E36 320i running problems
Discussion
Hi folks,
I wonder if you could help me solve a running problem with my little 320i E36.
Its an early (ish) '93 M50 engine Coupe, Manual and done about 115k now.
Anyway, car was running A1 until a few days ago and on leaving home, about a mile down the road it stood on it's nose for half a second when accelerating then carried on fine.
Following day it did exactly the same and then later it did it a little more frequently followed by idling very lumpy. Finally it died altogether and wouldn't restart.
Anyway, after sitting a while, it started a bit lumpy and got me home. On restarting it ran fine.
Anyway, my first thoughts were fuel pump / filter but after taking the inspection cover off the pump It sounded to be running ok. I changed the Fuel Filter as a matter of course to be on the safe side.
Then, yep the car started A1 and idled quite nicely for a while and was fine whilst moving the car around the road, then drove it up the road and it started misfiring after about half a mile and sounded like it was running on 5. Got home and it was idling very lumpy and backfiring a little.
Later, car was fine. Ran perfectly with no running issues.
So yep i'm baffled. Also, since my car is an OBD1 car I hear you can do onboard diagnosis using the 'Check' light. Unfortunately I don't get a 'Check' light whatever happens. So do some E36's not have the check functionality?
Sorry it's a bit long-winded but thought i'd try and give as much info as possible, so if anyone has any tips i'd be muchly appreciative.
thanks,
Nick
I wonder if you could help me solve a running problem with my little 320i E36.
Its an early (ish) '93 M50 engine Coupe, Manual and done about 115k now.
Anyway, car was running A1 until a few days ago and on leaving home, about a mile down the road it stood on it's nose for half a second when accelerating then carried on fine.
Following day it did exactly the same and then later it did it a little more frequently followed by idling very lumpy. Finally it died altogether and wouldn't restart.
Anyway, after sitting a while, it started a bit lumpy and got me home. On restarting it ran fine.
Anyway, my first thoughts were fuel pump / filter but after taking the inspection cover off the pump It sounded to be running ok. I changed the Fuel Filter as a matter of course to be on the safe side.
Then, yep the car started A1 and idled quite nicely for a while and was fine whilst moving the car around the road, then drove it up the road and it started misfiring after about half a mile and sounded like it was running on 5. Got home and it was idling very lumpy and backfiring a little.
Later, car was fine. Ran perfectly with no running issues.
So yep i'm baffled. Also, since my car is an OBD1 car I hear you can do onboard diagnosis using the 'Check' light. Unfortunately I don't get a 'Check' light whatever happens. So do some E36's not have the check functionality?
Sorry it's a bit long-winded but thought i'd try and give as much info as possible, so if anyone has any tips i'd be muchly appreciative.
thanks,
Nick
Hi,
Had a very similar fault with my 94 E36 325i. I suspected fuel but found it to be the rubber induction elbow after the air mass meter and inlet manifold had deteriorated. There are two pipes that connect to it that are part of the vacuum system. Where these connected to the induction elbow there were splits causing it to upset the vacuum and running of the car. I would check this as its a cheap fix at a tenner for a brand new elbow from BMW Main dealer. While i had the elbow off i gave the throttle body a good dig out. After that she ran perfectly.
Hope this helps.
Nick.
Had a very similar fault with my 94 E36 325i. I suspected fuel but found it to be the rubber induction elbow after the air mass meter and inlet manifold had deteriorated. There are two pipes that connect to it that are part of the vacuum system. Where these connected to the induction elbow there were splits causing it to upset the vacuum and running of the car. I would check this as its a cheap fix at a tenner for a brand new elbow from BMW Main dealer. While i had the elbow off i gave the throttle body a good dig out. After that she ran perfectly.
Hope this helps.
Nick.
Thanks Nick,
Yeah I know the elbow very well. I had to take it off to get access to the fuel filter and to be honest, one joint could be better so i'm gonna invest in a new elbow.
I got the fault codes read today. Very amusing. Apparently BMW did a little chopping and changing with the ECU's and mine wasn't recognised by the reader. All the manually selected ECU's came up with bizarre faults like 4 faulty injectors and numerous others.
Anyway, cutting to the chase, one common denominator has come up that the Lambda sensor is reporting a fault so we've cleared the codes and will re-read them when the fault re-occurs.
Thanks again Nick for the elbow tip.
Yeah I know the elbow very well. I had to take it off to get access to the fuel filter and to be honest, one joint could be better so i'm gonna invest in a new elbow.
I got the fault codes read today. Very amusing. Apparently BMW did a little chopping and changing with the ECU's and mine wasn't recognised by the reader. All the manually selected ECU's came up with bizarre faults like 4 faulty injectors and numerous others.
Anyway, cutting to the chase, one common denominator has come up that the Lambda sensor is reporting a fault so we've cleared the codes and will re-read them when the fault re-occurs.
Thanks again Nick for the elbow tip.
There was some changing about, the pre 9/92 build date cars were non vanos, and used the 325 ecu, but after 9/92, when vanos came in, they swapped to siemens on the 320 and stuck with bosch on the 325.
I've no idea why, maybe it was a trial to see who'd get the 323/328 ecu contract.
You don't by any chance have the fault codes written down anywhere? What will happen is the diag reader will ask for codes, and it will receive a list of numbers, the reader will then check a table of codes for the ecu selected, and tell you what the numbers correspond to.
If the reader doesn't have that table, it can't help, but the fact it read out some codes means they did talk, and it did get the right info.
The lambda sensor will be a bit of a red herring here, if there was an injector problem, ignition problem, MAF problem, a tear in the elbow or a hole in the exhaust, you'd still get the lambda error.
As you had a number of injector codes, i'd check the ecu to make sure it's not wet first, as that can cause a lot of hard to track down problems due to bad drainage, and also have a look in the fuse box at the relays, condensation inside them has been a problem before (a la channel tunnel) and there was a service instruction given out ages ago about relays corroding.
He's there at Pos. 1, just outside of the main relays, under a little black cover.
If you see others of the same colour (it could be green, orange, grey, red etc) try swapping it, it will probably match the horn or headlight relays, and see if the headlights cut out momentarily and the stalling stops.
You did say you had a bit of a misfire, if you have cleaned/washed the engine recently, it could be water in a plug hole, or a failing coilpack too.
If it is a bad coil, you'd do well to get it replaced quickly, as they can break down between the primary and secondary coils, and fire 40kV back down into the ecu by accident.
I've no idea why, maybe it was a trial to see who'd get the 323/328 ecu contract.
You don't by any chance have the fault codes written down anywhere? What will happen is the diag reader will ask for codes, and it will receive a list of numbers, the reader will then check a table of codes for the ecu selected, and tell you what the numbers correspond to.
If the reader doesn't have that table, it can't help, but the fact it read out some codes means they did talk, and it did get the right info.
The lambda sensor will be a bit of a red herring here, if there was an injector problem, ignition problem, MAF problem, a tear in the elbow or a hole in the exhaust, you'd still get the lambda error.
As you had a number of injector codes, i'd check the ecu to make sure it's not wet first, as that can cause a lot of hard to track down problems due to bad drainage, and also have a look in the fuse box at the relays, condensation inside them has been a problem before (a la channel tunnel) and there was a service instruction given out ages ago about relays corroding.
He's there at Pos. 1, just outside of the main relays, under a little black cover.
If you see others of the same colour (it could be green, orange, grey, red etc) try swapping it, it will probably match the horn or headlight relays, and see if the headlights cut out momentarily and the stalling stops.
You did say you had a bit of a misfire, if you have cleaned/washed the engine recently, it could be water in a plug hole, or a failing coilpack too.
If it is a bad coil, you'd do well to get it replaced quickly, as they can break down between the primary and secondary coils, and fire 40kV back down into the ecu by accident.
TheEnd said:
lots
Thanks alot for all the info.Mine is likely to be a Siemens ECU since it's a '93 M50 running single Vanos.
Unfortunately I don't have the codes to hand as it was all a bit ambiguous and at that moment the car was running A1.
So as soon as the fault re-represents itself I'll get back to the guy with the reader and we'll re-read the codes and take a note of them.
I'll check the ECU in the meantime. I've heard a few times from people regarding drainage for the early ECU's so, with all the snow etc, it's well worth checking out.
Hopefully we'll get to the bottom of it soon.
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