help please

[Gazzi c]

hi all so here is the story my 3.0i e53 drives fine most of the time but there seem to be a few issues and i canrt figure out if they are related, the wateer temp needle hardly ever goes to half way it stays just above the cold marker but when it does sometimes reach halfway my car goes crazy seems like it is missfiring starts hunting for tickover and the EML comes on and the car nearly stalls, if i turn the car off and back on it seems to behave normal so after reading a few posts on here i decided to send it to a garage and change the ccv just got it back £200 lighter and its not cured if anything i would say its worse can anyone please help me figure this out before i fall out of love with this car  :'(

[X5Sport]

Thermostat?  If that sticks open the car won't warm up properly.

Richard

[Gazzi c]

thanks do you think this will be creating the rough idle too?

[X5Sport]

It's a possibility as the engine may be getting 'warmed up' signals from some sensors and 'cold' from others.  I have had the diesels which behave differently so it's no more than an educated guess.

Have you access to a fault scanner, or a member near you who has one and can interrogate your error code logs?  That might help you narrow it down and save unnecessary expenditure.

There's the meet at Cosford this weekend where half the necessary kit, or even all of it will be available....

Richard

[Lummox]

Are there any other symptoms i.e white smoke/steam from the exhaust? gunk in the coolant tank or on the dip stick for the oil that looks like margarine? do the interior heaters get hot or are they just warm?

Craig

[Gazzi c]

Hi yes I've got all of those symptoms

[Lummox]

I would look towards the head gasket then, I would take it to a garage to get checked out sooner rather than later. I am not saying it is definitely the head gasket but with all those symptoms that is where I would be looking.

Craig

[Chompers]

[quote="Gazzi c"]
Hi yes I've got all of those symptoms
[/quote]

Given the above info = Head gasket  :'( best book it in to get pressure tested asap.

EDIT:  by the good man above  )

[Gazzi c]

Hi thanks for the feed back I've had the head gasket  looked at and the garage said that seems fine and the cream is due to not driving enough miles as the car only does about 6 miles a day most of the time I do have one of those BMW 6.1.0. Scanners but Carn't say that I'm that confident with it

[Chompers]

[quote="Gazzi c"]
Hi thanks for the feed back I've had the head gasket  looked at and the garage said that seems fine and the cream is due to not driving enough miles as the car only does about 6 miles a day most of the time I do have one of those BMW 6.1.0. Scanners but Carn't say that I'm that confident with it
[/quote]

That sounds odd  :blink: Maybe worth a long blast using full rev range to get the oil nice and hot and give the exhaust a good clear out. Then get the oil changed and possible engine flush to clear out any gunck. The symptons Lummox posted are all classic signs of head gasket failure and you said you had all present. Are you confident of the garages work? what did they say about the symptoms?

[Y13HYA]

[quote="Gazzi c"]
Hi thanks for the feed back I've had the head gasket  looked at and the garage said that seems fine and the cream is due to not driving enough miles as the car only does about 6 miles a day most of the time I do have one of those BMW 6.1.0. Scanners but Carn't say that I'm that confident with it
[/quote]

This can be due to condensation, but i would definitely get a 2nd opinion as chompers said it just seems to have all the signs....

[Bargain Bucket]

The 3.0 M54 petrol engine has an electrically heated thermostat. My E46 330 was running just above the cold mark no matter what i did. I replaced the stat and it now runs mid-way on the gauge. Costs about £36 for the stat (make sure you get the whole housing as that contains the heater which might be what has failed rather than the stat itself).

Any "margarine" could be due to condensation caused by running too cold over short journeys. But then again, it could be the HG. If the garage if sniffer tested the coolant and found no hydrocarbons from a blown head gasket, I think I'd replace the stat next as it's a cheap thing to eliminate.

As for the misfires etc when it does get hot, you really need to read the fault codes before going any further with this.

[JimmySpeed]

I wouldn't bother with any garage that did work off a guess but never bothered checking fault codes even though you've had the eml on.

[Gazzi c]

Cheers for the input guys I've sent it back to the garage I don't think it's the head gasket because it went from Nottinghamshire to Blackpool for my daughters dance competitions over the weekend and it hasn't used a drop of coolant still running like a bag of spanners on idle though

[Chompers]

How odd. Will be interested to see what it ends up being and hopefully not too expensive