XSeries-forum

I'm tempted too ...


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Spartan,

Just out of interest have you recently run the car very low on fuel?

I say this because ive owned and used a bmw 330ci everyday for the last 10 years and have put 110, 000, miles on it without issue until the other day when I switched over from LPG to normal petrol but the car was empty and I think through some rubbish and almost stalled the car. I switched it back to LPG and put a bit more petrol in. The next few days the car was not firing on all cylinders on start up from cold and I was getting the engine light, after 30 secs or so it would clear and work fine. This continued until I put in1/2 of vpower and also out in some petrol injector cleaner, weirdly it instantly fixed the problem.

Just a thought buddy.

[quote="Spartanx5"]
I am not sure what if anything is even going on, but on 2 occasions now from a cold start it's has felt like the car is not running on all cylinders for the first 30 seconds when u first start up, the other day it did this, then an orange light came on? that I always call the management light but unsure what it really is? Well this came on and then 5 minutes down the road it went off, I put it down to it being the first time I had driven it for a week and it was maybe clogged up because it was a very long but slow paced journey last time out, even with the light on for those 5 minutes everything was good, power, gear change etc. Then again today, from cold it's sounded a little off for 10 seconds the light came on but this time as I drove off it just flashed then disappeared within 20 seconds of coming on,  all has been fine since and it literally does everything it's suopossed to still. Little confused???
[/quote]

whether a coincidence or not... here is a bit of a feedback from my experience

- bought the vehicle (4.8is) which apparently was always ran on 95 octane fuel and no fuel additives used
- I used 97 octane every 3rd/4th tank
- in between that I use std 95 with redex additive to 'clean the fuel system'... not that I trust that much I was lead to believe that is the 'right thing' to do every now and then (as per recommendations on the bottle). E.g. my take was it won't cause any harm
- 95% of the time I only do short journeys in Lon of 2-5miles where engine temp does not even reach the optimum level... I know it is not great for any motor whether petrol or diesel but I do have occasional blast on M4/M40 for piece of mind and to get a grin on my face when I open up the throttle  :xmasgrin:.

so in 4 months of ownership I noticed...
- fuel additives certainly help a car to work better... smoother running.
- equally I noticed that 97+ octane is defo better... however I could not justify the cost as my vehicle is juicy in it's own right and that couple with abundance of power/torque so not really a need for it.

- and the last but not least... with combination of 97oct and/or additives I also noticed that I get the occasional blue smoke at full throttle?! a coincidence or not but it may well be that something had happened since I first started using them two... 'kx' suggested it maybe a Valvetronic, whatever it is the issue could have been triggered by those or at least i'm lead to believe that. While I appreciate that other factors would/could influence it... I still enjoy my vehicle and I think it is the great piece of eng... complex, large, heavy, thirsty with 'decent' maint. bills but worth every penny (I guess only Jag XJ would qualify in this category too).

a bit of a rumble but hope that helps...

[quote="kkx5"]
Very expensive repair, good quality oil  (0w30) will improve cold start. It was BMW SIB  for it, can't find it now.
[/quote]

when you say expensive... what is the time/effort required to complete the job?

and how far it goes into [hopefully] three figures [incl. parts and labour]?

I have same issue  but light is blinking about 20 sec, seems to not affect anything! Rybrook dealer couldnt figure it out or wasnt bothered too much! >:(

Mine will only do it on a cold cold morning, then if unjust sit there till it's warm, turn off and back on again the light goes off and she runs like a dream, it hasn't been to cold lately so I haven't had the issue, I have a warranty so I just need to get it in to that garage when I get time. I did all the plugs on the last service so maybe the coil packs are getting affected by the freeze?

...brief Q re independent [e.g. non-BMW] warranty like WarrantDirect for instance...

if you had one in place and something complex like Valvetronic needs replacement would that be covered [parts and labour] by them...? or simply treated as wear and tear and not applicable in their '...covered' list of things?