Thanks for the suggestions. I havent tried seafoam and not sure that i want to. Ive read more bad than good about using any of that on these cars. I used some years ago on a honda and didnt really see a difference...
Ive been thinking about getting software update. I'm out of warranty though and havent had a chance to call and see how much that costs. Anyone have any ideas? I'm probably going to get it done anyway just because.
The only reason I dont think its a coil or a pressure leak is because the car runs like a champ under moderate or heavy acceleration. The only issue i really have had is that if I hold rpm at around 2k or if the car is holding steady at 27 mph-ish, i get a shudder. I thought I read somewhere on here that this could be control arm bushings? It doesnt feel like a power loss or anything which is what I assume would be the case if it was a coil?
However.... I think I have a new problem and am sort of hoping its tied to the vibrations - although the vibrations have been happening WAY before this new issue so not so sure. I noticed that on the passenger side of the engine, the metal pipe below engine (header or exhaust?) has a wet spot on it and smokes for 30-45 seconds when the car is started. I think it smells like oil. It goes away after a few seconds but clearly oil drips onto it during starting. Any ideas? Does this maybe correspond to the vibrations? I sort of think maybe not only because the vibes I'm getting when coming to any sort of stop sign or red light, seem fairly common amongst N52 owners and I think an engine leak would be pretty obvious to most..
Last week I actually opened the coolant top and the brown thing inside was all the way down. I remember about 6 months ago I got a low coolant light on dash and had my indy guy top it off. He didn't have time to run a leak test but said he didnt see anything visually. I ended up topping it off with fluid I got at BMW and checked it again today and it seemed to be topped off still. That pipe that has the smoke coming off of it is more towards engine, but sort of in between the coolant reservoir and engine. Thought maybe the coolant was leaking onto pipe but I didnt see anything anywhere indicating that it was which leads me to assume it is oil (and the fact that it smells like oil).