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Maybe the fuel cap fixed it after all. We drove down some positively spooky mountain roads in light rain mixed with heavy fog by an abandoned sanatorium (Nopeming) at midnight and it didn't stumble or stall or even get a rough idle even after driving for two hours and letting it idle for 30 minutes. Maybe it had to have a drive cycle without the massive vacuum leak for the computer to realize it didn't have a massive vacuum leak anymore. Maybe one of the ghosts at the abandoned sanatorium fixed it. Either way it ran fine for once lol

Head gasket problems usually (but not always) have much worse symptoms than a slight amount of coolant being lost each week, like drivability issues or leaving massive white clouds of smoke behind you, especially during cold starts. You can smell if coolant is getting into the exhaust, it's got a horrible sickly sweet smell that will burn the back of your throat. Regular exhaust should smell like the fuel you're using. They're actually somewhat easy to replace compared to some of the other things that can go wrong, what most people do wrong is wait until there's definitely a problem. Definitely don't add additives unless your car is so worthless at this point that repairs will exceed the cost of replacing the whole car. I've done that on a $500 car, and what wound up happening was the additives did fix the leak. Then, they clogged up the relief valves in the expansion tank cap, which caused the cap to violently explode from the tank and sent several gallons of hot engine coolant all over pretty much everything. We tried this several times, and one of the times the cap shot off with such force with the hood open that we couldn't find it and had to buy another one. The excessive pressure blew the temporary patch that the additive did apart. We wound up selling the car to a salvage yard. Signs of a cracked head or blown gasket: 1. Antifreeze pouring from overflow tube 2. Extremely excessive pressure in engine crank case (Take the oil cap off, if your hair gets blown back by what's coming out of there you have a problem) 3. Oil mixed with antifreeze - you'll typically see this in the crank case, not in the radiator, although it can go both ways. it's just easier to see in the crank case because there's a lot less oil than there is water. 4. Power loss when hot 5. Overheating for no apparent reason (Not that you can tell on a BMW, but if your car does have a temp gauge, it will typically be running hotter than expected) 6. Engine stalling and refusal to start when hot (it will crank but won't fire, due to the plugs becoming fouled with water) 7. Excessive pressure in radiator - this is easy to check on a car with a radiator cap, just remove the cap when cold and start the car. If a geyser of engine coolant immediately blows from the radiator, you've got a blown gasket. I don't mean it bubbles a bit and flows over, it will actually shoot out like from a water cannon. Cars which only have expansion tank caps will simply begin immediately boiling like a jacuzzi. Not a few bubbles, but a frothy white mix like you see at the bottom of a waterfall.

Well...that didn't fix it. It made it much better, it took two hours to start doing it instead of 30 minutes, and now it will keep running if it's in DS mode, it only stalls in D. It was definitely a problem, but not the whole problem. The cable I ordered should arrive soon, so hopefully I can find out more information. I just realized it's behaving very similar to my cousin's GMC Terrain/Chevrolet Equinox which has a clogged up PCV/CCV which caused her car to generate enough crankcase pressure to blow the rear main seal. I'm going to try popping the oil cap the next time it starts doing this to see if the engine smooths out. Do these cars not have dipsticks? I spent at least 20 minutes looking for it yesterday. Yes all that white crap is starting to melt now, some of the roads are like rivers because the snow is blocking the storm drains and making it so the ground wont absorb water. Where's the air intake at? I don't want to submerge it.

Well, I feel like a complete idiot. The car finally told me what the problem was. It flashed "Tighten fuel cap" on the display and I was thinking this thing doesn't even have a gas cap.... I just assumed it didn't have one since newer Fords don't have them. Checked the manual, found that yes, it's supposed to have a gas cap, and $30 later, I have an aftermarket gas cap. I always wondered what that green thing was for. So now we know why it was so intermittent. It only happened if I was going slow when the emission system requested a purge of the gas tank.

I've got some interface cables on order now so I should be able to do some better diagnostics in a week or so. I just realized the problem improved after fueling up one time, and then got much worse after fueling up the next time. Premium gas is hardly ever used here because the American car manufacturers know that it's a lost cause trying to get us to buy more expensive grades of gas so they just design them so the cheap stuff works, it's possible that the insanely cold weather (We had a week or so where it never got above 0°F for the daytime high) caused water to get in the underground storage tanks from condensation and the relatively low volume sold kept the bad gas from simply being sold off. Is BP actually that much better? It says to use it in the owner's manual, and it's the first time I've ever seen a manufacturer recommend a brand rather than a grade of fuel.

This is almost exactly what mine has been doing. Did the switch to BP help any?

Where is the filter at? No I haven't changed it

It's still doing it although it doesn't completely die anymore and it takes longer to start doing it, I'm going to put new coils in it and see if that clears it up. I just have to wait until it's warm enough for the plastic to not shatter into a million pieces. If better fuel is helping the issue, my guess is that it's some kind of ignition issue.

I suppose complaining about the $3.55 / gallon price for premium is just going to make me look silly here hehe (0.71 GBP per liter, I did the conversions since UK and American gallons stopped being interchangeable in 1826)

I almost forgot to say thanks Greydog, I will definitely be checking that software out.

I think we might have figured this out. I talked to the previous owner and he said he's been putting regular unleaded in (87 AKI / R+M/2), which I managed to roughly translate as "two grades lower than British premium unleaded" (87 AKI R+M/2). The highest grade available at most gas stations here is 91 R+M/2 (95 RON), although BP and Shell usually have 93 R+M/2 (98 RON). I ran two full tanks of 91 octane through and it suddenly had about twice the power and a much smoother idle. The manual says 87 AKI is the bare minimum, with "Super Premium AKI 91" highly recommended. My absolute favorite line from the manual: "Observe all national and local maximum speed limits, otherwise violations of the laws could occur" Really? Who would have guessed?

It's an old Actron CP9180, I like it because it will read values from the sensors instead of just scanning for codes. It does have the problem that it's not capable of pulling codes from anything but the ECU, so ABS and SRS codes won't get pulled. Carly seems pretty popular everywhere I look for the BMWs, just have to wait until I can buy it and the dongle. I found a stretch of highway with a very short on-ramp going uphill, so I was able to see what it would do if I really stood on it. It's got a slight vibration from the engine, but that could be normal for all I know. I let off as soon as I hit the 70 MPH speed limit, which actually took longer than the straight section of the ramp. I guess it's really not got that much power, just very good handling. It's also the first automatic I've ever driven that seems to have had any thought put into the transmission beyond making it shift as smoothly as possible. I love that I can actually feel it downshifting when slowing down, does it have an automatic clutch instead of a torque converter? It actually drives just fine in the snow surprisingly, everything I heard was that it would be horrible but it's actually been a bit better than the pickups and rear wheel drive SUV's I've had before. Probably a combination of significantly better weight distribution and brand new all season radials rather than strictly summer tires. It will still happily go down the road sideways if there's snow and I do something dumb like give it gas in a turn, but it doesn't seem any better or worse at getting moving than the front wheel drive car that it replaced (2011 Chevrolet Malibu) .

I've had mostly American cars and one Japanese car so far, first purely European car I've had. (I also had a Ford C-Max and Ford Escape/Kuga, but those are in a weird gray area where they were designed in Europe by an American company)

No codes, pending or active. Maybe I need to drive it faster 😄

As soon as I can convince myself to go outside I'm going to read them again 🙂 -1 F / -18 C out there right now. It's not fixed, it did it again while going through a roundabout. It didn't do it other than that one time, but that's still more than it should happen.

I reset the codes when I scanned them and it seems the problem may be gone now. I drove it for an hour and it idled smoothly and didn't die at any stop signs (or even act like it was going to die).

Thanks for replying! No active codes Pending codes: P0306 Cylinder 6 misfire P0015 cam position actuator B bank 1 timing over !Removed! (the removed word is another word for "slow") P0304 Cylinder 4 misfire P0300 Random Multiple Misfires I don't think it's fuel delivery because it's got plenty of power once it gets rolling, it just hates to idle.

i just got a used 2008 328i, and it started fine when I picked it up and drove it on the trailer. After towing it 750 miles, with the last 300 miles through a snowsotrm, it died as soon as i started it, then would only run with the gas pedal pushed down a little bit until it warmed up. I just assumed that was due to the -10 F temperatures. Now it's starting normally, but it dies at stop signs after an hour of driving. Have I gotten something dirty or embedded ice somewhere that ice shouldn't be?