Recently took my mini into a relatively large local BMW shop to have timing chain replaced. ( I had cracked one of the guides when replacing the crank seal with was leaking so had it towed to the shop). After replacing the chain the called to tell me the vanos system was bad and that I needed new sprockets because it was throwing timing codes. This seemed weird to me as I never have had any vans issues on this car. But I overnighted some new sprockets to them, along with a single vanos solenoid as to me it seemed far more likely that one of the vanos solenoids went bad. Told them to use what was needed and I would return the rest. The used everything. Then they called to tell me it was ready for pick up but I'd need to get and install the other solenoid as it was still having issues, but they assured it timing was fine and it would be fine if I replaced the other solenoid.

I drove 30 miles home, the car sounded like garbage, especially at idle. I ordered a new vanos solenoid and installed it. After installing new solenoid and deleting vanos adjustments car still ran like crap. So I investigated further. Turns out intake guide rod bolt was out of the block by 0.5"-0.75", it was out so far it had worn on the crank dampener, and was shredding the belt.

After calling the shop, they want to tow car back to have one of their "more senior mechanics" inspect the engine so they can "figure out how to make it right". I need some advice. In my mind this engine is now completely shot, with the amount of metal in my oil I just don't see any way this engine has not been significantly harmed. Assuming I let them inspect the engine what should I be looking for in their inspection?

They charged me $1050 in labor (which has yet to be refunded) to do this to my mini, so I don't particularly trust them anymore.


30mile oil

Guide bolt not installed right. Main crank seal also installed wrong.

Black dot in circle is a piece of magnetic metal from oil



This is the short version of the story, the whole story is somehow even worse :(

 

How was that possible to crack one of the guides changing the oil seal......The place you took your vehicle to probably had
no real knowledge of the mini workings.....Now they said one of the senior mechanics will be looking into the wrong doings
of the initial repair......who was actually working on it first a trainee.......oil pan definitely need to come off and be cleaned
oil pump strainer, Vanos solenoid .......

 

that was my fault. Was the first time I did that job and Bentley manual said to drift in top till bottom kicked out. The bottom of mine was pretty well stuck in place and I had to drift it in a lot further than I was comfortable with in order to get it to kick out.

I know the shop has experience with minis, lot is always full of them and I have been going to them for years. Though as of late they went from a rather hole in the wall place into a much bigger/nicer building, presumably with more mechanics.

 

That's not alot of metal by any means man !!!!
I've seen r56s with far worse than that on every oil change. It's pretty typical to find that actually.
it's when you start seeing chunks like THIS you need to start to worry..
funny though , even after this amount of metal was found , the guys car is still running good and being used daily...
I wouldn't be too concerned about the metal though man. Just make sure they fix their **** up and absolutely dont pay them another dollar for ANY work they do. This is their mess up , they need to clean up.
btw , my pics dont do justice to the amount of metal in that filter, there was literally solid metal in the grooves of the filter. Lol idk how but the engine even still sounds healthy.

 

It is a ton when you consider this oil only went 30 miles. However, thanks for the reassurance, still waiting on a fix.

There was some chunks in oil, unfortunately I didn’t pull the filter so don’t have pictures of what that captured.