Will M104 engine survive 5 seconds of overheating?
 

I think that I have a blown hose somewhere, causing coolant to rapidly leak out. Today, I hit the red area of the temp guage for about 5 seconds before I parked the car. After I stopped, I noted a slight amount of smoke from around the engine block, but it stopped in a matter of 3-5 minutes. Do you think that I have done permanent damage to the engine? Thanks in advance.

PS I am taking the car in to get the hose or whatever it was replaced tomorrow.

Mike
'90 300CE
145 K

I would not be surprised if you warped the cylinder head. Easy to do on any aluminum headed engine. It is not really the time that you run it in the red as much as the "cooling down" without coolant that warps it. If one of these engines is continued to run while in the red it does a job on the cylinder walls which is not a good thing.

From your description I don't think you have hurt anything. The head gasket problems these motors have is not affected by overheating per se.

Thanks, Jim and Steve.
 

Looks like I need a new radiator. Seems the radiator is leaking at the bottom on the driver's side. It is a Behr that is a replacement for the original. It is about 7 years old, and has about 72K miles on it. Seems like a replacement radiator ought to last longer than that. Anybody have any thoughts?

Well my 97 BMW 540 had the radiator come apart at 43,000 mi.

I thought that was a little unusual, but its the luck of the draw. We see them go around 100k all the time.

Your 97 BMW 540?? :eek:

Something to do with not taking your work home with you? :)

Started off as a learning exercise. I did a transmission article for "Import Car" and I aquired diagnostic software about the same time. I bought the car on ebay in Texas and got such a good car that I have kept it 2 years in October. My original plans were to trade cars every 4-6 months. My next car was going to be a E430. Unfortunately I work on many of the MBs and can't imagine liking one as much as this BMW.

But it has left me on the road! Twice!!

BTW, most of my previous cars have been Porsches. My wife has always driven the MB, currently an ML she bought new.