[Zack77]

Hello again,

I had previously posted a thread on this-but at the time wasn't able to receive any help most likely due to the fact that I didn't get any codes, which I now have.

I've had a rough idle since I bought my car a year ago. During the summer the roughness can easily be described as a vibration with a noticeable rattly noise from within the car. No fault codes, SES lights or anything are triggered from it. It's most noticeable when the car is in gear and stopped. The idle with get extremely rough within seconds of coming to a stop. Putting the car into park or neutral greatly reduces the issue.

Now, in the winter months when the car is in gear it will actually idle rough enough that it has idled down low enough to stall out the car, putting it into park or neutral helps-but the idle is still to the point where it can kill the engine. I have had it happen multiple times where after starting the car in cold weather (I let it warm up a few minutes) it will throw a SES light and go into limp mode; it will usually go out of limp mode after one restart and a few more later the SES light will go away until it happens again.

I do not currently have access to PC diagnosis software, but do have the BMWhat app and therefore can get engine data that would possibly help diagnose this if needed.

Here are the codes that were outputted when I scanned shortly after one of the limp mode situations:

2E84 - Engine / Motor - electric coolant pump, the communication / Local-CAN communication error /  Electrical coolant pump / radiator shutter


2A99 - Engine / Motor - Crankshaft - exhaust camshaft, correlation / A throttle potentionmeter / Lambda probe before catalyst / Lambda probe front catalyst, sensor-line


2CEC - Engine / Motor - Throttle control stuck / Bit-serial data interface, signal / Throttle control stick for a split


2CED - Engine / Motor - Throttle control, permanently stuck / Throttle control, permanently fixed / Lambda probe after catalytic converter / Bit-serial data interface, signal


2D09 - Engine / Motor - Throttle


2CFE - Engine / Motor - Throttle, the continous adaptation / lambda probe before catalyst


2CFB - Engine / Motor - Throttle valve adaptation value


5E19 - DSC / ABS / Brake - Engine torque is not adjustable CAN / DSC ECU intern / Interal Error / DSC-internal / Coil outlet (dump) shortened right front / Internal ECU operating error DSC


9C7B - Heating / AC - interior sensor blower / unkown failure

Both the water pump communication and interior sensor blower are errors that are constantly there after clearing-water pump works completely fine but figured I'd include it in case it may help. I did a bit of searching and wasn't able to find much useful information on these errors. One thread I found stated that it could be a bad battery-I've had the car for a year today and have never had any issues as far as starting/dimming lights or any other sign of a bad battery. The plugs and coils have been replaced already.
I assume the DSC error is related to my main issue since I believe the DSC light had came on during the limp mode issue as well-it's not normally an error that is present.

If anyone has any information I'd greatly appreciate it.

[Chriztofor]

Exhaust camshaft sensor. Not a hard DIY. Might as well clean and swap the solenoids too. http://www.pelicanparts.com/BMW/tech..._Replacing.htm

[Zack77]

Removed both vanos solenoids last night, clean with MAF initially and they're now soaking in brake fluid as I had read on a few forums. Will I need to reset any adaptations or will simply clearing the codes be sufficient?

[Zack77]

Also, I noticed that there was no o-ring's or seals on either of the solenoids-definitely a slight oil leak from them.

Would it be sufficient to get a none-specific similar o-ring from an auto-parts store to seal it for now?

Quite a bit of oil can be found on the drivers side of the engine if looking underneath the intake etc. It's only towards the front-most half of the engine though. Would this be a CCV issue as well or is this common of a VCG leak.

[Chriztofor]

Originally Posted by Zack77

Removed both vanos solenoids last night, clean with MAF initially and they're now soaking in brake fluid as I had read on a few forums. Will I need to reset any adaptations or will simply clearing the codes be sufficient?

Clearing codes is fine. You should swap the solenoids. They are interchangeable. Search for a DIY on here, I believ eninty. He explains why.

[Chriztofor]

Originally Posted by Zack77

Also, I noticed that there was no o-ring's or seals on either of the solenoids-definitely a slight oil leak from them.

Would it be sufficient to get a none-specific similar o-ring from an auto-parts store to seal it for now?

Quite a bit of oil can be found on the drivers side of the engine if looking underneath the intake etc. It's only towards the front-most half of the engine though. Would this be a CCV issue as well or is this common of a VCG leak.

Are you sure the solenoids have orings or seals on them? The leave leaking oil on the front of the car is 99% oil filter housing gasket leak (there is oil on your drive belt, right?). (A $5-$10 part and an easy DIY). I did mine and leak is gone. I would do this AFTER solenoid swap and after replacing the exhaust cam shaft shaft sensor.

[Chriztofor]

Here is the DIY http://www.e90post.com/forums/showth...light=Solenoid

[Zack77]

Originally Posted by Chriztofor

Are you sure the solenoids have orings or seals on them? The leave leaking oil on the front of the car is 99% oil filter housing gasket leak (there is oil on your drive belt, right?). (A $5-$10 part and an easy DIY). I did mine and leak is gone. I would do this AFTER solenoid swap and after replacing the exhaust cam shaft shaft sensor.

I actually have that gasket already. Tore everything down pretty good yesterday. It's definitely seeping/leaking from the solenoids. I'm pretty sure I had read something about a seal or an o-ring on the vanos solenoids-but I definitely don't have either.

Judging by the way things look (there isn't oil everywhere)-the eccentric shaft sensor is leaking, there's oil on the drivers side of the block under the intake only near the front half; there's the bit on the front of the block right near the two solenoids. And finally it also appears that there's a bit of leaking from the oil filler cap. I believe the oil around the filler cap may be because it was taken off and not handled correctly judging by what I have read.

Sounds like a lot of leaking to me, but oddly enough I haven't had to add any oil since I've owned the car 4,000 mile change intervals. It does eventually move down from the max mark but stays within the OK mark.

Edit:
Also after removing the throttle body and inspecting the intake, it appears that there may be oil inside of intake, I recall reading something about the CCV causing this; is there any good way to test this before replacement?

[Chriztofor]

Try focusing on fixing your rough idling issue. When you are done I will also show you that one of your head bolts are broken. Forget about that for now. Stay focused otherwise you will never fix the issue.

[Zack77]

Originally Posted by Chriztofor

Try focusing on fixing your rough idling issue. When you are done I will also show you that one of your head bolts are broken. Forget about that for now. Stay focused otherwise you will never fix the issue.

I was attempting to get a few things done at once while I had it all apart .
But now that I look, I've gotta ask...How did you get in my garage? I saw your message and went out to take a look and what do you know, there's a bolt missing.


Pretty sure it's that one to be exact.

[Chriztofor]

Yep, that's it! lol. Ok, it seems you are not getting overwhelmed. All "doable".

[Zack77]

Well, if cleaning the VANOS solenoid turned out to be my issue, I'm all set on that once I put it back together. Mainly just looking for a list of things that I need to get to in the next few weeks. Seemed like CCV was a common one so I might have started to imagine having the symptoms.
I somehow remembered to purchase an air filter and microfilter before I took everything apart-both look like they were almost original now that I finally got around to it.

By the quick bit I read I assume I should replace the intake gasket if I wanted to fix that bolt?

Also a bit curious about why I mainly only received throttle error codes and how they might be related to the vanos :/.

[Chriztofor]

The dealer (under warranty) just removed the sheared bolt and bolted another on. They didn't remove the intake because nothing was leaking.

I personally think it is more than solenouds because of the code about camshaft. I would do that next if solenoids didn't fix the issue.

[Zack77]

Originally Posted by Chriztofor

The dealer (under warranty) just removed the sheared bolt and bolted another on. They didn't remove the intake because nothing was leaking.

I personally think it is more than solenouds because of the code about camshaft. I would do that next if solenoids didn't fix the issue.

Ah, yeah I have no idea where to go about that issue next. Not a single one of those codes is persistent unless it's winter though. I'd be surprised if they show up one time throughout the entire spring/summer/early fall months.

[PichaDis11]

I remember having these wild rpm surges when idle. (I do hope we are speaking of the same issue). It got worst over time that whenever it happened the car would stall whenever I come to stop.

I did the swapping and cleaning of my vanos units and those barely helped for about 3 days and the issues return. Went and bought new units. That definitely helped. Problems then started very subtle again. I changed spark plugs and car is behaving normal ever since.

Sharing my experience because I see no mention of a spark plug change to help the issue.

[Zack77]

I did change the plugs and coils recently, I'll see how everything goes once I finally get back to the garage to put it back together.

[Zack77]

I didn't get much driving in, but it appears that the issue has been greatly reduced at least. Still idles down a bit lower than it should after a few seconds, but I may have a bad tensioner or pulley-not sure if that's cause that or not.

So that's next on the list! Along with replacing that bolt and cleaning the large amount of oil from the engine-any suggestions on an easy way to do that?

[UncleWede]

I didn't see a specific code in your list, but vanos issues were cleared up a bit for me when we discovered the filler cap was cracked. Letting that little bit of extra air in that way wasn't great on the computer controlling things. That and plugs and my wife's MPG went from 17 to 21.

[Chriztofor]

Originally Posted by Zack77

I didn't get much driving in, but it appears that the issue has been greatly reduced at least. Still idles down a bit lower than it should after a few seconds, but I may have a bad tensioner or pulley-not sure if that's cause that or not.

So that's next on the list! Along with replacing that bolt and cleaning the large amount of oil from the engine-any suggestions on an easy way to do that?

You should also dump a bottle of chevron techron fuel injector cleaner (Concentrate) in the fuel tank. Trust me, it works. Just search on here.

[Zack77]

Originally Posted by Chriztofor

You should also dump a bottle of chevron techron fuel injector cleaner (Concentrate) in the fuel tank. Trust me, it works. Just search on here.

I had actually used some of that last year; no noticeable changes came from it though. But due to the large amount of other things that were most likely still bad at that time it would've hard to notice something like that :P.

I'll give it a shot soon since I'm about 800 away from an oil change and see how it goes. I did finally get a good listen during an idle in gear today, it first drops down and starts the rattling noise lightly, then drops down just about 25/50 rpm's more and the sound is a bit more noticeable, but yet much much better than previously.

Also had a chance to check codes again only the two that have been constantly persistent were present (water pump and interior blower sensor).

[Zack77]

One thing that I had noticed but forgot to mention-a but of oil around the eccentric shaft sensor, does this usually always mean it needs to be replaced, or is there a way to test/diagnosis it first.

[Chriztofor]

Originally Posted by Zack77

I had actually used some of that last year; no noticeable changes came from it though. But due to the large amount of other things that were most likely still bad at that time it would've hard to notice something like that :P.

I'll give it a shot soon since I'm about 800 away from an oil change and see how it goes. I did finally get a good listen during an idle in gear today, it first drops down and starts the rattling noise lightly, then drops down just about 25/50 rpm's more and the sound is a bit more noticeable, but yet much much better than previously.

Also had a chance to check codes again only the two that have been constantly persistent were present (water pump and interior blower sensor).

You don't have to change the oil when you use chevron techron fuel injector cleaner. I contaced chevron and they sent me an email which I posted on here that you can use that fuel injector cleaner I believe 5x before you need to change the oil.

Ok, I am changing my opinion. Your water pump is failing. I don't think it is your camshaft sensor anymore. When that fails your rpms fluctuate wildly all the time and it also throws many codes. It appears most of your issues went away.