Here’s a little back ground about me,,,I’ve been a German car technician now for 31 years now.I had a family owned German car repair shop for 17 years,,We worked on Mercedes,Porsche and BMW .back in the 1980’s it was kind of normal to work on 3 type of cars,,,,all the German cars we very closely built the same,,,,they all had Bosch fuel injection and ignition systems,,,,but over the years that all started to change,,,,, I then removed myself from the family business and moved on to the R/V business.,,,where I was promised the world by a friend if I came to work for him,,,,Big mistake in my life,,,but learned a lot about the diesel R/V motor homes.,,,,During the R/V years I never stopped working on German cars for old customers or old friends cars.,,,,I was always playing around with German cars,,,,,and I personally drove a old 1984 528e 5 speed trans that I put over 300k miles on before the odometer stopped working,,,,,it still had the original engine and transmission and rear differential in the car,,,,the engine finally was burning to much oil to fix,,,,,I loved that car,,,,good gas mileage and a solid car on the road,,,,After 4yrs working and being shop foreman at the R/V shop.,,,,,I got a call from a friend at my local BMW dealership,,,,they wanted me to work for them,,,,,so I moved back to the BMW dealership,,,, .Where my heart belonged with German cars.,,,,,Where I became a BMW master technician.,,,,I’ve decided to show you the life and the different types of jobs we do and see everyday working on BMW .
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Recent Comments
bmwtechnician 
I have a 2013 x3 4 cly. turbo is there any way to quiet down the high pressure fuel pump so it doesn’t make that weird noise.
turbo engine
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Do you have the rubber foam wrapped around it and the plastic engine cover on,,,then that’s the best it gets
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Any help would be super cool.
Got a 2015 535i, n55 engine. rough-ish idle that gets rougher when idling in drive, and while reversing. Got a fuel/exhaust smell coming in through the a/c vents. Only code is cylinder 6 misfire.
Changed plugs and coils, issues persist. No new codes.
Thanks in advance!
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How were the spark plugs,,, were any of the spark plugs covered with fuel,,,my concern is that you said you smell fuel,,,so I’m wondering if the fuel injectors are going bad,,, or you could have the high pressure fuel pump going bad,,,, i would check the spark plugs for fuel soak and go from there.
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Thanks for the reply.
None of the plugs had fuel on them.
Also, in the time since I posted my question, I was able to run ISTA+ and it showed “misfire cylinder 6 damaging exhaust gas after starting up (code 140602)”, and “misfires on multiple cylinders, damaging exhaust gas after starting up (code 140002)”.
Thanks again!
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I have found sometimes just disconnecting the coils and reconnecting have worked, especially after changing both the plugs and coils. Make sure the plug connection to the coil is all the way in. Lift the connection tab, press connection into top of coil while pressing the tab back down. I believe that is where the fault codes are coming from.
I had the issue after a tune up, reconnected, cleared codes. I recently had the same issue after changing the valve cover gasket, reconnected, cleared codes.
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Hi Andreas,
I have an 88 528E that i have owned for 7 years that exceeds 300 k miles. Haven’t driven much this past year.Now When i start it the car idles up and down between 500 and 1000 and sometimes cuts off. The check engine light is blinking. Would the cause be the idle control unit under the dash?
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Boy your working my brain on this old car,,,,lol,,,,it could be the idle control unit or the idle air valve if this car has one I don’t remember,,,,if it does have the air valve you could tap it with a screw driver to see if the idle smooths out.
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Buying my first car and looking for advice. It is a 2012 BMW X1 XDRIVE28I with 149k km. Carfax shows regular service with the following parts as repaired or replaced between 108k and 122k kms: Exhaust repaired
Exhaust manifold gasket replaced
Turbocharger replaced/repaired
Spark plug(s) replaced
Blower motor replaced/repaired
Alignment performed
Rear brake rotor(s) replaced
I am going to check it and test drive it soon and was wondering what to check in it and if I need to get a technician with me. I am thinking of looking for any leaks, vibration of steering wheel while braking, weird engine noises, smoke from the exhaust. Not sure what else to look for. Reading horror stories online about the (rare?) timing chain issue that can destroy the engine and require engine replacement. How can I avoid that?
Any help is appreciated 🙂
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I would stay away due to the timing chain issues on that N20 engine
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Hey quick question brother. I have a 2009 750Li with N63 engine, recently had to get my exhaust cam gear replaced. Due to timing issue from previous owner, I bought the car for $8k with 60k miles on it
Long story short found a Master Tech that replaced the gear for $750. Car ran absolutely great afterwards. Shortly after I started burning a lot of gas, and got a System Too Lean Bank 2 code
Cleaned & swapped both Mafs, code still comes back. LTFTs are in the highs 20’s while idle…hits about 29! When I raise the rpms the fuel trims drop drastically, car runs amazing on the highway.
So I’m thinking vaccum leak? I checked the intake for cracks, and the orange seal is fitted tightly. Where should I look? Maybe he didn’t put back a line or something all the way
Because this happened right after I got the car back from him. Do I need to smoke test? If so where’s the best place to insert the line to start the test? Car is burning so much gas, and gas is expensive now! Lol. Thank you so much
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Yes it sounds like you need to smoke test it,,,those engine are hard to smoke test,,,,I wonder if he broke the vent pipe on bank 2
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Vent pipe as in? If you mean the CCV pipes I literally changed those out this past summer. I did inspect that a few days ago though
Where would I insert the smoke test tube? Any recommendations?
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Yes I mean the CCV pipes,,,you can smoke though the vent pipes
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Hello there, I have been redirected to you by someone in the bimmerpost community. I feel weird asking questions for free but I am absolutely desperate. We are talking about a 2014 BMW F32 420i xDrive, Euro spec.
So me and my dad took apart my interior (starting with the door panels) to mount some ambient lighting. Everything worked OK, no errors. After that, we took out the center console trim, unplugged the iDrive Controller and BOOM. My dash lights up like a Christmas tree. “Increased steering effort, drive moderately” – which makes my steering wheel very hard to turn, seems like no electrical steering help; Restraint system”; none of my metrics are working, my car doesn’t register speed values (not the analogue dash nor the digital value), does not register mileage, does not register fuel consumption etc. I have used Bimmerlink to find out the error codes and try to clear them. BUT, I have 55 unclearable errors, and I can’t understand why. My guess is I can’t clear them because “ICM” (integrated chasis management) and “Controller” are listed as “not responding”. I repeat I AM DESPERATE as the car is horrible to drive and all the errors are screaming at me and I am beginning to get really scared. Notable mentions: I checked the battery voltage, battery health, I disconnected the + and – terminals, touched them together for 15 minutes (tried resetting the ECU – didn’t work). Also, we double checked to see if we broke any pin and it is clear as daylight we didn’t break anything. It is just plain stupid and I am getting paranoid. Please let me know if you know what’s happening, any help will be appreciated. If you fix this for me I will be forever grateful, I would even give you money
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Lol,,, thanks for offering money,,,,I don’t know what the fix is,,,but did you check all the fuses,,,also are you sure you have everything plugged back in the center consul area because that’s when the BOOM happened.
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Hi Andreas, I have an E83 X3 M57 that is blocking up the DPF ? It’s done approx 10,000km’s since it was removed & cleaned! but now it’s blocked again? All the glow plugs were replaced 1st time it blocked as there were 2 glow plug faults up, this time i have all the common DPF Fault codes up & also “4232 glow plug cylinder 3 activation” which won’t reset? all the others reset ok, until you take it for a drive & they all come back? it’s not re-gening for some reason? Help! would be much appreciated Thanks
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Ok the glow plug activation should be the glow plug relay which is located under the intake manifold,,, I would start with that and see if everything resets
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I have a 2012 x5 with the n55. I was getting limp home mode due to a #5 cylinder misfire. I replace the injectors on #1 thru 4 no problem. The #5 was a problem to get out very difficult. So I went slow using penetrating oil and minimal turns on the removal tool. It finally came out but the decoupled tore apart and left a stainless steel birds nest in the bore. The bottom of the decoupled is basiclly fused in the bore. Tried to get it out with a picks but no luck. What is the best option here. I just bought this and only have 1000 miles on it. Into for $15k. Is replacing the head or engine the best fix and is it worth on a car with 121k miles
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This is going to sound strange,,, but if you could turn the engine so piston #5 is in the up position and then here the strange part,,,pour some coke a cola down the hole to soak the stainless steel sealing ring for a day and see if that will loosen it up
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Hi I’m looking to purchase a Z4 (E89) 28i (N20 engine!) to replace my 330CD rag top (E46), I know of the cam chain issues on the N20 engines and been told the upgraded cam chain would be on cars registered here in the UK after about July 2015. Is there somewhere I can find what VIN number it started from or can you tell me what to look out for?
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Yes you need to buy anything 2015 and newer have a updated timing chain
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