Oil Pump failure causes....

[roland2003]

Hi guys we have just had the first car in that has failed oil pump.It is a '02 plate MCS with 56,000 miles and various mods. The consequences of an oil pump failure are instant total destruction of the bottom end of the engine. (new engine required normally).
Things which will certainly effect the pump life are:-
-Age/mileage of the engine
-Oil quality & cleanliness
-operational rpm of engine (increased rpm probably increasing likelihood of failure)
-quality control of the casting from which the lobed drive is made from. ie porosity or poor control over the pearlitic steel particle size etc.
We have seen a couple of people question whether a lightweight crank pulley may effect the life of the pulley. The car we have in had had a stock pulley for 55,000miles and an alloy crank pulley on for one week .
We wanted to be 100% sure that our pulley (or Altas or whoevers ) had no influence on wear rate of the oil pump. In the above case its very unlikely as even if the wear rate was a thousand times faster than normal ,it would still last a few thousand miles not one week.
To be totally sure Ive just taken mine off our GTT300T car today and stripped it for detailed inspection......see photos. This has had our Crank pulley on for over 30,000miles and is 100% perfect as you can see.(Im very glad to say). I wouldnt go as far as to say our Alloy crank pulley preserves oil pump life but it certainly doesnt reduce it either.
Our car never gets rev'ed above 7000rpm, as we dont recommended raised rev limits generally.
It has had decent fully syn oil all its life which may help.
Oil Pumps, I would now recommend if you want total peace of mind that pumps are changed every 50000 miles particularly if rev limit increaed or even reved regularly to the stock limit. Also use fully syn oil only. The level of modification (power) of the cars I think would have only very little (if any ) on pump life. It is mileage, high rpm, oil cleanliness & quality that effect the pump life mostly IMO.
To put everthing into perspective this is the first oil pump failure I personally know of in the UK. So dont lose sleep guys.
Best Regrds Roland GTT

[DaFlake]

That is good information Roland, thanks!

[Snowie]

Thanks for the good news - I will sleep easy and keep changing my Mobil 1 on a regular basis.

I feel sorry for the owner of the one with the bad news.

[Ant FR]

I hate to say i have lost a bit of sleep over it.....

But glad you posted this up for me.

I would like to say many thanks to Roland with his help on this, its been greatly appreciated. A bad situation has been made a lot easier, oh and i will end up with the car back on the road all being well in less than 7 days from the failure. i think thats a testament to customer service.

Not to mention my mate sorting me with a brand new engine and getting it delivered the next day. its a bill i could do with out, but hey least i'll have a brand new engine.

[Jaw_F430]

How much is a brand new oil pump and how easy are they to change?

Only on 32,000 miles at the mo just for future reference

Regards


James

P.S Roland have you received my PM about the OCC?

[alski]

how did it go...i lost a toyota engine once on the motorway... company pool cars, no one checks the oil.. myself included that day
lots of sudden noise followed by the sensation of being in a milk float doing 70 mph

[roland2003]

Genune pump from BMW is about £95+vat. I will work out labour for a new pump 'done on its own' .
Incidently anyone having a GTT210-GTT260 plus GTT Crank Pulley & GTT Tensioner Upgrades all at the same time can have a new pump for very little additional labour.

[Ant FR]

Quote: Originally Posted by alski (original)

how did it go...i lost a toyota engine once on the motorway... company pool cars, no one checks the oil.. myself included that day
lots of sudden noise followed by the sensation of being in a milk float doing 70 mph

Sitting on dual carriageway at 60mph, in 6th gear than the sudden strange feeling as if going up a hill in too high a gear and revs dropping rather quickly. coast to stop with clutch in, engine stalls. then won't even turn on ignition. Oil light came on after engine slowed, then followed by Engine light and emissions. That was that. Started after if had cooled ( was waiting for recovery truck for 2.5hrs in -2 temps and at 1 am). but it made a lot of noise and then stopped. will have pics once i pic it all up again.

[Rigsey]

Ouch sounds expensive ...

Are you still having your stage 2 head fitted or has your budget been blown away?

Do you often rev to 7000+rpm, as I remember you have had your ECU tweaked?

Glad to hear your getting it all fixed.

[Ant FR]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rigsey (original)

Ouch sounds expensive ...

Are you still having your stage 2 head fitted or has your budget been blown away?

Do you often rev to 7000+rpm, as I remember you have had your ECU tweaked?

Glad to hear your getting it all fixed.

that was all done, luckily nothing got past the pistons and head was untouched. which is lucky you would have probably have seen the post RIP Ant as i would have jumped off the dartford bridge if that had happened.

[GTT 280]

Good posting, and glad Roland checked his own pump to ensure it was not a GTT enduced fault. I think it is clear to say this is just a luck of the draw having a low quality BMW part.

I've had my GTT270bhp kit fitted for over a year now, and done 5 track days, revved it very often to 6,500rpm and NEVER had any problems with ANY GTT part

The only problem i have ever had was with the Heater Matrix (but that was again a lack of quality control on BMWs part - there is a thread on that somewhere!!)

Needless to say, i am now at 40,000 miles on the clock so will go for a pump change simply for piece of mind and to ensure low risk of near future failure. This will also give Roland a chance to check the status of my pump based on the 270bhp mods etc.

AntFR - you are so lucky your new GTT260 parts remain intact - i think i'd jump of my local bridge in sympathy too - either that or sit in the corner of a pub drinking and weeping !!! ha ha

Like you say, new engine at superb price, GTT260 parts unaffected, all resolved in 7 days. Couldn't be better really other than having to run the car in for 1,000 miles. ... will you do that before fitting the GTT kit back on?

To extend this topic, i'd like to really look at the best tool for monitoring fluid temps, pressures and those things that can aid in engine and part failure. So far i have found an excellent product from the US that reads everything from your ECU and can also accept 4 bespoke sensors too Question is, how best to use this, and which sensors to fit and where to fit them.

Cheers,
K.

[cristo]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jaw_F430 (original)

How much is a brand new oil pump and how easy are they to change?

Only on 32,000 miles at the mo just for future reference

Regards


James

P.S Roland have you received my PM about the OCC?

Well, over here, the inner rotor and outer rotor of the pump are $16.75 each,
the oil pump cover is $37, and the end cover (which I'm guessing you probably don't
need to replace) is $186.

[roland2003]

Thats intersting to know Cristo. I asked the BM dealer here if you could buy the internals seperatly and he said no . I will interogate him futher. Its only the rotors that need changing to prevent failure normally. -This would be a better (cheaper) method .

[Ant FR]

Quote: Originally Posted by roland2003 (original)

Thats intersting to know Cristo. I asked the BM dealer here if you could buy the internals seperatly and he said no . I will interogate him futher. Its only the rotors that need changing to prevent failure normally. -This would be a better (cheaper) method .

Here you go Roland, Your local BM Dealer needs to do some homework.

RealOEM.COM * BMW R53 Cooper S LUBRICATION SYSTEM/OIL PUMP WITH DRIVE

[roland2003]

Cheers Ant, I must admit I was suprised when he said no.
OK Ive just stripped another pump off a bog standard engine (no mods whatsoever) , around 30,000 miles.
The drive to the inner rotor comes from a pair of flats machined on the crank nose. If you check out the pic of the rotor Ants just posted you can see that for optimum lifespan it should be driven equally off 6 equispaced 5mm wide splines. But not BMW .. theyve decided to drive it off 2 flats (like a pair of spanner flats) for cheapness of crank machining. These measure 33mm AF (across the flats). Alarmingly the AF dimension in the corners of the rotor measures 33.5mm. This gives total radial slop of around 2.5 degrees!!!. (only about 1.5 degrees on my car , still not ideal though) In itself this is not a problem ,it will never slip round (until it breaks). BUT having 2 flat drive system actually only gives 2 small point contacts for the drive. With this much slop the effect of the '2 point contact only ' high load is increased in massive proportion ,pushing outwards rather than radially....I can certainly see why they break.
Imagine when you use a 13mm open end spanner on a tight 13mm nut....the jaws of the spanner dont flex or break and the nut undoes. Now picture the same 13mm nut but using a 14mm spanner ,notice how the jaws of the spanner flex (possibly breaking ) as you now only have 2 point contact...exactly the same as the oil pump drive design.
Now if you used a 6 point socket even if the spanner is too big there is little risk of the spanner flexing or breaking.
What can we do? The crank nose flats were noticably worn even on the 30000m stock engine ,enough to see & feel a step. Its not hardened (tough yes, hardened no) so with this amount of difference in AF dimension between the crank and rotor it will always wear the crank..
A replacement inner (or inner & outer rotor ) of better material with an AF dimension of 33.05-33.10mm and no (unused) splines creating weak points around the inner circumference would help. But whos going to test one for 50000 miles before launching it AND warranty the whole engine should it fail . Thats alot to ask for a part that would probably retail for £50 max or so.
For now the answer is relacing the pump or rotors at say 50000m , particularly if you rev it high regularly. Best Regards Roland GTT