I recently had my car on for 100k mile maitanance and oil change. My mechanic informed me that the engine mounts had collapsed.

Thing is, he replaced these about 16k miles ago. I know these mounts are problematic but I at least expected to get to me 40, maybe 50k miles on these.

I have had great work done by my indie but this has had me take pause that maybe he didn't do the work correctly the first time.

I know these engines have 3 mounts and it looks like he only replaced two of the 3. I asked him about the transmission mount and he said he didn't get a good look at it.

I'm going to take it to a different Euro shop near my house to have them investigate the transmission mount and do some brake work as I like having another shop.

I want to exonerate my indie and give him the benefit of the doubt because he is well respected in the larger bmw community.

Are these mounts failing after 16k miles typically? Is there something else I should have this other shop look at? I want to believe I got shoddy OEM mounts.

 

Well, how do you drive your car or did you run into a situation that could have 'shocked' the driveline recently? I am not pushing blame in your direction, but how a vehicle is driven can certainly determine how long certain parts will last and our engine mounts are certainly vulnerable to abuse, if it doesn't seem high. Not saying that any mount, OEM or aftermarket, isn't immune to an 'infant failure'. The upper mount seems very vulnerable to failure and even using the poly inserts doesn't seem to guarantee a much extended life. I am not too sure just how you could install an upper one incorrectly, as they only install one way. I haven't paid much attention the others, but guessing they others are somewhat keyed to being installed only one orientation.

 

I drive my car very hard and fast because why not?
But for perspective, my front brakes are due and I got ~40k miles out of them so I guess I'm not going that hard. Other suspension components are fine as well.

But yeah, 16k miles on mounts is sus.

 

If you got 40K out of your brakes, you at least brake softer than me. I am lucky to get 25K from a front set of pads. The one time I did an HPDE with my F54 it knocked that number down to ~15K. For reference, at 105K I am on my 4th front set, 3rd rear set of pads and 3rd set of rotors. I did notice my passenger side engine mount was leaking at ~70K and my new mount has been sitting on my shelf since ~90K...along with a new set of front control arms, front bushings, Bilstein struts, sway bar end links, etc...sheesh, I really need to carve out a weekend to throw all that stuff on!!

In any case 16K on a mount is not right, I completely agree.