Best place to have car error checked?

[twoblacklines]

So now my £5.5k, 1 week old (in my ownership) 330ci is now in limp mode misfiring all over the place (except no engine check light is on or any other error light for that matter) I need to find out what is wrong with it.

Any ideas the best place to take it to? Should I just go to BMW? Will they help as it is out of warranty? How much will they charge for a diagnostic?

Thanks

[IanMorewood]

Yes they will be pleased to help, take Vaseline to reduce the pain.

Most specialists would do at least as well.

Some independent garages are more than capable of diagnosing problems.

[Smuler]

I second going to a independent, but ideally one which specialises in BMW so they have decent diagnostic equipment. It's probably more urgent than this, but as a precaution I bought a ELM diagnostic tool from Amazon (see below) for a fiver and installed an Android application (see below) and read my own fault codes. saved me paying for diagnostics as the devices were correct each time.

Bluetooth OBDII OBD2 Diagnostic Scanner, Scan tool check Engine Light CAR CODE READER for ELM327

Torque Pro (OBD 2 & Car)

[twoblacklines]

The place I bought it from claims to be a specialist: http://www.specialistvehicles.co.uk/service yet they seemingly missed all the faults this car has on their "120 point check" they did before they sold it.... which doesn't give me much faith in "specialists".

[E30M3SE]

You can do a test to see which cylinder(s) is/are mis-firing without any special tools what so ever.

Remove panel covering the ignition coils on top of the engine.
Start car and disconnect the lead running to each coil individually, if the mis-fire gets worse than that coil/spark plug on that cylinder is operating normally, if it makes no change to the way the engine runs then that cylinder is one that has a mis-fire. More than 1 maybe mis-firing.

Once you've found all the mis-firing cylinder then swap with one working correctly and see if the mis-fire moves with the coil, if it does then you've found your problem, replace coil.

If the mis-fire doesn't move then pull the spark plug and check it's condition, swap with a working plug and see if mis-fire moves.

[twoblacklines]

Thanks, I will bear that in mind if it gets worst, at the moment it only misfires on acceleration under load and not idle.

[longintheleg]

Where abouts are you as I'm sure someone close by will have a copy of DIS or INPA that they can pop round with.

[StuntmanMike]

Take it back, you paid top dollar for it, disregard my post on your other thread.

[tomic]

Sale of Goods Act - take it back to them and tell them to fix it. If you've only had it a week and there are defects with it they should be resolving them

[twoblacklines]

I have had it about 10 days I think. Isn't SoG act only 7? I haven't had time to take it back during the day as been too busy.