AtWhatMileage
Engine · 3 owner reports

Other engine problem on the 2013 BMW M3

Only 3 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.

Reports of this failure 3
With an odometer reading 3
Reports per 1,000 built 0.3 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 67%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $300–$4,000
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 2nd

When other engine problem gets reported

There are 3 reports of other engine problem on the 2013 BMW M3, 3 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 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 3 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 28,000 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 2013 has 3. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

When I accelerate quickly at an intersection when I get a green light, the engine looses all power but keeps running. Bmw has no idea as no codes are being saved when this happens. The general manager said it probably computer part but we may never know.

20,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1321578 filed 2016-09-29

Rod bearings. There is clicking noise that I am hearing more and more often. Since summer of last year, I had heard subtle clicking noises occasionally which I wasn't able to locate at the time and had scheduled an appointment with the service department at park ave bmw service on october 2016 to get my car checked for few reasons. One of the reasons included this clicking noise which I had mentioned to the service agent and that he would get this checked out along with the other service maintenance. At the end of the service, he stated that everything is fine and there isn't any issues. Recently, I have started to hear the same clicking noise but louder which allowed me to locate the sound coming somewhere near the front of the vehicle near the engine bay. I have a bmw service appointment this saturday to get it checked again to see if there is any issues. After doing some research and getting possible suggestions of this issue, my biggest concern is that it could be the rod bearings of this vehicle. Currently, the vehicle is sitting in my garage until the service appointment and unable to use the vehicle until it gets checked…

28,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1351571 filed 2017-01-26

While driving on surface street at approx 35mph I was forced to swerve due to being cut off by an adjacent wreckless vehicle. My 2013 bmw e93, with just over 43,000 miles, and which I had purchased less than 30 days prior, immediately shut down entirely without warning. I was literally left in the middle of a busy street with zero functionality. From electrical to every aspect of mechanical, there was no warning, no function of any kind. My vehicles completely unexpected failure was so severe that it required multiple tow trucks in order to lift the rear, as it had locked up entirely and the motor seized. Upon arriving at center bmw (sherman oaks, ca), they confirmed the obvious complete failure of the entire vehicle. Their master mechanic, shaun, verified the oil was full and clean, and noted they too received no error codes or idicators of any kind upon in depth inspection. This bmw dealership & service center is as bewildered as I am. Because I had literally just purchased the vehicle, with a full warranty, I notified my warranty company red auto whom sent a 3rd party inspector. Without actually inspecting the motor, the…

46,590 miles NHTSA complaint 1386608 filed 2017-06-22

Also reported on the 2013 BMW M3

Airbag inflator rupture

6 reports median 7

Misfire or rough idle

1 reports median 3k

Other powertrain problem

1 reports median 47k

Other electrical problem

1 reports median 20k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 3 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 3 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 2013 BMW M3?

Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 30,000 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 2013 BMW M3?

3 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 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