[bmnatz]

Hello everyone,

I'm having a bit of a problem lately, i'm driving a e92 325i 2,5L (I'm from Thailand and we don't get the 3,0L here, I am not thai btw).

A few months back I've had massive problems with my engine, the car would go in this error mode where you can basically not accelerate (restarting the engine would make it go away, anyway it would come back after a few minutes)

I've had my car checked by 2 different BMW dealers (Try finding one with staff that speaks english) after visiting the 2nd dealer the probem went away, although that time I tried to explain that I feel my car is horribly slow: 0-100 km/h somewhere at 10 seconds. They said all will be better blabla.

Well, that was back then, the car did perform A BIT better for a while, still not anywhere close to the 0-100 times that BMW states.


Now it's all back to the horribly slow or I feel now it's even worse, I've put my car up against a friends Honda City, which is around 12 seconds from 0-100km/h and he could easily hold up with me. Basically from 1000-3000 RPM the car doesn't accelerate at all, the engine's screaming but it sounds like it's only air going through and it doesn't pull AT ALL. After I reach 3000RPM the car pulls, it somewhat feels like the way it's supposed to be.

My point is, I'm really trying to figure out what the problem could be, so I could get someone to translate and have specific things checked by BMW, because in my opinion the guys that work there have no clue what they're doing (neither have I though :P) but as a general rule, in thailand everyone is a professional in everything and just gets hired, so don't trust anyone.

Does someone have any experience with problems like this ?

//EDIT
I should add, I've been through different exhaust setups a few times, I've had an Eisenmann Race (a lot modified to make it fit) + Resonator, then I went Eisenmann Race without Resonator and now I'm at Muffler Delete and no Resonator. With all setups the car performed the same shitty way.

[willsull80]

Was it a reduced power mode? Did a little engine come up on your cluster with reduced power under it.

Also how many miles is on the motor?

[bmnatz]

Yes it's been going into the reduced power mode, with the "Engine Fault" on the I-Drive "Full Engine power no longer available, etc." after stopping turning off the engine and turning it back on that problem was gone, however this problem did never occur again after seeing the dealer, unfortunately he couldn't explain me why as I don't speak thai, basically I just showed him a picture of the error and waited around 10 hours and it was solved.

Still the no power problem remains, car feels horribly slow throughout.

Engine has barely 60.000 KM // 40.000 Miles on it.

[Three_thirty_I]

I would have the codes read and then post them up here, someone is bound to have some info!

How often has the oil been changed? Mileage is low, but worth giving the Vanos solenoids a clean and if the oil has not been changed in the last year/10k km maybe some fresh oil and oil filter...

But I suspect there is a sensor of some sort that has failed somewhere and is causing the limp mode.

[willsull80]

I had a similar issue and it called for a DME update

Also I wonder if you need to reset your adaptation settings due to your upgrades

Or was this issue there before you did any mods

[bmnatz]

To my understanding the vanos has been cleaned when I was in for service, which was around 2 months ago.

Oil was changed at the same time.

How would I go about to read the codes so that I could post them up ?

[litxus]

A lot of things could be going on here. You should probably check coils, plugs, intake and piping for any vacuum leaks (do you have an aftermarket one), maybe check MAF (clean it?), maybe check TB (clean it) and not sure about DISA (I think that is what is called, but I had that on E46 so not sure how different it is on E92). It could be as easy as a coil just try disconnecting one by one and see if you notice a difference.

[Three_thirty_I]

Originally Posted by bmnatz

To my understanding the vanos has been cleaned when I was in for service, which was around 2 months ago.

Oil was changed at the same time.

How would I go about to read the codes so that I could post them up ?

The agents can read the codes and give you the print out, or you could go to most third party garages and they should also be able to do this.

[bmnatz]

Originally Posted by litxus

A lot of things could be going on here. You should probably check coils, plugs, intake and piping for any vacuum leaks (do you have an aftermarket one), maybe check MAF (clean it?), maybe check TB (clean it) and not sure about DISA (I think that is what is called, but I had that on E46 so not sure how different it is on E92). It could be as easy as a coil just try disconnecting one by one and see if you notice a difference.

Exhaust setup is resonator delete and muffler delete, so it's straight pipes to the end.

I ordered MAF sensor cleaner some time ago but didn't notice any difference after using that.

What would TB be ?


//EDIT

also what I noticed about the MAF sensor, if I disconnect it completely, it doesn't throw any error and the car drives completely the same as with it connected, so might that thing be broken all together ?

[litxus]

Originally Posted by bmnatz

Exhaust setup is resonator delete and muffler delete, so it's straight pipes to the end.

I ordered MAF sensor cleaner some time ago but didn't notice any difference after using that.

What would TB be ?

TB would be throttle body. Try to get a code reader or buy one as they are not that much and see what codes you get. It almost sounds like the car is misfiring or one of the cylinders is not working properly. My question would be when did you notice the change or symptoms the first time, did you have some service work done or a dealer visit? Like I said it could be a lot of things, maybe a defective sensor of some kind etc.

[litxus]

For MAF sensor, you can try swapping with a different one if you can find it, as by disconnecting it, the car will run but it will not give you much of a clue if it is defective.

[Kish2604]

Get yourself a code reader from eBay and get the codes read yourself, that will give you a understanding of what's going on inside your car, secondly how are you fitting aftermarket exhausts with our warranty still in place? Is BMW there not difficult on aftermarket modifications?

[bmnatz]

Originally Posted by Kish2604

Get yourself a code reader from eBay and get the codes read yourself, that will give you a understanding of what's going on inside your car, secondly how are you fitting aftermarket exhausts with our warranty still in place? Is BMW there not difficult on aftermarket modifications?

Actually I do have some ODBII bluetooth dongle (from china), but never used it other than for showing me things like RPM and stuff, would this thing work? Any specific software I need there ?

About aftermarket mods it's actually quite funny, I've replaced lots of things with aftermarket parts and they always said (basically) do whatever you want, you won't void warranty, then one day I went in to order LCI tail lights paid some deposit and the next day the dealer guy called me up and told me if they (BMW) fit them I'll loose warranty BUT if I just come to grab them and have some 3rd party install then it will be fine.

[willsull80]

The warranty loss is only on the parts you change. They can't void the car over tail lights. As for your MAF is it a two wire or 5 wire MAF? The North American MAF is an actual MAF the euro one is a air temp sensor and they seem to run on a open loop setup

[bmnatz]

I'll check that once I get the car back tomorrow, I'm having it wrapped black matte which is amazingly cheap to do here. I suspect it's the EU one though (the MAF), as far as I know the car came from England as it's a RHD.

I went there today and tried to read error codes with that ODBII dongle which connected fine and all, however I tried to read error codes with some iPhone app (DashCommand?) and it said 0 error codes, the car has not been driven for 2 days though, do I need to drive it and check the codes right after or does that app just not work, because there should be error codes for some stuff that's always there (fog lights failure) or do things like this not show up ? All the other things in the app seemed to work correctly, I could read RPM, fuel status, temperatures and other random stuff.

Sorry for the many questions, hope you can shed some light on that for me .

[willsull80]

Man for the issues you are having you need to research INPA and get a K+DCAN cable for your laptop and then you can dig into your car issues much better. ************** (<--- this is b m w c o d I n g. c o m) is really the place to go for that. As for the cables Aliexpress.com is the best place to get your Chinese made cable. On the software windows xp runs the software perfectly.

Let me ask this question first. What octane gas are you running in it. I mean I have never been to Asia so I don't even know what they offer there. I know If you run 87 in a BMW it runs like a worn out beater.

Back to INPA you can see all kinds of factory spec trims and watch your VANOS timing and all kinds of things.

As far as I understand you have had these issues since you bought the car right??

[bmnatz]

Originally Posted by willsull80

Man for the issues you are having you need to research INPA and get a K+DCAN cable for your laptop and then you can dig into your car issues much better. ************** (<--- this is b m w c o d I n g. c o m) is really the place to go for that. As for the cables Aliexpress.com is the best place to get your Chinese made cable. On the software windows xp runs the software perfectly.

Let me ask this question first. What octane gas are you running in it. I mean I have never been to Asia so I don't even know what they offer there. I know If you run 87 in a BMW it runs like a worn out beater.

Back to INPA you can see all kinds of factory spec trims and watch your VANOS timing and all kinds of things.

As far as I understand you have had these issues since you bought the car right??

Well at the pumps we have 95 and 91 octane benzine and gasohol (which is some ethanol crap, i've never used that) I'm always going with the 95 benzine, as I suspect that still won't be 95 octane after all.

And yes, the car has been slow since I bought it, first few weeks I didn't really notice, traffic here is so bad you can't really step on the gas. But times came when I had complete garbage cars destroying me on acceleration then I started to wonder. Another factor was I've driven a friends stock 323i e46 which felt SO MUCH FASTER throughout.

I'll try to get one of these K+DCAN cables asap.

// Edit

I found some local guy selling the cable that is available on b m c a b l e s . c o m is that what I want ? He's selling it horribly overpriced, but I'm not really patient to wait for things to arrive so I would dish out the extra 50$ that he charges on top of normal price.

[willsull80]

Originally Posted by bmnatz

Well at the pumps we have 95 and 91 octane benzine and gasohol (which is some ethanol crap, i've never used that) I'm always going with the 95 benzine, as I suspect that still won't be 95 octane after all.

And yes, the car has been slow since I bought it, first few weeks I didn't really notice, traffic here is so bad you can't really step on the gas. But times came when I had complete garbage cars destroying me on acceleration then I started to wonder. Another factor was I've driven a friends stock 323i e46 which felt SO MUCH FASTER throughout.

I'll try to get one of these K+DCAN cables asap.

INPA is sort of a pain to get set up when you first get it, Not as in its hard or anything its getting all of the files you need to make it work and reading the instructions on where to put the USB file and how to set the COM port for the USB but once you get that set up you will do fine... just have some google translate on hand since some of it is still in german.

[bmnatz]

Originally Posted by willsull80

INPA is sort of a pain to get set up when you first get it, Not as in its hard or anything its getting all of the files you need to make it work and reading the instructions on where to put the USB file and how to set the COM port for the USB but once you get that set up you will do fine... just have some google translate on hand since some of it is still in german.

Well I am german, so reading that won't be too much trouble

Thanks for all the answers you gave by the way, I'd guess and say we're going into the right direction of finally diagnosing what's the trouble.

[willsull80]

One good thing about INPA is you can go into the history and get freeze frame info that tells you if you had a malfunction and at what mile it came in and a whole host of other info. It will lead you to the path of redemption. I had an issue with a VANOS Solenoid and told my SA at my local dealer that was the issue and after the 3rd trip back they agreed with me and changed out the intake and exhaust solenoid and my car started running like new. It had poor gas mileage and took off like I was dragging a boat. That happened at about 36,000 miles.

Saying all of that INPA is the reason I could argue with my dealership about what was wrong.. Then they told me I had knock off software and I kindly told them they needed some of it as well so they could fix cars on the first trip out.

[bmnatz]

Originally Posted by willsull80

One good thing about INPA is you can go into the history and get freeze frame info that tells you if you had a malfunction and at what mile it came in and a whole host of other info. It will lead you to the path of redemption. I had an issue with a VANOS Solenoid and told my SA at my local dealer that was the issue and after the 3rd trip back they agreed with me and changed out the intake and exhaust solenoid and my car started running like new. It had poor gas mileage and took off like I was dragging a boat. That happened at about 36,000 miles.

Saying all of that INPA is the reason I could argue with my dealership about what was wrong.. Then they told me I had knock off software and I kindly told them they needed some of it as well so they could fix cars on the first trip out.

Now that you mention poor gas mileage, that is another thing where you can see something is definitely wrong, I have mine set to L/100KM so I can't tell you the NA values unless I find some converter but according to the computer I'm going through 20 TWENTY liters of fuel for 100km.

Ok found some converter, Result: 11.76 MPG

[willsull80]

Yeah man that sounds like VANOS issues. That engine is really weak without the VANOS working properly. Did you say if the check engine light stays on or not?

I was getting around 16mpg city/highway when my exhaust VANOS was shorted and it had no bottom end take off at all. The error said exhaust VANOS over retarded. It was as simple as installing a new intake and exhaust solenoid which has one bolt holding onto the front of the block. All you have to do is open the hood and unbolt them petty much.