Engine Light Message

pingufreddy · 1st July 2012, 23:04

Recently, I was driving around in my 02 M5 (55k. on clock) and it started to misfire: I think. The car, instead of idling smoothly, bumped up and down and almost seemed to rock. At the same time a light came on saying "service engine soon". Anyway, I had just had a major service so that did not seem right. Placing my hand on the engine cover I could feel the engine misfiring.

I turned the car off for two hours. Returned to go to the dealer and presto! It worked fine?

Can anyone help me figure what is going on? I have replaced the stock air filters with K&N, had Dinan Stage 1 flash, and cleaned the MAFs myself with CRC MAF cleaner. Otherwise the car is stock. We live in California where you can only get 91 octane gas.

Thanks to anyone who can help/speculate on the cause.

desmotesta · 1st July 2012, 23:21

Step 1 - Go to Bimmerzone.com

Step 2 - Purchase Peake code reader (the one that fits your model year)

Step 3 - Receive Peak Reader and Read codes

Step 4 - Write codes down, Search M5Board.com/E39 M5 for posts regarding similar codes

Step 5 - If still unable to find a solution, share the Peake codes with members and they shall try their best to help

Step 6 - Put Peake Reader in glove box - You WILL need it again, sooner or later

CfWiggum · 1st July 2012, 23:22

The best move is to get the codes scanned. Since the service engine soon light lit up, there's bound to be a fault code stored. Without that, it's all speculation about what's wrong. You can either buy a scanner yourself or get it scanned somewhere. Then just search the board for your codes.

jfoj · 2nd July 2012, 16:03

+1 on what desmotesta said, however, add one thing:

Read codes, document with date and mileage, clear codes and they if the CEL comes back on immediately read code(s) and document date and mileage again.

Keep a log of your codes as it will be very helpful in the longrun.