cars checked for fault messages using BimmerLink or the garages equipment I'm sure there would be a list of older errors

I have a memory of an article I read that many BMWs don't check oil level every time you drive only if requested via Idrive. I remember you had to ask for oil level check in a few BMWs I owned can't remember if the same is on our X1.
Could be many things but that means that there were two leaks (coolant and oil) and no dashboard warnings/ errors or even some heating / engine disfunction error. My guess is that the car has at least two sensors and what is a real world chance that they just buy chance got disconnected or stoped working?
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      05-28-2021, 02:14 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ElenaI View Post
you are 100% right, It is our fault that we didn't take the car immediately for a check-up. One of the main reasons was that that car passed technical inspection the day before our purchase (how is it possible that the car got license registration/renewal and passed official inspection if there was a huge problem?)
I don't know what your inspection requires, but mine requires a handful of safety checks and emissions and OBDII passing with no codes, however that isn't a mechanical inspection, they would not check oil, filters, coolant, or any other maintenance items.

I would also be interested in what codes are listed in the ECU that were not displaying, even if you found something like "codes cleared" in the memory, that would help you understand.
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      05-28-2021, 05:17 PM   #14
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X1 F48 does not have any coolant sensor.
Is hard to believe, but it's true.
I had a problem with the coolant le level this year and I discovered this by myself. Many BMW workshops doesn't know that.
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      05-28-2021, 05:55 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by StefanJ View Post
X1 F48 does not have any coolant sensor.
Is hard to believe, but it's true.
I had a problem with the coolant le level this year and I discovered this by myself. Many BMW workshops doesn't know that.
Than what is this? Nothing similar showed up https://i.redd.it/zhcvshtl31g51.jpg

Or something like this https://asset.youcanic.com/images/inline/2017/9/DSCF2755-300.jpg

We found official service here and hopefully they will at least see what was happening and if some errors were ignored or else. What I am trying to figure it out is if the previous owner knew about this and was able to hide it or this is just a one in a million situation... somehow i have a feeling that the previous owner had many problems and somehow previous owner was able to hide/ mask them
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      05-28-2021, 05:58 PM   #16
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I mean cars that are 15+ years old had a way to tell you that something is wrong. This is advanced car and it has many many warning indicators and safety features... or am i just wrong and stupid.
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      05-28-2021, 06:32 PM   #17
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Neither of these are an X1 dash.



QUOTE=ElenaI;27641316]
Quote:
Originally Posted by StefanJ View Post
X1 F48 does not have any coolant sensor.
Is hard to believe, but it's true.
I had a problem with the coolant le level this year and I discovered this by myself. Many BMW workshops doesn't know that.
Than what is this? Nothing similar showed up https://i.redd.it/zhcvshtl31g51.jpg

Or something like this https://asset.youcanic.com/images/inline/2017/9/



DSCF2755-300.jpg

We found official service here and hopefully they will at least see what was happening and if some errors were ignored or else. What I am trying to figure it out is if the previous owner knew about this and was able to hide it or this is just a one in a million situation... somehow i have a feeling that the previous owner had many problems and somehow previous owner was able to hide/ mask them[/QUOTE]
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      05-28-2021, 08:48 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ElenaI View Post
So the coolant was added to the right place(it is really hard to mix oil, coolant and windshield tank even if it is your first time since each has a original cap with a different color and illustration).
My question is - how is it possible that when there was no coolant the dashboard sign never turned on, than after 3 days that same tank was empty (still no sign or error codes anywhere (sensor not working?) . Than second thing, even if that sensor (coolant level sensor) was not working , how is it possible that while the engine was destroying itself - not even one dashboard warning sign or code showed up? Oli sign, overheating sign or any other warning on a dashboard. Is it possible that someone somehow turned off some of the sensors to cover a big issue before selling a car? Will diagnostic show anything?
How much antifreeze did you put in? There may be an air lock in the radiator that needs to be bleeded, or fluid will not flow down from plastic coolant reservoir.

My 2018 X1 F48 does have a temperature sensor. When I cycle through the dash driver information centre to the coolant, it shows whether it is cold/normal and has a horizontal bar chart as a temp gauge.
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      05-28-2021, 10:39 PM   #19
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Seems it's true... no coolant level sensor. (Which makes no sense to me, even old 2000's BMW's have a level sensor.) https://f48.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1736540

In either case. Something doesn't add up with your vehicle. I agree that SOME type of warning should've appeared. Coolant must've leaked onto the floor or into the oil. But if it was in the oil you would've smelled it from the exhaust.

Call your local BMW dealership and ask them if they're willing to perform an inspection on your vehicle to diagnose what happened.
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      05-29-2021, 01:14 AM   #20
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X1 F48 does not warn in any way if the coolant level in low.
The driver should check from time to time if the coolant level is between the limits.
Indeed, there is a temperature sensor, but this is another thing.
Moreover, if there is no coolant in the coolant expansion tank, the car is still running and the temperature shown in the cluster gauge is ok.

I experienced this on my car X1 F48 18d 2016.
There is a known problem with the EGR cooler (this part is cooled by the coolant fluid), which could leak , resulting a total lost of the coolant fluid.

Considering that in this car there is no coolant level sensor, this could transform into a bad situation like you experienced.
My opinion is that the previous owner has not to blame; it was just a one in a million unluckily situation...
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      05-29-2021, 09:16 PM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ZZZZ View Post
Seems it's true... no coolant level sensor. (Which makes no sense to me, even old 2000's BMW's have a level sensor.) https://f48.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1736540

In either case. Something doesn't add up with your vehicle. I agree that SOME type of warning should've appeared. Coolant must've leaked onto the floor or into the oil. But if it was in the oil you would've smelled it from the exhaust.

Call your local BMW dealership and ask them if they're willing to perform an inspection on your vehicle to diagnose what happened.
Interesting about 2000's BMW's having coolant level sensors. None of my cars over the past 46 years (from Honda to Cadillac) had coolant level sensor, only temperature sensor. Some of my cars had a dash temperature gauge and some only had an idiot light.

If there was none or low coolant, then the engine would overheat anyway. If a lot of coolant leaked into the oil, then the engine will become toast anyway.

As with oil, brake fluid, power steering fluid, transmission fluid levels, the coolant level should be checked regularly under the hood (oil in X1 checked through iDrive). Not all fluids have sensors and warnings for low levels. Unfortunately, people do not check fluids as much anymore or do not know how.
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      05-29-2021, 09:36 PM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wcs2229 View Post
Interesting about 2000's BMW's having coolant level sensors. None of my cars over the past 46 years (from Honda to Cadillac) had coolant level sensor, only temperature sensor. Some of my cars had a dash temperature gauge and some only had an idiot light.

If there was none or low coolant, then the engine would overheat anyway. If a lot of coolant leaked into the oil, then the engine will become toast anyway.

As with oil, brake fluid, power steering fluid, transmission fluid levels, the coolant level should be checked regularly under the hood (oil in X1 checked through iDrive). Not all fluids have sensors and warnings for low levels. Unfortunately, people do not check fluids as much anymore or do not know how.

My E90 had coolant level sensor, windshield washer fluid, oil level. It wouldn't read the exact level.. The warning would light up in yellow if it's a bit low and red if very low and to pull over. Sometimes in the winter it would be yellow on start up and go away once the engine was warm and I'd know it's time to fill up. There's also a physical float sensor in the expansion tank to read coolant level similar to the e46. E36 was tougher as the expansion tank is white and had to look at the level through the plastic.
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