Kev525

Today my wife's E46 started running on 3 of the 4 cylinders (2003 318i) and the engine management light came on.

We called our local dealer who said "We don't have any bookings available, so you'd better call the Emergency Assist number and get them to recover your car to us". Fat lot of help I thought, but called the BMW emergency assist number anyway. The lady who answered the phone was really helpful and when I described the problem she said she thought it may be the ignition coils. I said the the car was still parked on the drive outside the house and wasn't sure if it would be covered by the emergency assist, but she said it was OK and within an hour a service technician (in a nice new E61) turned up.

He started the car up and immediately confirmed the problem as being the ignition coils. He then produced a new set of 4 from the back of his car and fitted them within minutes. He said this was a known problem on the 3 series and had replaced them in 5 cars in one day not so long ago.

I've had a scan around some of the other BMW forums to see if I can get more details and although I did find some mention of it, they seem to be talking about the 6 cylinder models and not the 4 cylinder versions.

Anyway, just thought I'd post this information in case any of you have an E46 and experience the same problem. It just came on without any warning what so ever. Thankfully it was fixed without any hassle or having to get it to the dealer. A big thumbs up to the Emergency Assist service from me.