What would cause this? E60 530i

[Nath911t]

On an early E60 530i.

It started running like a bag of spanners. Plugged it into INPA where it showed misfires on 4 out of the 6 cylinders. Changed the plugs and coil packs with OEM and it ran fine for a few days clocking up about 50 miles or so.

Now it's running like it did before with the same error codes.

[Nath911t]

Thank you. Will have a look at that as it is the m54 engine.

[Nath911t]

Thank you all for your replies and suggestions and apologies for not replying sooner.
I'm going over to the car today armed with inpa and dis so hopefully one or the other will point to the issue.

Will a crack in the intake boot be evident? I'll spray it with wd40 or similar while it's running to see if it changes how it ticks over. Will also clear the codes to see if that changes anything as well but wiring fault would be my guess at the moment. Here's a screen shot of the codes -





I'll do an update a bit later on as there is nothing worse than someone posting a question for help and not giving an outcome. Once again, thanks all

[Nath911t]

Duly noted and thanks.

Had a chance yesterday to look into things a bit more. When the car 1st starts up it is fine although there does sound like an air leak with the hissing noise somewhere on the inlet manifold side. Once it's warmed up it ran a bit lumpy and came out with these codes -



Code COMBI A3B3 also come up along with the EML pinging on. I cleared the codes down and they came back up and it didn't clear the EML and it started/ticked over no different. I sprayed some lube around the intake boot/manifold side but it was hard to say if it made much difference as most of the time in ran ok, albeit with a hissing noise with the occasional lumpiness - like it was running on 4/5 cyclinders.

Unplugged the MAF and it made no difference with starting/ticking over then unplugged the DISA and that made no difference. Although when the DISA was plugged/unplugged when the engine was turned off you could hear for a few seconds a gush of air coming from around that area.

I had a DISA changed on one of my old E46 330ci as that was rattling but this one isn't. I also put my foot down on the clutch a couple of times and the revs seemed to be a bit smoother but the clutch appears fine and operates ok with no noises/slipping, etc. Don't these manuals have a clutch delay valve so that could just be coincidence with the lumpy running.

Reading up about DISA's that could throw up the above error codes with similar symptoms but then so could an air leak.

I'm very reluctant to taking it an indy BMW as if it doesn't show up as code it can stump some of them and I don't really want to get other bits replaced on a trial and error basis as some of these sensors aren't cheap. Then the heavens opened up and it was game over for the day .....

[Nath911t]

bmwmike said:

Be useful to see the descriptions for those codes. I did start looking and 279c is thermostat related isn't it? Got bored looking for the others as it's not the easiest on a mobile phone.. sorry

Random misfires and hissing sounds like a post MAF air leak to me though.

CCV etc looking OK? The pipework can become brittle and crack/snap. Especially the one low down that goes into the dip stick tube (IIRC)

Thanks and to be fair the codes are all over the place and can point to many things which could be replaced to have the same issue. Took the DISA off was faced with this -



Fingers crossed this is the cause! Managed to find the metal pin as well which could of U/S'd one of the bores just for giggles.

[Nath911t]

To conclude this thread, it was the DISA valve. New one fitted and back to purring like a kitten. No errors, no EML.

Just a shame that it doesn't throw up it's own error code but hey-ho.