E39 528i - randomly cutting out
Discussion
Hi guys,
I'm hoping I can get some advice from you guys.
My Dad has a lovely 528i which had never missed a beat until last year whereby it developed an odd fault which felt as though the car would jolt whilst you were driving. This eventually progressed and the car would sometimes cut out when at a standstill and whilst it would restart, it would never fire up as smoothly as it did when you started it from cold.
He popped the car in his garage earlier this year and only two weeks ago he decided to he wanted to start using it abit more. Obviously the battery was as dead as a dodo so we replaced this and the car has run very well indeed up until this morning when it cut out twice on his way to work.
I've a google and it appears as though alot of people have had this problem but no-one seems to know how to fix it. The vast majority of people replace the MAF, Cam Position Sensor, Lambda Sensors, Water Temp Sensors, etc.. but none of those jobs or parts are particularly cheap or appear to fix the problem.
I have read that the Crank Position Sensor can rectify this problem but once again, it's a complete guess.
And before anyone asks, this problem only seems to rear it's head when the car is warm and other than the cutting out the car is as smooth as silk and pulls fairly hard when pushed. Oh and the car has not had any diagnostics run on it looking for faults as of yet.
Has anyone else experienced this problem and managed to solve it?
I'm hoping I can get some advice from you guys.
My Dad has a lovely 528i which had never missed a beat until last year whereby it developed an odd fault which felt as though the car would jolt whilst you were driving. This eventually progressed and the car would sometimes cut out when at a standstill and whilst it would restart, it would never fire up as smoothly as it did when you started it from cold.
He popped the car in his garage earlier this year and only two weeks ago he decided to he wanted to start using it abit more. Obviously the battery was as dead as a dodo so we replaced this and the car has run very well indeed up until this morning when it cut out twice on his way to work.
I've a google and it appears as though alot of people have had this problem but no-one seems to know how to fix it. The vast majority of people replace the MAF, Cam Position Sensor, Lambda Sensors, Water Temp Sensors, etc.. but none of those jobs or parts are particularly cheap or appear to fix the problem.
I have read that the Crank Position Sensor can rectify this problem but once again, it's a complete guess.
And before anyone asks, this problem only seems to rear it's head when the car is warm and other than the cutting out the car is as smooth as silk and pulls fairly hard when pushed. Oh and the car has not had any diagnostics run on it looking for faults as of yet.
Has anyone else experienced this problem and managed to solve it?
Thanks for the replies, gents.
I'm not so sure it's the Vanos to be honest as it doesn't run rough, the MPG is great, power is decent and smooth. The only similar symptoms are jolts and cutting out once in a blue moon when the car is staionary. Neither happen every journey but the jolts are more common than the cut-outs.
I've had a ring around but BMW & BMW specialists and they are asking £66 exc. VAT just to plug the computer in for fault reading. I gave another garage a call that sometimes look after my S2 and they're quite happy to run diagnostics for free and are fairly sure that it may be the Crank Position Sensor from what we've told them.
I'll let you know how we get on.
I'm not so sure it's the Vanos to be honest as it doesn't run rough, the MPG is great, power is decent and smooth. The only similar symptoms are jolts and cutting out once in a blue moon when the car is staionary. Neither happen every journey but the jolts are more common than the cut-outs.
I've had a ring around but BMW & BMW specialists and they are asking £66 exc. VAT just to plug the computer in for fault reading. I gave another garage a call that sometimes look after my S2 and they're quite happy to run diagnostics for free and are fairly sure that it may be the Crank Position Sensor from what we've told them.
I'll let you know how we get on.
Just abit of an update for you:
Yesterday afternoon I took the car to a chap called Phil who runs CPC Performance Engineering in Amersham to run a diagnostics check. As soon as the computer was plugged in an Error code popped up on the screen. It was Error 83 which is the Crankshaft Position Sensor.
Phil ordered the part yesterday afternoon and I dropped the car off at 7:30am this morning so all being well, we should have it back by midday today. I'll drop in and let you know how the car runs over the weekend but fingers crossed that this will cure the problem.
Yesterday afternoon I took the car to a chap called Phil who runs CPC Performance Engineering in Amersham to run a diagnostics check. As soon as the computer was plugged in an Error code popped up on the screen. It was Error 83 which is the Crankshaft Position Sensor.
Phil ordered the part yesterday afternoon and I dropped the car off at 7:30am this morning so all being well, we should have it back by midday today. I'll drop in and let you know how the car runs over the weekend but fingers crossed that this will cure the problem.
chrisr29 said:
Take car to garage and get fault codes read, should be your first port of call really.
Vanos isn't a known issue on these cars, it's only the single variety and is very reliable. Can't imagine it would cause the described fault anyway. More likely to be crank/cam position sensors.
the vanos oil seals can fail on m52/m52tu and m54 engines and it casues idle speed to bounce up and down when cold.. http://www.beisansystems.com/Vanos isn't a known issue on these cars, it's only the single variety and is very reliable. Can't imagine it would cause the described fault anyway. More likely to be crank/cam position sensors.
cushT said:
God luck with it today, It sounds like they are pretty sure of the problem. Mine had been behaving recently so I thought whatever was wrong had gone, but this morning it cut out as I came to a stand still.
Let me know how yours behaves when it returns!
Oddly enough, the 528 also behaved itself for a good two weeks but then it got worse than before.Let me know how yours behaves when it returns!
So, we have the car back in our possession and our initial thoughts are that the car feels much better. There were no signs of jolting, no signs of cutting out and the car felt alot livelier.
It's got a couple of long runs to complete over the weekend so if there is still a problem, it should rear it's head by Sunday evening.
I'll let you know how the weekend goes.
Thanks Phelix.
So, after a long weekend and lots of use it appears as though the problem has been cured! There is a very slight (but noticable) increase in performance, the MPG figure has increased on the computer by around 8mpg and more importantly it no longer cuts out or jolts whilst driving.
According to Phil, this error is very common place. I've read of a lot of people on the internet who replace practically everything bar the Crankshaft Position Sensor which obviously racks up a far old bill and they still have the same problem on their hands.
A huge thanks to Phil at CPC Performance Engineering. He certainly knows his stuff.
So, after a long weekend and lots of use it appears as though the problem has been cured! There is a very slight (but noticable) increase in performance, the MPG figure has increased on the computer by around 8mpg and more importantly it no longer cuts out or jolts whilst driving.
According to Phil, this error is very common place. I've read of a lot of people on the internet who replace practically everything bar the Crankshaft Position Sensor which obviously racks up a far old bill and they still have the same problem on their hands.
A huge thanks to Phil at CPC Performance Engineering. He certainly knows his stuff.
It's worth getting your car on the diagnostics as I'd hate for you to spend money on parts that may not actually fix the problem. Fortunately the diagnostics equipment logged the error and confirmed what we thought it was.
Best of luck getting your cars sorted.
Edited to make sense.
Best of luck getting your cars sorted.
Edited to make sense.
Edited by Robatr0n on Tuesday 19th October 09:13
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