MYSTERY FAILURE? 3-Cylinder BMW / Mini Cooper B38 1.5L Engine Teardown

Here's weekly dose of your catastrophic engine forensics! Every week you can find a new teardown of some abused, misused and/or poorly designed engine. I've got over 160 videos of failed engine teardowns on this channel.
Today we tear into a 3 cylinder! The BMW/Mini Cooper B38. This engine is designed on the same architecture as the B48 and the renowned B58. Essentially, this engine is half of a B58. This was a core engine purchased with a large lot of engines a month or two ago, so I don't have details like mileage or the car it was out of. From the date codes, I can tell its from a 2019, and most likely a Mini Cooper. There are different versions of this engine and they range from 100hp to 228hp in the I8,. pretty impressive for such a small package.
Why am I doing this? My name is Eric and I own and run a full service auto salvage business called Importapart. Part of our model includes buying and dismantling blown up/core engines to resell the usable parts. We do not rebuild or repair engines, instead we sell parts to those who do!

I really hope you enjoyed this teardown. As always I love all of the comments, feedback and even the criticism. Catch you on the next one!

-Eric

[superblahblah]

from all of us who took apart our toys as a kid, we are here and we thank you

[alexcarbone]

The safety box actually worked. That was amazing.

[xwkcxpk]

BMW tech here, gear for the oil pump on those engines are left-hand threads
assuming you tear down another in the future, love your videos and increasingly more popular methods of throwing water pumps

[shellya]

Blue... best prybar in a supporting role!

[bmcc]

Many years ago, in the mid fifties, my neighbor was the town mechanic for the town of Sleepy Hollow, yes, the town where the headless horseman rode, and he allowed me to watch him rebuild the fire chief’s cars engine. I was about seven or eight years old at the time. I remember him tightening the head bolts, and he told me that they tighten till they squeal! Seventy years later, I use a torque wrench now, but I still remember the old ways. Great video! He used quantities of Permatex, and I can still remember the smell, and the way it transferred to the entire body of the eight year old!

[someguywithaphone]

3 CHEERS FOR SAFETY BOX!!! Eric lives to wrench another day. I saw it with my own two peepers, that puppy was supersonic! okay, it was doing the speed limit in a school zone. lol

[GoneAsGoneCanBe]

I am loving the little skits with the water pumps.

[Arthurzeiro]

The water pump bits are getting more and more elaborate, given enough time we'll se one shot into space.

[puffnstuff]

These engine teardowns are my bedtime story and are very relaxing to watch.

[richardkilb]

Howdy, im an engine man for 50+ years. I worked in engine R&D for quite a few years and powerboat racing too.
Ive blown up many an engine, my personal best was cutting an alloy 3 cyl engine in half with the flailing con rod.
Love your videos, love the method, love the failure analysis, love the video work and perfect time lapse, but especially your descriptive sense of humor.
I will forever know them as piston nuggets.
I am a huge fan and will watch you again and again and again.
Go blue

[brianspicer]

The drain plug is a "repair" plug that places like Jiffy Lube install when they over-torque the regular plug and strip out the oil pan. It's meant to be installed and then not touched again until the pan is replaced.

[CheekyChan]

You'd be correct in assuming they got rid of that engine because of the crank pulley. I don't know WHY but BMW has had issues with every single Mini engine failing at the crank pulley, the Tritec engines would lose the rubber insert on the harmonic and destroy the timing cover if not caught soon enough and it sounds like a rod knock, the Prince engine did the same exact thing and sounds exactly like a rod knock and all of the new 3 and 4 cylinder B engines have recalls on the crank pulley, you'll get a horrible grinding and tapping noise and none of your accessories will work, you'll get alternator light and no working AC. The new pulley is also something like $900 list and $600 my price for the OEM, febi also has it which is the OEM for Mini, their kit comes with new bolts as well and is only $365 my price. Nice thing is that it only calls for about 2ish hours of labor and should be a warranty/recall job, take wheel off, remove wheel cover, remove belt, remove crank pulley, inspect seal for leakage or damage, replace if leaking or damage, slap it back together.

[illiniarmory]

My four year old said “daddy, I like watching him take engines apart, maybe he can take our engine apart.”

[paulstandaert]

I've seen older GM 3800's get replaced because the harmonic balancer was causing a helluva clatter.
Some Chrysler 2.7L engines got replaced because the O-ring around the primary chain tensioner took a vacation to the bottom of the oil pan.
Stuff like that does happen.

[Echo]

I second your harmonic balancer theory.

I once worked on an Altima with lean codes. Last shop couldn’t figure it out so they replaced the engine. Turns out it was a rolled throttle body gasket.

[johnbob]

I’ve been a mechanic for 37 years and now retired,
keep up the videos you’re awesome

[herbieschwartz]

Looks like maybe a new car getting the "you don't need to break in a new modern engine" break in method. Glaze the cylinder walls, rings don't seat, uses oil that gums up the rings, etc.

[timholderle]

As an owner of a 3 cylinder Mini Countryman, I thank you. It was interesting and informative to see the inner workings of that engine. I didn't realize the timing set was in the rear. Means any fault there would mean an engine pull. Ugh. But, the design looks stout and ours receives Mini motor oil and filters every 5000 miles. So I have expectations of a long service life. Cause we love the Countryman. Love the tear downs and look forward to the next water pump toss. And if you ever get a shot at an Isuzu diesel, I think that would be interesting.

[OldManBadly]

Wow, got here early. My guess looking at it would be that the cylinder wear has allowed some (not a lot, but some) oil past the rings, which lead to the appearance of blue smoke. Probably just at start up at first, but over time it built up around the rings and such and allowed more and more oil past. At a point, it went from a blue smoke on start up the a blue smoke at RPM and on the road down to blue smoke at idle, which is when it got pulled out. I am thinking it just ends up being a question of clearances exceeding what the rings could handle, and then it was a cascading failure over time.

Love the two boit engine stand and the safety box. All good stuff.

[pb]

Loved this video. I work as a BMW tech over here in Australia and I personally don't like these engines as they are terribly unbalanced and lack any general grunt even with all the stuff BMW has done to it. A complaint we get from customers a bit on these engines is that they shake a lot on start up, which is a very normal thing for these to do. They also go through the left engine mount within 100, 000km or 60, 000 miles due to these being in FWD cars most of the time and the natural unbalance these things have.