bmwmike

@Oilburner agree completely. Date code is 0617. The outer shoulder of these tyres has completely worn though, wont be long (couple K) before they are down to the straps so i needed to change them anyway. Never use tyre dressing personally. Not going with goodyear again, possibly kuhmo to match my rears.

mines just ticked past 73k and im considering doing it myself, unless anyone knows a good place to get it done in the south west/south wales. Doesnt look too bad a job.

Blackcircles came back with "20% of the tyre value given the average life of a tyre (two years)" which works out at a refund of £53 ish. Bit surprised at the average life of a tyre being 2 years. Might push for 40% as id expect 5 years from them. edit on reflection i think thats a pretty decent offer and am going with it. The outer shoulder is almost bald so i would have replaced them anyway soon enough.

after oilburners success im going to try a warranty claim against good year for these 0617 f1's! Lets see how blackcircles customer support works. I will report back here unless mods prefer a separate thread.

no idea what the black crud is, sorry. Cant tell if its hard or soft or sticky. Never seen anything like it.

is the black crud carbon? hard? soft? more likely to be burnt oil IMO if the plug was looose and allowing blow by gasses. Hard to tell remotely. If soft, perhaps you can just leave it to burn off. BMW dealer do the last plug change per chance? Bosch plugs are longer and should not be used, even though the likes of ECP offer them for this engine, but i think all yours are ngk. New/used coilpack and chuck it on wbac IMO, given the cracked cam cover (£££) and questionmarks over the spark plug thread etc, and you were selling it anyway..

Bizarre damage, that plug has taken quite an impact by the look of it.

Ouch!! Someone must have over tightened them previously. Or not used the flexi socket. might be worth chucking a new coil on and banging it to you nearest wbac if you were thinking of selling it anyway....

N53 is a great engine when sorted. Mines been faultless for 5 years ive had it, once the injectors were changed to latest revision. I wouldnt touch a diesel with yours, tbh, but each to their own. Nasp straight six any day of the week.

Filler. Not filter. Oil gets poured into the filler hole and unless super careful it ends up down a spark plug well. That coilpack is fecked. That plug well is stinking too. It has to be spotlessly clean.

cyl 3 is below the oil filler. if the seal leaking or more likely cack handed grease grunt pouring the oil and missing the hole, oil pools around there wrecks coil and plug. Whip out plug its probably covered in oil. That area needs to be utterly spotless. Am yet to find a garage that can do clean. This engine has a few weak spots but weakest spot IMO is garages incl BMW that just throw parts until the codes go away. GL. edit or the cam cover is split/cracked as that can go nr cyl 3 too.

Dont go to a main dealer. You need to find someone who knows this engine, or spin the spanners yourself. Its 10yr old. It'll likely have index 9 injectors and if so is looking at needing six index 11 injectors, plugs and packs.

tamper dot active?

ive used these guys and would go back again. Have heard mixed things though. https://dragonauto.works/southwales/Vale_of_Glamorgan/cowbridge Have also used Autotech in newport and they were pretty decent too. What you absolutely need to avoid are sytner in Cardiff and Newport. Dick Lovett in Bristol are OK but id not use them for anything unless its a warranty issue (and free). Edit just saw you are in Bristol - Redish near you arent they

looks a million times better!