BMW E90 330d engine cutting out at speed.

[Niffty951]

I bought a 60k mile old 1 owner 330d from a garage and the following day it died at speed.

Symptoms:

Full tank of fuel. Engine cuts out regardless of speed/rpm/load (v.dangerous!), no warnings on the dash, all electrics operating properly, no rough running/misfire/smoke or sound warning prior to failure.

Hit the starter button and the starter motor just runs and runs with no hint of starting.

Remove the key and put it back in, the car fires up faultlessly and runs smoothly before dying again in exactly the same way.

The first time it happened it ran for another 140 miles before dying. Second time 5 miles. After that it will only run for a few seconds.

The garage have full BMW main dealer level diagnostics and have since replaced the fuel filter, ECU from BMW and injectors. The fault code is still reading injector fault but the fault keeps moving. They are now replacing all 6 injectors (at their cost) but I highly doubt this is the problem!

I've found the following threads which seem to suggest the same issue but with many parts changed and no solution:

http://www.bimmerforums.co.uk/forum/f125/2006-e90-...

http://www.bmwland.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&...

Any help much appreciated!

[GaryThomlinson]

It does sound like fuel starvation to me? Could be a tank/pickup fault, sludge in tank, fuel pump itself etc...

[Locknut]

Niffty951 said:

Remove the key and put it back in, the car fires up faultlessly and runs smoothly...

That seems to point to a poor electrical connection in the socket for the ignition key.

[Niffty951]

I'm sure the key would bring up a warning of some variety 'key removed' or at least I'd lose the electrics like the radio.

I'm convinced it's a fuel starvation issue or crank sensor so the engine doesn't know what cylinder to fire. Just not sure on the cause. Was hoping one knowledgeable might have solved this previously, as the issue seems to crop up on forums a lot.

[Niffty951]

Actually cutting out on the inside lane of a blind bend after sharp turn so I had no speed to roll on was probably the worst situation.

It's been a long time since I've been in a situation with a completely immobile car. It has been an absolute nightmare and not one I expect from a 60k old bmw!

Apart from the odd freak occurance, a car dying at speed and becoming completely immobile should be on the list of severe failures to be engineered out at the design phase. How can they justify leaving so many single component failures that could possibly cause this?!

[Mits]

Hi, I had a similar issue only my 330d at around that mileage.
I had the camshaft and crank sensor replaced and its been fine since.
These sensors don't show as a fault, by my indie had seen it on a few cars.
I think I paid around £120 fitted for both sensors.

[Niffty951]

Superb. That is the kind of reply I had hoped for. Thanks Mits.

Will get them to try next

[cptsideways]

I'd say the in tank fuel pump or intermediate fuel pump. With the back seats up you should hear it buzzing on ign on. It should then be buzzing with the engine running.

Do you get any weird readings from the fuel gauge? if so in tank pump is up the duff as it also transfers fuel left to right across the two saddle tanks as well to the forward pumps.

[technogogo]

An earlier 3 series I owned developed a fault where the air inlet hose would suck itself shut. The hose needed be warm so it was soft enough for the vacuum to pull the walls of the hose together. Then sudden engine stop. I can't tell you how impressed the wife was when it happened for her on a three lane roundabout approach road.

Very hard to find but cheap to fix. Hope this is it!

[Niffty951]

Well the replacement of all 6 injectors seems to have made it run. They 'think' the ecu failed and killed all the injectors, which were tested and found to be 'failing to open and close'. I'm not convinced any fault could have caused all 6 to fail.

I would suspect using bmw's mean time between failures the probability of 6 injectors failing simultaneously. Having been running smoothly prior to the fault would be many orders of magnitude to 1.

However.. 7miles down and fingers crossed.

[F355GTS]

Hope it's sorted, I was going to add that my E46 did this, many times cutting out completely at speed on the motorway but it was self inflicted, I'd fitted a plug in tuning box that added a small length of wire into each injector lead, I'd trapped one in the bolt down engine cover

[cptsideways]

Niffty951 said:

Well the replacement of all 6 injectors seems to have made it run. They 'think' the ecu failed and killed all the injectors, which were tested and found to be 'failing to open and close'. I'm not convinced any fault could have caused all 6 to fail.

I would suspect using bmw's mean time between failures the probability of 6 injectors failing simultaneously. Having been running smoothly prior to the fault would be many orders of magnitude to 1.

However.. 7miles down and fingers crossed.

That would indicate a power supply problem to said six injectors, possibly ignition switch

[jinkster]

No funny siren noises when you rev the engine a little?

[tompillen]

Niffty951 said:

I bought a 60k mile old 1 owner 330d from a garage and the following day it died at speed.

Symptoms:

Full tank of fuel. Engine cuts out regardless of speed/rpm/load (v.dangerous!), no warnings on the dash, all electrics operating properly, no rough running/misfire/smoke or sound warning prior to failure.

Hit the starter button and the starter motor just runs and runs with no hint of starting.

Remove the key and put it back in, the car fires up faultlessly and runs smoothly before dying again in exactly the same way.

The first time it happened it ran for another 140 miles before dying. Second time 5 miles. After that it will only run for a few seconds.

The garage have full BMW main dealer level diagnostics and have since replaced the fuel filter, ECU from BMW and injectors. The fault code is still reading injector fault but the fault keeps moving. They are now replacing all 6 injectors (at their cost) but I highly doubt this is the problem!

I've found the following threads which seem to suggest the same issue but with many parts changed and no solution:

http://www.bimmerforums.co.uk/forum/f125/2006-e90-...

http://www.bmwland.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&...

Any help much appreciated!

Did you find the source of the problem? Im having EXACTLY the same issue with my 2005 e90 330d. Im getting injector short circuit codes but its intermittent. ive checked the injector to dde wiring and changed the blue relay for the dde and still getting the stalling and intermittent injector faults. the longer I crank without taking the key out after a stall, the more injectors get the codes. The ecu is as dry as a bone and all terminals free of corrosion. PLEASE HELP - I dont want to pay out for new injectors, ecu and fuel pump for it not to be that. Thanks in advance

[rsofronici]

Had the same problem with a 2005 E91 330xd with 200K miles.
Engine would cut out at speed and only way to re-start was to remove the key and try again.
This happened so random that BMW dealer could not diagnose.
Had the following parts replaced:
- fuel filter - same
- in-tank fuel pump - same
- fuel rail with both pressure sensors - same

The above parts were replaced by myself for under £100 with second hand parts.
Car did not record any trouble codes.
Finally took the car to a local independent garage (JS Prestige in Tamworth) and left it there for a few weeks while I was away.
JS Prestige called after about one week to let me know they found the problem. Nr. 6 fuel injector was worn out and leaking internally. The internal leak in the nr. 6 fuel injector caused over-pressure in the fuel return system and caused the fuel pump to shut down.
The fuel return system is a bit different on the M57N2. Excess fuel from the injectors is returned to the high-pressure fuel pump via a pressure sensor. If too much fuel is returned the return pressure sensor detects high-pressure and shuts down the in-tank fuel pump causing the car to shut down.
£800 later and the car was running again and has been running for over 1 1/2 years.
Disconnecting the fuel injectors one at the time would help diagnose the faulty injector if your problem is repeatable. Engine will run with 5 injectors but will run a bit rough.

[Styz93]

Niffty951 said:

Superb. That is the kind of reply I had hoped for. Thanks Mits.

Will get them to try next

Did this work as my 2005 bmw 330d is doing the same thing?

[Mike Lemans]

I had this same issue on my 2006 e91 335d, M57TU2 engine. I'll post up my findings here as this page came up high in the google search results.

This is probably the same for all 6-cylinder BMWs X5, 330d, 530d etc of the same age that use the piezo injectors, maybe even the later M47 4-cylinders.

Here's the cause and the fix

• Diesel injector electrical faults tend to happen when they're warmed up, perhaps something to do with their internal electrical resistance? (This symptom led me initially to think it was a bad crank sensor, as I had no error codes to begin with and they share that same symptom).

• A faulty injector can cause an immediate ECU shutdown. Switching the ignition on and off again essentially reboots it and allows the engine to start again.

• The hotter the engine, the less time between running and shut-down. My car would run fine from cold for about 10 minutes, but cut out within a few seconds or under load when up to operating temp.

• Injector circuitry appears to work in groups of three cylinders - 1,2,3 and 4,5,6.

• BMW diesel Injector activation fault codes like 4410, 4420, 4430, 4440, 4450 and 4460 don't appear to be reliable in telling you which cylinder has the problem. In my case I had intermittent cylinder 4 and cylinder 5 codes but the issue was with cylinder 6 injector.

• RED HERRING ALERT. disconnecting any injector causes some sort of limp mode that allows the car to run fine on 5 cylinders, no matter which one is disconnected. This really caused issues because in my case I had a cylinder 4 fault and unclipping injector 4 allowed the car to run.. So the issue must be injector 4 right? Nope! Maybe the ECU is somehow dropping the supply voltage or limiting injector load or ignoring the fuel return pressure readings or something.

• I've been told since that cylinder 6 injector is the most common to be faulty, possibly because this end of the engine gets hotter or is more prone to water getting into the injector internals.

• Replacing the faulty #6 injector solved the problem, even though there wasn't a fault code for that.

• The root cause may possibly have been as rsofronici describes above - excessive fuel return pressure causing the ECU to freak out and just take a guess about which injector may be causing it? I dont really know, but ultimately the injector was faulty.

• After replacing injectors / removing high pressure fuel pipe, it takes *a lot* of engine cranking to work through the air pockets and get the car started. Make sure you use a jump starter pack and just keep cranking it over until you get fuel rail pressure back and it fires up.

Hope that helps others! Knowing these things would have saved me a couple of weeks, and a load of £ and stress!

Edited by Mike Lemans on Friday 22 January 15:48

[Niffty951]

As you've lifted this thread from the archives I can confirm that injector fault was also the cause of my cars troubles, they couldn't figure out which so they replaced all 6 (at their cost under warranty) but it ran like a dream after this.