M54b30 rough running, white smoke, Heavy Oil consumption, and Fuel consumption

Updated: 09 Dec 2024

My BMW E60 530i AUTO with the M54b30 has been experiencing some problems recently, Revs fluctuate and car bogs and hesitates between 1500rpm-3000rpm, (runs fine when cold, only starts to do this 10 mins into warming up) for the past 3 weeks, a white cloud of smoke has been bellowing out the exhaust when you let off the accelerator from driving hard , and it also smokes on inclines and declines. (also had blue and black smoke when revved hard at stand still, but stopped doing that now) oil smells like its mixing with petrol, and a liquid of some sort is coming out the tailpipe. The car is almost on 172,000 miles, but I thought these last longer! I hope that it isn’t the end of the line for this car, as she has aged very well for being 14 years old, and the 3.0 straight 6 is one of the best sounding cars I’ve owned, and these are suppose to be bulletproof!!

Any suggestions on whats going on will be very appreciated…

Comments

Could be the head gasket 😬 better to get it checked out though mate

No coolant is being lost though?

Maybe some leakage problem or something is wrong with the air intake.
Take to a BMW service centre , that might help.

If no coolant is lost I would say there might be piston rings worn off. Eventually check if injector sockets are not leaking pressure.

A compression test?

Start with a coolant system test, by pressurizing your system. Pressure is lost, check for outside leakage. No outside leakage then do a compression test maybe followed by a leak down test.

Sorry to hear of your problems. Agree that there could be some leakage / compression issue. White smoke sounds like a head gasket on its way out. Best to get those fixed, then you could try some Archoil AR6400-P Max to clean the fuel system and injectors. Pour in the fuel tank, fill up and take it for a longish run. After a tank or two of this, hopefully you’ll see a difference. I used it on all my cars, including my E30 and my current M140i.