ZHP acting weird...

[BRGcoopahS]

So I start the car up this morning, pretty cold out and haven't driven her in a day. Car starts up and immediately has a rough idle and my SES light came on. The car was bouncing from 1k to 500 rpm here and there, whole car was vibrating, and overall not a pleasant sound. I let the car warm up as much as I could before I'd be late to class and then I drove off. This is where it got worse. It wasn't just an idle issue. The whole car was driving very rough. It's like it was running on 3 cyls. I finally let it fully warm up and gave it some gas up till around 4k rpm. Extremely rough pull and hardly any power whatsoever.

Here's where it gets weird.... In the back of my head I didn't understand how it could just run like that all of a sudden. So I park the car and shut her off. I wait 30 sec and start it back up. Car was idling fine, no SES light, and revved fine. What the hell?!

Looks like ill be changing the plugs and perhaps clean the ICV. But any idea what else could be wrong?

[johnrando]

It's funny how many times I hears symptoms like that and ask about the battery. It could be that. Although, my car has done that and a restart fixed it too. It's like if it just didn't quite start the way it should, something didn't quite just connect right, so a restart does the trick. No biggie and nothing to worry about. But again, a bad battery could definitely cause those symptoms. Ask me how I know. :)

[BRGcoopahS]

That is exactly what I was thinking. Although the battery was replaced just a few months ago.

[nike001]

Doesnt seem like an ICV or a plugs issue.

Get the codes. Seems more like a misfire due to a bad coil.

[SoCalZman]

when cars have modern computers modern computer problems are going to pop up. there was probably some windows XP style error message popping up in the CPU which was resolved when you restarted. haha :P

[BRGcoopahS]

Doesnt seem like an ICV or a plugs issue.

Get the codes. Seems more like a misfire due to a bad coil.

That's what a friend said as well.




when cars have modern computers modern computer problems are going to pop up. there was probably some windows XP style error message popping up in the CPU which was resolved when you restarted. haha :P

Hmm. Anyway I can switch to OSX on the bimmer? ;)

[telijah]

You said you hadn't driven it in a day. Did the outside temp drastically change during the last time you ran it until this morning? I am only hypothesizing, but maybe the drastic temp change caused the computer to freak for a moment and struggled to get the fuel mixture right...? Even though the light is now off, it should still have the code that popped in it's memory and a reader should still be able to pull it and give some insight to what the cause was...

[Hermes]

I would check battery and coils, I seriously doubt multiple plugs would all foul at the same time.

One question, were you very low on gas? If so your fuel system could be at fault

[BRGcoopahS]

Yea it was in the low 50's the day before when I drove it... and then 33 degrees today.

I have a half tank, so I'm not low on gas.

[GSEN820]

I have had this happen too.....It seems when cold the connection on the M.A.S. doesnt like the cold......Nothing wrong with the car just sometimes in the cold the connection isnt too happy.....

Doesnt sound like a coil pack as it will stay with a CEL and misfire..... As JOHNRANDO would say "Ask me How I know" = )

[Nivo]

If you had this cable: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002WIN8VQ/ref=pe_175190_21431760_C1_cs_sce_dp_1

You can check your codes with BMWLlogger.

[BRGcoopahS]

Thanks for the help. Glad it's not anything.

[Washburn]

EXACT same thing happened to me after the car sat for a long time...
I immediately shut it off and restarted - all perfect.

I remember a lot of people at the time telling me this can happen when the car hat sat for a long time, then restarted for a few min and then shut off again; and THEN when you restart after a while again this can happen.
My car had experienced just that - sat for a long time (like 1.5 weeks), then wifey started the car and just to move it to a different place in the garage (so the car ran for like 2 min), and then parked for a long time again. So the next time i started, that's when it ran rough - shaking, strange noise from engine, SES light, RPMs jumping etc- an immediate restart cleared it, and drove perfectly normal.
That's the last time it happened...

[BRGcoopahS]

EXACT same thing happened to me after the car sat for a long time...
I immediately shut it off and restarted - all perfect.

I remember a lot of people at the time telling me this can happen when the car hat sat for a long time, then restarted for a few min and then shut off again; and THEN when you restart after a while again this can happen.
My car had experienced just that - sat for a long time (like 1.5 weeks), then wifey started the car and just to move it to a different place in the garage (so the car ran for like 2 min), and then parked for a long time again. So the next time i started, that's when it ran rough - shaking, strange noise from engine, SES light, RPMs jumping etc- an immediate restart cleared it, and drove perfectly normal.
That's the last time it happened...

Wow because that is exactly what happened with me. I left out that the previous day I started the car up just to move it a feet or two up the driveway then I shut it off.

[Washburn]

Yep- the DME probably freaks out when that happens...it's probably like "if you start it, then DRIVE it dammit" :)

[CERF04ZHP]

EXACT same thing happened to me after the car sat for a long time...
I immediately shut it off and restarted - all perfect.

I remember a lot of people at the time telling me this can happen when the car hat sat for a long time, then restarted for a few min and then shut off again; and THEN when you restart after a while again this can happen.
My car had experienced just that - sat for a long time (like 1.5 weeks), then wifey started the car and just to move it to a different place in the garage (so the car ran for like 2 min), and then parked for a long time again. So the next time i started, that's when it ran rough - shaking, strange noise from engine, SES light, RPMs jumping etc- an immediate restart cleared it, and drove perfectly normal.
That's the last time it happened...

Ditto! We went down to New Jersey for Thanksgiving this year, took my wife's e91... left on Weds. and didn't get back until Sunday. I think that's the longest my car has sat since I've owned it. when I went to start it up on Monday morning to go to work, it was burping and farting and chugging and all of that... But, no lights on the dash. I didn't touch it, let it warm up for 5 minutes or so, and the idle smoothed right now. Drove it normally to work, it sat outside in 35 degree weather for 9 hours, went out and fired it up - perfect.
Go figure...

[Mike V]

My old ZHP did this once. The car had been sitting while we had the X5 out on vacation. When we got back, we took the ZHP to go eat and when I started it, it idled like a 90s Cummins on startup. It never did do it again after that. I just let it sit a while and it cleared itself out.

[Stewbie]

I too have experienced the rough start up the morning after a short trip the day before (short, as in pulled out of the garage to wash it, and then back in). Its a bit of a relief to hear that this is common for these cars. It freaked me out when it happened.

[BRGcoopahS]

Glad I posted this thread. Seems like it cleared up some worries knowing its a common thing.