sickmint79

the power seems to hiccup and the engine rev oddly occasionally in my e60 545i. this is accompanied by a service engine light and a message of "increased emissions." sometimes the car seems to be mostly normal (drove in to work today like this) other times it has been weird and i've killed it putting it into first from a stop. it only recently started, and the light has gone away for a week or so, but recently she seems to be more unhappy of my lack of attention.

what do you guys advise for a code reader? i have a 2004 545i, my bro has a 2007 330i. i may within a year get something like an e36 m3 or an s52/s54 m coupe, who knows what kind of financially irresponsible decisions i will make in the future. what do you advise? so far looking at these:

peake - R5-FCX-3 Scan and Reset Tool for BMWs (the U)

autoenginuity - Order Online (w/o or w/expansion?)

right now the peake seems "good enough" - thoughts?

Ballistic

Try the Bavarian Tech system. Works fine for reading and clearing faults here.

Regarding your problem... Sounds like a busted MAF

sickmint79

i ended up ordering the autoenginuity system last night, with the extended bmw software.

stoic1

Looking forward to see what you think of the scanner and what the check engine light is all about.

sickmint79

man me too. seems every other time i drive > 30 minutes that she starts getting unhappy. i hold the throttle constant and the revs vary by like 500 rpm sweeps. no load the car has died or i've not given it enough gas and had to slip the clutch a lot to make it gooooo in 1st.

balbs

Hey dude, there was a thread here this past month about somebody having inconsistent RPM. I'm not sure if it's similar to what you're having, but do a search and maybe it could help you out. Sorry, but I forgot the whole detail of his issue.

AchtungE60

Take out your MAS and spray some MAS cleaner. Clean real well and do not touch it. Get all the little metal parts. Check your air filter. If you have an oiled air filter such as K&N, clean it and re-oil but do not use the recommended oil. Allow the oil to penetrate the filter before re-coating. Could also be an exhaust component issue. Then again.....I've gotten these types of issues from a weak battery. Car started up normal and battery had good starting power but its life had come and I had it throwing weird messages for no reason until i replaced battery. Extremely sensitive with batteries.

lincvert

I bought a cheap no-name reader from amazon that only reads the code numbers, but does not do advanced diagnostics. Any OBD2 reader will work if you only want to pull and reset codes.

sickmint79

MAS = mass air flow sensor? pull that out and spray some cleaner like this all over the sensor dealie?

http://www.autobarn.net/maairflsecl1...te=google_base

i've killed the battery a couple times; lights once and obd2 bluetooth reader left in the car another time, i believe the battery is only a year old.