deltabox

Wanted to bring this up because my wife aksed me about it. 528i and when I'm at a stop light or something, I can really really hear the engine humming. It was loud enough where my wife said that it hurts her ears.

You know that low deep base humming I'm talking about? The humming is like this rolling humm. Is this normal? I can relate to my wife about the ears. It does kinda get to you after a awhile. I want to point out that my rpm is steady as a rock wile at dead stop.

When she asked about it, I just told her that it's the "beast" behind BMW engineering.

jaycal3

Do you have a hole in your exhaust? Mufflers???? Is it the engine noise thats humming? Its that loud????

BSLNoel

Our 528 is pretty quiet on idle. I could take a iphone video and email it to you so you can hear the normal sound ours makes. IDK, really no correct answer and it's pretty hard to compare but my wife (it's her daily driver) hasn't even mentioned engine noise.

deltabox

It's not super loud. You wouldn't notice it unless you really focused your ears onto the humming. Then after a while, it gets a little annoying. So you kinda have to zone it out. I don't have holes in my muffler. I don't know. I guess it's normal. The car drives perfect and like I said, the idle is super steady.

deltabox

If you can, send the vid. Record it all windows closed including roof. Thanks.

528iFLYguy

I have the same problem on my 08 528i, The noises mines makes varies from quiet to a loud low rumble under 800 rpms, anything above its quiet as a mousej

deltabox

It's probably nothing. Most of the time I don't even notice. If the radio is on, I wouldn't notice at all. Only when I stop at a light, the radio is off, and I'm sitting there for a good minute or two, the noise will become noticeable and I'll start to focus on it. And once I'm focused on it, it does become kinda annoying.

And my car idles at one mark above 500rpm.

I'm not sure if I would call it a "problem" just yet.

ovni

Check the muffler for sure.

rbcook

I had a vibration problem at idle last summer on my '08 528i, and they fixed it under warranty. There was an SIB addressing the vibration, necessitating the replacement of the exhaust hanger and dampener. It helped the problem at the time. But since then, I sometimes still have the vibration at idle. It seems more noticeable with the AC on. My first thought would be a bad clutch on the AC compressor, but I thought I read somewhere that E60's AC compressors but don't have a separate clutch - so that would mean the whole compressor is bad. Or, possibly a bad tensioner or vibration dampener. A visual inspection of the drive belts looks normal to me - no major wobble or anything like that.

For whatever it's worth, I changed my air filter last week with an OEM Mann filter, and the vibration seems to have lessened somewhat. Either way, I know I am very picky about noise and vibration issues, so I notice anytime there is an increase or decrease in the vibration at idle. I also have a very steady idle - no fluctuations there. To the OP: I would still look into the exhaust issue, because that did initially fix the vibration at idle issue for me.

deltabox

@rb: my car doesnt virate during idle. Its just the deep base humming noise that i get. The only thing im not sure about is that the humming is this rolling humm. Kinda like in and out noise kind of thing. That is bugging me. Can anyone else here tell me if they can hear their engine humming during stops? And is it a stable humm or is it like rolling humm like mine? Because the way my humming is rolling, you would think the rpm needle would be jumping up and down in sync with the humm. But like i said, the needle is steady. I dont want to have to take it to dealer unless i had a error light on or something. I cant stand dealers and try to avoid at all cost.