Hi everyone, I just purchased a non-running e60 528xi with a 6-speed manual that has about 170k miles on it. The story with the car was that the previous owner had a check engine light come on then after he turned it off it wouldn't start again and it would just crank. the car has now been sitting for < 6 months. Other than the no-start condition it is in immaculate shape.


I just got the car in my garage yesterday and threw a brand new battery (I did register it) in it as the old one wouldn't even take a charge. I tried starting it and it indeed just cranked and cranked and every once in a while you would hear it fire once but nothing more. Take note of it firing once because I think that will end up being a valuable piece of information as I continue to explain my findings.


Next, I plugged in my Carly scanner and checked for codes. As I've cleared codes and ran the tests again it seems to be random which ones come back and to be frank none of the codes that do show up seem to be related to my problem. As of this moment, the codes I last pulled after clearing and trying to start again are 009C54 and 00A3C3. Codes it has pulled randomly throughout the 10-15 times I've scanned it are 00A10A, 00951A, 009FF2.


After scanning I decided to check for fuel pressure. I don't have a gauge but I can say that the little valve on the fuel rail is shooting out a good pressurized stream of fuel when depressed. At this point, I assumed fuel is not my issue.


Moving on to spark I removed all six plugs and held them next to metal while cranking the engine. Every single one of them produced a very healthy-looking spark. I should mention there was some oil above the threads but nothing too crazy, also the plugs were wet with fuel. At this point confusion set in, I have fuel and I have spark...why isn't it starting?


The last thing I spent a little time looking into was the DME. I pulled it to check for water damage/corrosion and there was none, all the connections looked perfect and no signs of water ever being in there.


As a last-ditch effort, I tried spraying starter fluid into the intake at first followed by spraying some directly into the cylinders. Didn't fire at all. I've never seen an engine with a spark not fire off of starter fluid. Any ideas?

 

make sure you are getting power to the ebox/DME. check if that car has the battery cable recall. also is the starter oem or aftermarket? ive been there before with starting issues and no codes and it was because I used an advanced auto starter, happened on both my e90 and e60. somethin to consider as well.

have you tried to jumpstart the car from the front?

 

I just checked the compression and it's looking like about 65psi in the first two cylinders....haven't checked the rest yet.

Anyways I'd still like to test for power to the DME, could you point me to some directions on how to do that please?

 

Crank position sensor?

 

Did you check the OBD2 codes too? I ask because, with my reader, there would be non-helpful BMW codes, but then generic OBD2 would catch it.