TwiBlueG35

This thread is due to the idling vibration of the engine of my parents' 07 530i sedan 6AT. When the transmission was put in "D" and the car was idling, I saw the tachometer needle would slightly fluctuate from about 600 rpm to 700 rpm or so, and once the needle drops to about 600rpm the engine starts to tremble and we could feel the vibration through the steering wheel and hear some wierd noise. This vibration happens all the time, whenever the car is standing still like in front of the traffic light waiting. We took the car to the dealer twice because of this "problem" and the service guy told us after several hours of checking that the engine has no problem and suggested us to use the same brand of fuel. So far my family has only put Premium fuel(octane 91, we are in California) into the car. This vibration doesn't affect any driving, just very annoying and shouldn't happen to the famous inline 6 engine from BMW right? I hope the engine can go back to the silky smooth idling. Can anyone enlighten me what the problem might be and what to check for? Thanks.

Isay5

Does the car have active steering?
Mine's an 04 530i and I can feel vibration in the steering wheel- no tach fluctuation that I've noticed, though...

TwiBlueG35

No the cas doesn't have active steering.

monsterj34

hey i have exact same problem..

First use 89 octane instead of 93... it helped a bit.. also dont use cheap gas stations... such as costco or sheetz or wawa or some kind of places where sell gas really cheap.

i took my car in shop for like 4 times and i gave up... and i just installed air intake and exhaust and that problem was gone... no clue why but it was gone..

so maybe you should do that...

but theres no solution for that... it will idle between 650-700 as normal conditions..

TwiBlueG35

You mean using lower octane would help? Ever since we bought the car, I think we only used these three brands of gas: 76, Chevron, and Shell. All octane 91 gas.

Thanks for your suggestion.

ModBargains

This is completely normal of any car really, nothing to worry about, just keep using the suggested fuel grade and maintain accordingly. This is just the motor mounts, as wearing occurs through normal driving conditions.

TwiBlueG35

But isn't it a little too early to happen, since the car has only 6500 miles on it.

monacobmw

My uneducated guess is that it has to do with the air intake.

It's like a lawnmower that does great when it is set on "high," but when it comes down to idling, it starts to putter and vibrate.

My guess is due to the fact that I have the same problem immediately after cleaning my H&N air filter. The air sensors go bonkers for about a month until they adjust. Sometimes, the car even stalls.

TwiBlueG35

I should take a look at the air filter first? Thanks.

monsterj34

well my service guy told me to put lower octane because of ethanol amount that they put... ethanol basically ruins the bmw engine as they said and octane 89 is plenty.

i would go check air filter or something related to that because after i put aftermarket air intake it stopped...

I started to notice the problem right after i got the car..