Originally posted by Kai
I was looking more for a why, the mechanical reason. I haven't heard of them having issues.
the connecting rod bearing for the #3 and/or #5 cylinder gets starved for oil under certain conditions. BMW has tracked down the root cause after tearing apart several failed engines and has issued a fix. car produced in late 02 (12/02) and on do not have the same problem.
BMW also replaces the oil pump during the service action and has extended the powertrain warranty to 100K miles