Other engine problem on the 2002 BMW M3
Only 4 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When other engine problem gets reported
There are 9 reports of other engine problem on the 2002 BMW M3, 4 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 67,023 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Putting it right typically runs $300–$4,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 9 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2016, at a median of 20,000 miles, and latest on the 2004 at 85,000 miles.
By volume the 2008 carries the most reports, with 11; the 2002 has 9. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Bmw has had a rash of engine failures on their new e46 m3's. These failures usually (im my case and many others) has resulted in the engine actually blowing up. This is probably one of the most dangerous failures that could happen. Oil dumps all over the road, things lock up and you could easily lose control. Fortunately for me, I was able to get off the road and no one else was involved. Bmw has been replacing these motors under warranty, but will not disclose the reason for the failures or what has been fixed to insure it does not happen again. I have sent request to bmw asking for and official response to my particular failure and what has been done to fix it on the replacement motor. I have not received any response from bmw as of today. I have received e-mails from other concerned m3 owners stating that replacement motors have been know to fail also. I cannot afford to have another engine blow. I might not be so lucky the next time. What worries me most is that bmw seems to be ignoring the problem. Eventually someone is going to get hurt or killed. *ts *nlm **dimsii ivoq entry posted after 12/12/02 cut-over to artemis*768014
I own a 2002 bmw m3. There are six camshaft bolts behind a plate cover. Bmw speced bolts that were too soft until 2004 when they changed bolt spec to a hardened steel with loctite. Prior to this the bolts had no loctite. The issue is starting to surface all over the web. The failure is that the bolts do not stay screwed in. They back out and stop against the plate cover. Eventually they shear off and if this happens it causes catastrophic failure to your engine. In my case I was going 15mph so the damage was only $10,000. The car hammered to a stop. Bmw is refusing to acknowledge the issue suggesting out of warranty. My concern is that I have 60k on the car when the issue occurred first. A p0011 camshaft timing fault comes up. A bmw service center cleared the fault and replaced some coils and sparkplugs ($663) and sent me on my way. Three days later the bolts sheared. The dealership said they "had never seen this before". They also said bmw had issued no bulletins to address the bolts. Every independent bmw facility I interviewed in portland was well aware of the issue and already doing engine rebuilds for their customers. I think…
I have a bmw m3 which has an smg transmission. I was driving and all of a sudden my car loses power to change the gears and my car started to jerk while on the road nearly crashing into another car. It turns out that the smg pumps for bmw m3 have always a high failure design flaw. The cost to fix that is also unbearable which nears the $5,000 mark. There has been forums going around that this is indeed a design flaw for bmw. I almost nearly got into a car accident, but thankfully I was ok. Please look into this matter as I feel as well as everyone else in the bmw comunittee that it should be a recall. Thank you for your time. *tr
Also reported on the 2002 BMW M3
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
Other powertrain problem
Steering column or shaft failure
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Airbag inflator rupture
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 9 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 9 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does other engine problem happen on the 2002 BMW M3?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 65,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other engine problem on the 2002 BMW M3?
9 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.5 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed