kneemah

hi guys,

so i've been lending my car to my girlfriend for the past 3 months. now she just came back to me last night telling me there's something wrong with the car.

i'm driving it today to work and first pops up is an increased emissions warning. i run the diagnostic, and it's a thermostat. no big deal, i make sure the coolant system has coolant and i figure i'll come to work and order a new thermostat and look up a diy for replacing it.

well about a mile to work i'm cruising at 40 mph and the car hiccups. i'm giving it constant gas and it just feels like it slows down for a second then releases. the gap between the hiccups is about 4 seconds. i knew my girlfriend was putting 87 octane gas in the car since gas prices have jumped 40 cents here. she said the last 2 tanks were with 87. i filled it up for her last week with 91. right now the car has less than a gallon of gas left.

the main problem is, when i gave it some gas to pass a car i got a warning on my screen saying "engine malfunction". the warning told me to not drive it under heavy load. so i cruised into work parked my car. and while i'm sitting there in park the engine is shaking pretty wild and making some load noises. it doesn't feel like it's going to hop out of my hood, but it's not a normal vibration.

my car has about 97k miles on it, and i keep up to date on maintenance.

i'm thinking of just taking it to the dealership, because i haven't found an honest bmw mechanic in the san fernando valley.

Ghostteck

sorry to hear i had that on my e55 and it was an expensive fix for me because it was my fuel pump relay, if your close to trinity try stopping by there they do great work, gl hope this gets resolved quickly, btw my car has 87k and stil runs strong

stoic1

Could be a number of things plugs, coil packs, mass airflow sensor, etc. Take it to a good indy shop or the stealership.

kneemah

took it to a bmw only place. it was the ignition coil on cylinder 6 apparently. just got my car and no more check engine light or shaking.

however i still get a little hiccup when i cruise. i'll have to take it back later this week and have them check it out.

pcy

how does a thermostat issue (OP's diagnostic code) turn out to be a ignition coil issue?

kneemah

the thermostat had nothing to do with the engine malfunction error. separate issue i guess. i was just listing the error i got in the morning before my ignition coil went bad and gave me a new error.

pcy

ok, I understand.

May be the thermostat issue is still there and will come back.

SKY545

SAME thing just happened to me today. My code reader is saying cylinder 1 misfire, I'm taking it to the usual independent shop I go to early next week. I just changed my spark plugs 3-4 months ago, no issue until now and not sure if that had anything to do with it.

Bonziat

Had the same thing about 3 months ago, turned the engine off and back on. Not a problem since. I say find a good fuel cleaner and dump it in your gas tank.

elias526

I have a similar problem 2008 535xi jb4 and dci... when i step on it i always get a engine malfunction reduce power.... very upsetting i think it might be my hpfp or my injectors i read somewhere there is a recall on the injectors. If i bring it to the dealership do i need to uninstall my dci and jb4?