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I just filled the water back up in the battery and noticed this wire is unhooked, does anyone know where it goes? Black wire coming from the positive wire

The running costs are pretty decent for any BMW, I can log into the BMW owners site (anyone with any BMW can) and get coupons for very reasonably priced routine maintenance, such as oil changes and brakes. The coupons on the BMW site brings the service costs down to about what a good independent garage would charge, like $200 for a one axle brake job for example. My BMW is 15 years old and they still give deals for it, I’m guessing they’ll still give the same deals for an E36 too. The BMW dealer here will push you to take a loaner car for almost any service, it’s just a trick to get you to want to buy that brand new 330i when you come back to pick up your car. It is fun to drive a brand new luxury car for a day for almost no cash though. Cars with traction control will eat the rear brakes, especially if you like spirited driving.

Some updates: I updated the battery size and type to the correct value. It still wouldn’t register but it updated to 70AH lead acid with no issues. It was set to 120AH, but the battery is only 140 reserve minutes (the length of time it can produce 25 amps of power) which I worked out as 66 and 2/3 amp hours. Is it possible this 1st generation E90 (2006) doesn’t have the registration function? After doing this, the car went into sleep mode very quickly, completely powering the radio off so that it took almost 60 seconds for the BMW logo to go away after starting the car, which was the intended result. additionally, the two high speed fan settings in the HVAC started working again and the heated seats are functional again as well. I think the improper battery size was driving the poor car insane, it never knew if the battery was charged or dead so it was randomly cutting 12 volt power when it shouldn’t and not cutting power when it should. If it starts in the morning, I think I can consider it fixed.

It could be the high pressure fuel pump, assuming that engine is direct injected. It shouldn’t be loud enough to hear from inside the car though, mine sounds like someone whacking a rock with a hammer when the engine is cold and still can’t hear it inside the car.

You can reset it with Carly or Carista (Smartphone apps, requires additional hardware sold separately) or have a BMW technician do it. There isn't a way to do it from the car itself. How old is that battery? If it's the original 2013 battery you are probably headed for a replacement pretty soon anyway.

Unplugged the FSR and the transmission gear indicator light finally went out and the car started the following morning. I'll order an aftermarket FSR for $25 and hope it works

Yes if the car has a "deleted" DPF then it's going to smoke. That's the whole reason for the DPF (diesel particulate filter): to eliminate smoke, soot and ash from the exhaust. MPG will go up with the DPF removed because most cars don't run heavy enough loads to keep the catalyst in the DPF filter hot enough to burn the collected soot and ash off, so the engines go in to a regeneration cycle. Regeneration raises the RPM of the engine high enough to keep exhaust temps hot and air flowing for the regen cycle. The second part of the regen cycle is diesel fuel is pumped into the exhaust pipe through a fuel injector located in the DPF, and then a glow plug ignites the fuel. The goal is to raise the exhaust temperature high enough to cause a chimney fire, which will burn all the ash and soot from the DPF filter. The goal temperature is at least 600 C/1100 F, so the recommendation is to never allow a regeneration cycle while off road, in a garage, or somewhere else near anything that could ignite at 1100 F. Dumping fuel straight into an exhaust pipe and then lighting it on fire makes the the overall fuel efficiency go down. Regeneration happens more frequently if the engine is allowed to idle, such as just idling for heat or AC or going through city traffic. It happens less frequently under heavier loads, such as high speed driving or going through the mountains since the natural temperature of the exhaust and engine combustion itself is going to be higher and therefore produce less soot (and will also help burn off existing soot) under these conditions. Performance would go up with the DPF removed if the DPF was removed after it clogged up for whatever reason. It is possible to clean a DPF off the vehicle by using an air wand at 150 PSI assuming nothing too terrible got into the DPF. Turbo failures which typically dump large quantities of oil into a DPF can render it unsalvageable but even these can occasionally be saved by first baking them in an industrial kiln to boil the oil off (This has to be done carefully because oil vapors can damage kiln components). The other technology I mentioned, SCR, is Selective Catalytic Reduction. This works by injecting what they politely call DEF or AdBlue into the tailpipe, after the DPF. DEF or AdBlue is simply urea in liquid form in a specific concentration (32.5% urea to 67.5% water). Urea is exactly what you think it is, but is produced in a laboratory rather than in a liver for this purpose. I'm not sure why, it seems dairy farms would be able to produce quite large quantities of urea without any laboratory help. The urea combines with the NOx molecules and then splits into nitrogen, water and carbon dioxide. I'm not sure why the Volvo was pumping oxygen out too, I may have misunderstood what he was saying.

I think you’re on to something with the FSR, I noticed that when the fan is on high, it doesn’t really go on high. I’m not sure why I haven’t noticed it before, but the fan is definitely only getting up to about 2/3 speed. IBS is probably messed up too since it won’t accept the new battery command from Carly but other codings work… sort of.

I'm an idiot, i see you posted all the information in your post subject. Is it better or worse than your current car? I'm assuming quite a bit older? I don't know UK prices but it would go for about $2000 to $3000 here, depending on condition

It's a BMW forum, we'll probably all just tell you to keep it and sell your other car -- however, no one can answer that question without more information about the car. At a minimum, the model year and the 3 digit number and any letters on the back of the car and the number of doors it has. Also, if it has "//M" on it anywhere, that raises the price up quite a bit.

I'm not sure of European requirements for emissions, but if your car has a functioning DPF and SCR system and no mechanical failures the tips on your exhaust pipes should be incredibly clean no matter what you dump into the fuel tank. I worked for a company with 300 diesel powered (80,000 pound GVWR) trucks, the only time the exhaust tips got dirty after SCR and DPF was introduced was if a turbo failed and overloaded the DPF. We never put anything in the tanks other than #1 or #2 ULSD diesel fuel, depending on the weather. We even had a Volvo rep come check the VN370 tractors with a machine to test emissions - the results were the exhaust was not only cleaner than the air going into the air intake, it contained enough oxygen that you could breathe it. Increased Cetane levels and cleaner injectors - always good though

Thank you for taking the time to help with this. How do I get to the FSR plug? I can see the edge of it but I can't figure out how to unplug it. I also got the full Carly adapter and ran full diagnostics on it, and attempted to register the battery which the used car dealer told me was new (but he didn't have the tool to register the battery). Attempts at registering the battery with Carly fail almost instantly. About half the time it will only start if the IBS is unplugged as well. 2F80 2E98 - Generator, communication 2DEC - Power management, battery 2E8E - IBS, communication Others that look like they have nothing to do with this or are related to the low voltage: 55C3 - VCSG-Wheel-notlaufregulung activated, no DXC target torque A118 - Signal detection speed error 5EBA - Steering angle sensor status error C998 - Radtoleranzabgleich plausibility A468 - Energy - saving mode active / No LVDS signal E587 - K-Can controller bus off E18F - Central registry does not match the target A670 - Error fogging sensor / BSS error A092 - SHD normalization These codes were persistent after several drive cycles and reset cycles

It wasn’t the relay, still goes dead just not as fast. It’s not going to sleep for some reason. I pulled the codes, pretty much all of them are under/over voltage codes which would be expected when the battery dies. I hear something that sounds like a small fan running behind the hvac controls, is there a cooling fan in there for the navigation radio? IBS sensor is hooked up now, we drove it for 17 hours straight (825 miles) and that seemed to fix the IBS issue. After the 17 hour drive, it started but cranked slowly the next day.

Finally tearing into the issues with this new to me 2006 325xi i left it on charge all day, and it was drawing almost 7 amps after the battery finished charging. I checked the relays and fuses and the one labeled 30g was warm to the touch, but the car had been off all day. I pulled it out and I noticed the automatic transmission gear selector light went out, which had been on whether the car was on or not. I’m not sure if the draw went down, I was measuring with a battery charger and after I opened the door it changed the power draw of course.

Yes the AWD is nice, tried it out on the snow already. the used car dealer said he replaced the battery and alternator to try and fix the problem but still couldn’t figure it out, and the car won’t start unless the IBS is disconnected. he told me he knows next to nothing about BMWs, and didn’t reset the battery but it was doing this before he swapped it out. its also got only one set of “eyebrow” lights working on the right side, the left side is out totally. He wanted to keep it until it was fixed properly but I thought I could track down the electrical gremlins as easily as he could and it drives great. I found some North America nav dvds on eBay for $20, hopefully they work. sunroof is insane too, it won’t shut unless you tap the close button. Otherwise it stops just before it shuts and opens back up. left mirror folds all the way out when the power fold button is pressed, and the windshield wash does absolutely nothing. I haven’t checked that at all, other than confirming nothing happens when the wash button is pushed. All minor problems, whoever had the car must have never had it repaired.

We're finally getting the BMW 328i that some idiot ran into replaced with a 2006 BMW 325xi. It's got a few very minor issues, but I'm getting it anyway. Something is draining the battery overnight, it's completely dead in the mornings. Someone ejected the Nav DVD at some point, the Nav screen says "Missing Navigation DVD" Slightly less horsepower than the 328i that we lost two years ago, but as far as I can tell the engine is identical correct? (Google says they're both N52B30) And of course, no M-Sport package so I don't get paddle shifters this time around

Me too! These things are built like tanks. Everyone is amazed that we all pretty much walked away from the collision, other than the baby. Minor skull fractures for her that are expected to heal naturally (hopefully). I asked the other driver what happened, he said he never even saw our car. Pretensioners freaking HURT by the way. That's the only part of SRS that went off on our car. Every single airbag on the other car went off. You're right, two days later I have muscles that I didn't even know I had hurting and I plan every move in advance.

The other driver says he never even saw us. He was in the black car, we were in the white car. We were stopped on a 2 lane rural highway waiting for traffic to clear to cross to a side street and he hit us from behind doing at least 55 MPH. The drivers seat broke, which was surprising and caused some serious injuries to my daughter who was sitting behind me, but everyone is expected to be ok, including her. It held up remarkably well - I would imagine the other guy was probably going faster than 55 MPH, hardly anyone does the speed limit on that road. He pushed us about 25 yards, and I'm pretty sure our car died completely since the battery must have popped in the collision. I had to put it in park to make it stop rolling.

The title says it all - are the brakes on my 2008 328i M-Sport - RWD the same as on a 328i X-Drive? Parts stores I've checked at don't show a difference, but I know the wheels aren't the same size on the M-Sport RWD vs. X-Drive models, so I was guessing the brakes probably aren't the same either.

Hi Dave, yes, everything I said was a complete wild guess without having more info, and more information is required to do anything beyond wild conjecture. I wasn't saying that more info isn't needed, I was just trying to guess at what he was trying to say.

I think i can translate for him - He has a petrol 318i and the engine continues running after switching the ignition off for a several seconds, a condition known as "dieseling" since the fuel is igniting without a spark. This should be impossible on an engine with electronic fuel injection unless you have a fairly major issue with the engine burning oil.

Just got the car back from the recall repairs, and I took the opportunity to ask what that part under the oil cap actually does. It's the oil pressure regulator. I also got a brand new BMW brand oil filter after they insisted I replace it immediately due to an oil leak that was observed while the car was in the shop. They gave a free diagnostic while it was there, Recommendations: New valve cover gasket, observed leak New tensioner pulley due to observed belt wobble New oil filter & gasket and possibly new housing and cap

Any car with 4 wheel drive, and especially any car with full time 4x4 is going to be very upset with mismatched tires. They're so strict on tolerances you have to rotate them about every 10K miles to prevent issues with one end of the car wearing more than the other. Some cars (Ford Kuga II/Escape) will just disengage the transfer case and revert to front wheel drive if they detect this happening because they come with a mini-spare tire, but most AWD cars don't have this ability and will just burn up the transfer case (Or center differential, since these cars don't really have a true transfer case).

Bob, check that the oil filter insert is actually in place. This is a well known issue, there's actually an official TSB from BMW describing these exact symptoms: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2012/SB-10032779-8218.pdf If it's missing, replace the missing part, clean the VANOS solenoids with some starting fluid (Ether), and enjoy driving again 🙂

Carly is VERY simple, nearly impossible to screw up and has tons of parameters you can play with. It's worth the money. Bimmercode can activate features that you don't have such as satellite radio for about 1/3 to 1/2 what the dealer would charge, with the caveat that you can't install official BMW software updates afterrwards without having Bimmercode perform the activation again. I tried to play with BMW 1.4.0 but laptop is 64 bit and I never could get the drivers to work so I just went with Carly. Carista is good too and has a 1 week free trial if you just want to get your feet wet.