Longterm Heat Damage

[romanLegion9574]

The iDrive is persistent at telling you the hood is open. It practically reaches out and slaps you if you try.

-RJM

The car even set the security alarm off when I opened the hood to cool down after a track run with cooldown lap by reaching through the driver side door (had the windows down) with the doors locked.

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[digicidal]

Come on guys, let's be real here. The engine was designed from the ground up to work in a total amateur's daily driver. Its been tested in all manner of conditions. There is no need to lift the hood after a drive on the street. I wonder what percentage of people who have this engine in one application or another have ever even heard of opening the hood for cooling after a drive???

Well, I think that's the crux of the situation... although I do agree with your conclusion and I've never bothered with the hood myself either. The engine was indeed designed to be a "total amateur's daily driver" - in fact, an SUV daily driver in many cases (I'd guess the X3 M40i is where is is most commonly found at least).

The question is more of how much harder many Supra drivers push their cars and potentially abuse them - as far as BMW engineers are concerned at least. It's not an S58... so (at least to BMW) it's possibly not expected to be pushed as hard/far or tracked as much as many MKV owners believe.

Totally conjecture on my part as I'm not a BMW engineer, nor do I really know (or even believe) the marketing promoted by Tada-san about Toyota "going through the entire engine and fixing many aspects for reliability"

On a completely unrelated side-note... you didn't happen to be driving home around 3:30AM a couple days ago and see a Nitro Yellow MKV enter the I-215 via the Windmill on-ramp? I encountered my 3rd MKV "in the wild" around then and it was Turbulence Gray. If so, cheers and nice ride (well even if it wasn't actually)!

 

[Rocksandblues]

As a long time BMW owner- longer than some of you whipper snappers been alive- current owner still of an M3 and 335d, BMWs are designed and built to ACTUALLY drive them hard. These are not cars and coffee queens

You can drive them all day hard and well above local speed limits and you do NOT have to raise your hood. If it makes you feel better do it. But you are not "saving" the engine.

 

[digicidal]

As a long time BMW owner- longer than some of you whipper snappers been alive- current owner still of an M3 and 335d, BMWs are designed and built to ACTUALLY drive them hard. These are not cars and coffee queens

You can drive them all day hard and well above local speed limits and you do NOT have to raise your hood. If it makes you feel better do it. But you are not "saving" the engine.

That's one of the issues I think however... and what I mean really by "pushing harder..." - many (most?) MKV owners aren't driving what the BMW engineers (or Toyota for that matter) actually designed. Some had a DP and tune at least, within days of taking receipt... and while that does not necessarily reduce reliability... it certainly can. Regardless of which is the case, it's definitely no longer within the testing parameters used during design.

I would expect that in completely stock form the limits are well within all normal tolerances and whether on road or track will have great durability (whether from heat or general wear). On builds that are very balanced (i.e. improved cooling as well as turbo/exhaust mods) and tuned appropriately, I would expect it not to change much. Just throwing a catless DP on it and tuning to ~500HP on the other hand, seems a recipe for a shorter lifespan in many cases, but maybe I'm just paranoid?

 

[Rocksandblues]

^^^ Paranoid. respectfully.
Last toy BMW i had was almost 200hp over stock and i never opened hood unless i changed oil or was adding power.

 

[digicidal]

^^^ Paranoid. respectfully.
Last toy BMW i had was almost 200hp over stock and i never opened hood unless i changed oil or was adding power.

Oh I don't open my hood either. How many miles did you have on that toy? I don't expect 200K+ miles between rebuilds (although I've gotten that and more from some other cars), but I drive 15K per year about and with some people seeming to blow turbos with nothing but a DP and tune at 30K on the MKV (and many M cars on the BMW forums) it doesn't inspire too much confidence.

 

[Rocksandblues]

175,000 when i sold it.

 

[digicidal]

175,000 when i sold it.

Fantastic! That's what I like to hear!

 

[MCSeverino]

On a completely unrelated side-note... you didn't happen to be driving home around 3:30AM a couple days ago and see a Nitro Yellow MKV enter the I-215 via the Windmill on-ramp? I encountered my 3rd MKV "in the wild" around then and it was Turbulence Gray. If so, cheers and nice ride (well even if it wasn't actually)!

At that time of night, definitely not me, but I do drive the 215 more or less every day. I have a custom VGK plate with "HUKNG" on it (hooking, the teams first ever penalty, very Vegas appropriate).

So far, I haven't seen another turbulence grey, but have seen a nitro yellow a couple of times, so maybe that was you. It's kind of nice having a car that's really rare to see. When I am out and valet it, it gets left right up front every time.

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