Not my car but a friends. The engine overheated yesterday.

There was no coolant so we put some in but the car still overheated. The needle went to 'H' in literally twenty seconds! The ATF fluid cover also showed leak of sorts. Finally there was oil sludge on the cover of the oil cap. Exhaust is not emitting any weird smoke. Electronically it's a lot of the warning lights are giving false signals by saying the foglights and left-front light are out when they are working perfectly fine. It's had a history of problems with the power steering, suspension and various electronics.

He's had this e46 for 6 hard years and its been driven 150k miles while servicing has been done at bmw.

Think the engine is about to die?

 

Headgasket sounds like it's been blown forever. Drain the oil and check for coolant in your oil.

If not, thermostat...but um, this car sounds like hell.

 

It's a BMW so it is most likely an expensive repair and the car should be burned.

 

I just took my d16 out. When I drained the oil out first, I had like 8 quarts of coolant come out with it. Looked like chocolate milk. Back of the oil cap looked the same, too. Sounds like your friend is fck'd. BMW... Oh boy.
Cha-ching!$$

 

New engine, eh? He wants to sell it, 10-12k in this state? Or less?

 

Retail value of car - repair costs - $1000 = value

 

Donate it to charity or call up one of those "We tow away junk cars for free!" services.

 

diy fix, just sounds like a flush of the coolant, change of oil, and new headgasket

 

Ever put in a new headgasket?

 

no :hsugh:

remove head, remove valve assembly, scrape off gasket, replace?