BMW 330d Lack of Power- any Ideas?

[nasty-bob]

Hi,

I'm new to this forum, but thought some of you guys might be able to help me with a problem.

My 330d seems to have a total lack of power. There is no smoke coming from the exhaust so I'm guessing the turbo is ok. I've changed the air filter, which wasn't all that dirty anyway, and checked the induction system for any blockages.

This has really got me stumped as I drove it home last night and it was fine. Jumped in this morning and it couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding.

One idea I did have is that the ECU may, for some reason, have reverted to 'safe mode'. I have serviced the car myself (as it has 156K on the clock) and so haven't reset the service indicator. This is now saying that the car is 2000miles overdue a service- could this panic the ECU into limp-home mode?

Any ideas or help on this one would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Rob

[bennno]

Ahem, did it work fine before 'you serviced it'?

Did it work fine at all post service?

If the answer to Q1 is Yes and Q2 is no then youve probably screwed something during the service. Is there an air leak say?

Bennno

[nasty-bob]

Serviced it about 2 weeks ago and its been fine. Done about 1500miles since, and the oil level is fine too.

[blackspider]

The most common fault I find with lack power on high mileage ones is the vacuum pipe that runs from the turbo to the vacuum accumilator and from there over the engine to the underside of the inlet manifold-they perish and suck in when vacuum is applied-this stops the turbo variable vanes from working.
Faults listed will be 'boost pressure not met'no fault lamp lit.
The pipe needs to replaced.

Other faults are-on the epdw valves(there are 2-one for the turbo actuator and one for exhaust gas reserc)there are tiny filters(about 20mmx10mm)they clog up which causes the valve to stick.

Then you have turbo failures-you could have a siezed variable vane.

After that your into the injector side-there could be excessive runoff from an injector.The injector will then missfire.

With a tourch look down the o/s of the engine at the turbo-you will see the actuator.Get someone to start it up while you watch the actuator(out of gear)-you should see the control rod move.This rod should move about 20mm,hold and then draw back slowely-anything else and it has a vacuum fault or the vanes have siezed.

The common places for the pipe to fray and perish are as routes over the top of the engine and down under the manifold(under the covers)

[Onetone]

Listen to the blackspider - the force is strong with that one.

I wish he worked in my local main stealer!!!!!

[jeffc]

I have had 2 330d sports lack power and both were air mass meters,, not a straight swap though as they need to be coded in at bmw..

[blackspider]

jeffc said:

I have had 2 330d sports lack power and both were air mass meters,, not a straight swap though as they need to be coded in at bmw..

Its just to reset the adaptions in the DME so that it has a fresh set of figures to start with.Then a 16 minute drive cycle is carried out.
If you want another test to do,pull the conector off the air mass meter(under the engine cover on o/s-as it happens the vacuum pipes runs through here aswell).If during a road test it goes like a rocket ship then you have an air mass fault.What the DME is doing is using substitute values in its program.
Doing this will log faults in the DME memory which will need to be cleared.

[nasty-bob]

Thanks for your help chaps, I'll look into these.

[nasty-bob]

Turns out it was the air mass meter after all.

Thanks again for the help

[00161wj]

YE id have guesssed that if id seen this earlier. Always pull the connector off your airmass meter if you experience a loss of power. Its the first thing to check.