2000 BMW M5 Misfires - And Dealing with Dealer & BMW NA on CPO HELP!!!!!!!!!!!! - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

sean_w_smith · 8th September 2005, 02:35

Hi All,

I could really use some advise and words of wisdom from some of the other M5 owners out there. I have a 2000 BMW with 37,000 Miles on it. Its my part time daily driver, Its not my track car (E36 M3), Race Car (Radical), its just a fun car I drive on the street. Its been driven agressivelly but fanatically maintained. All Fluids, Filters, etc are changed more frequently than BMW spec. Not a scratch or ding on it. Stock other than some window tint, cup holders, and a TCM CAI Brake Duct setup and some Carbotech brake pads.

I bought the car CPO from Leith in Raleigh 1 owner the car was flawless minus a few stone chips and mild wear on the drivers seat. 19K Miles with brand new pilots and alignment on the car. Service History up to that point was not too bad....

Something in the rear strut assembly was repaired at 1700 Miles for Rear thunking noise (more on that later).
Tranny was replaced at 6K miles due to leak issues with original unit.
Problem with AC Blower (final stage replaced at 18K Miles)

Nothing else of concern to that point....

Once I bought the car other than the slipping clutch which I discovered about 2 days after I bought the car as I drove it hard everything was pretty good for a while... I have been babying the same clutch for 2 years now waiting for a more robust solution to be available. I was and am planning to do ACT or UUC upgrade this month but am going to have my personal mechanic do the clutch and a detailed inspection on the car because I trust him completely and is more cost effective. All this was in the works and then I started having some serious misfire issues and SES's about a month ago.

Up until then additionally the car had been serviced for the following under Warranty.

Replaced exhaust camshaft position sensor (SES, Limp) 21K Miles
Replaced instrument cluster for LED Segment failures (23K Miles)
Replaced right rearview mirror (Stripping Gears) (32K Miles)
Replaced MAF (SES) (32K Miles)

Car would always run great for some miles and then slowly loose power and smoothness and eventually throw a CEC for the many reasons listed above.

A month ago I was driving down at the beach giving it full throttle about 5500 in 2nd and it misfired and lit up the SES. Car was in limp mode. Reset the car and LIMP mode was gone. Drove it conservatively home the next day (Sat). Made appt to bring in for service monday. Drove car maybe 20 miles the next two days... I leave my house monday morning to take the car to dealer and glanced over in my parking spot and there was a 1/2 a quart of oil under the car. Check the M5 and it was 1/2 a quart down. Holy SH&*^, talk about having a heart attack! Got it towed to the dealer...

Dealer replaces VANOS unit under CPO (would have cost $2500+)

Diagnoses Failing SAT Nav (Quote $2700 to replace control unit?, no way, don't use it).

Ask them again to investigate this clunking noise from the rear of the car. this is about the 3rd time I have asked them to investigate this. Its been doing it since about 25K miles. Dealer reports that one of the four tranny mounting bolts is missing or broken. NOT COVERED UNDER CPO. What? $350 to repair. Decided not to do that as we are going to pull the tranny and do the clutch as soon as the engine issues are resolved. Problem is that was another noise not the noise I reported. more later..

I come to pick up the car and test drove it. Threw SES within 2 minutes after warm up completed. Similar condition full throttle 5K+ RPM. LIMP mode. return to dealer within 10 minutes.

Dealer diagnoses and replaced Coil Pack, Wire, and Plug on one cynlinder.

Drive with Service Manager and let him hear the rear clunking noise. Throws SES with 5 minutes and service manager hears noise. My quote to him, sounds like a rear shock tower bushing.

Dealer talks to BMW. Recommendation replace all coil packs, plugs, wires...

Replaced all Coil Packs, Plugs and Wires....

Dealer diagnoses thunking noise as "rear strut bearing". Sounds like what I said? $850 to repair. Not covered under CPO. Suspension is not covered!
Now I am starting to get irritated and frustrated. I love my M5, why is she doing this to me...

Tell him to not repair rear suspension noise. Again defer to my expert independent mechanic.

Pick up car. Took about 1 hour of driving to cause another SES....

Returned to Dealer again. BMW Recommends Crank Shaft Sensor. Sensor is replaced. dealer gets SES during test drive (I had been letting them test drive it all along but it never thew a code for them till now... )

Now BMW is recommending pulling the tranny and the think there is an issue with the flywheel (possibly missing a tooth). Surprise, Surprise this is not covered under CPO and even WORSE They want to charge me $$$ to do the diagnosis.

I talked with service advisor, shop manager, and the service manager in the last day. Also wrote an email to BMW NA asking for help and even talked to rep on the phone. His position good will has to come from the dealers. The dealer him and hawed too and said its outside protocol and he needed to talk to BMW. We'll see what they have to say tommorow...

So my car is stuck at the dealer. There are 4K in repairs not covered by CPO. The car has probably $15K worth of repairs since new and its still broken. I acceppted the clutch sucked along time ago and choose to be patient waiting for a good solution to become available. I understand BMW not wanting to warranty wear and tear items on the car and even the NAV (NAV: The only reason I care about this at all is resale $). But a bolt holding the tranny in place, a rear strut tower something and now they want to charge me to pull the tranny and potentitally replace a flywheel on a street car that has only 37K miles on it. I'm really not sure what to think at this moment. I could really use some advise from folks out there on dealing with BMW and my dealer and getting my beloved car back to me.

Longer term problem is my CPO will run out in April 06 and the car will have maybe 42K miles on it by that point. I know that the VANOS, MAF, and CPS are common failures but at this pace this car could become very expensive to own over the next few years... All I can say is I love this car but my relationship with it and BMW in general are stressed at the moment.

I have loved and had great luck with my 2 E36 M3's and my My M Roadster. My 2002 M3 Convertible had some many issues (not a lemon by the law but pretty sour) that could not be addressed after 7 trips to the dealer for the set of iissues, that I finally sold the car. I was mad at BMW for not getting that car sorted out. I was considering some other marques and drove the M5 and fell in love immediately. Sucker!

All Comments, Suggestions and Flames are welcome. Sorry for the long post but I had to get this off my chest...

Sean Smith

DavidS · 8th September 2005, 02:48

Sean,

First of all: stay cool.

You can easily check the fly-wheel for a missing tooth with any oscilloscope.
You are located in Raleigh. There are lots of electronics engineers in that city. If you get access to an oscilloscope (preferably handheld and battery operated) and a car lift, I can give you instructions how to tap into the crankshaft sensor cable and through it check the sensor and the flywheel.

The flywheel actually by design has a missing tooth. If two are gone something is wrong. The missing tooth is used as a reference to detect the absolute angular position of the crankshaft. There are another 63 teeth to each detect increments of 1/64 of a full turn.

BTW, could you find out the part-numbers they want to replace in the rear suspension?

About the Nav: is it the main nav unit or the GPS receiver that is gone?
Have you tried to pull the two fuses (located at the rear fuse panel) for the Nav system and leave those out for a couple of hours while the car is parked?

David

sean_w_smith · 8th September 2005, 02:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidS

Sean,

First of all: stay cool.

You can easily check the fly-wheel for a missing tooth with any oscilloscope.
You are located in Raleigh. There are lots of electronics engineers in that city. If you get access to an oscilloscope (preferably handheld and battery operated) and a car lift, I can give you instructions how to tap into the crankshaft sensor cable and through it check the sensor and the flywheel.

The flywheel actually by design has a missing tooth. If two are gone something is wrong. The missing tooth is used as a reference to detect the absolute angular position of the crankshaft. There are another 63 teeth to each detect increments of 1/64 of a full turn.

David

Thanks Dave,

I am a computer engineer have worked in the ASIC business for many years. I worked at cisco for many years and they have lots of scopes. Not sure what might be portable. I will call some buddies tommorow and see if I can scrounge one up. Would certainly appreciate any info or pointers you could provide.

I will fetch the PN's on the rear suspension.

I asked them to try hard resetting the NAV because I didn't know how. Will try that when I get it back. Here's another question. I had the windshield replaced and the SAT NAV broke shortly after. Can't tell you exactly when because I never use thing. Is the Antenna or anything related to the SAT Nav contained in the rear view mirror housing? I was wondering if the GPS antenna was there and maybe they didn't hook the wiring up correctly when they replaced the windshield glass?

Thanks for your reply..

Sean

DavidS · 8th September 2005, 03:13

Great, we are both certified nerds! ;-)

Try to get a Tektronix 700 series, or a Fluke Scopemeter.

You will need one, but preferrably two, insulation displacing (piercing) measuring pins. The ones from Pomona Electronics (Insulation Piercing Clip Kit model 6405) are the best.

You will also need a test-lead to connect to the oscilloscope.

The sensor is easily accessed on the right-hand side of the bellhousing.
You will need to cut a tie-wrap that secures the cable sheath to the sensor connector, back the sheath up, connect to the two wires, crank the engine and capture a trace of a full turn of the crankshaft.

Set the oscilloscope to 500 mV per division and 100 ms per division. Use the Run/Stop button to freeze the oscilloscope image. After you have frozen the trace, expand it (zoom) and scroll through it and examine each pulse for irregularity.

This is most easily done with two or even better three people (one in the car on the lift, one holding the probes and one holding and operating the oscilloscope)

If you see 63 symmetrical pulses, plus one wide gap (missing pulse), then the flywheel and sensor are fine.

When you are done you need to return and secure the sheath to its normal position.

As an alternative, you can remove the connector from the sensor, and measure directly at the sensor pins. It is a variable reluctance coil pickup, so it outputs a voltage on its own. It does not need power to function. If you do this, be careful not to damage the pins on the sensor. On the other hand, the sensor is cheap and easy to replace.

As yet another alternative, you could buy the sensor connector from BMW and build a proper cable, but I think that is a bit of overkill. If you want to do this test on your own, without assistants, this is the way to do it.

David

DavidS · 8th September 2005, 03:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by sean_w_smith

I had the windshield replaced and the SAT NAV broke shortly after. Can't tell you exactly when because I never use thing. Is the Antenna or anything related to the SAT Nav contained in the rear view mirror housing? I was wondering if the GPS antenna was there and maybe they didn't hook the wiring up correctly when they replaced the windshield glass?

The GPS antenna is located under the rear window shelf (where you can put a hat).

David

Stickman · 8th September 2005, 03:30

Hello Sean,
Wow, what a history you've had with your baby! I am so sorry to hear about your problems.

You'll always have a sympathetic audience here to vent with.

I hope everything works out.
Best Wishes,
Alfred

DavidS · 8th September 2005, 03:44

Sean,

BTW it could be as simple as the alignment of the crankshaft sensor. Have a look at

Engine rough when cold, misfires

post #8.

David

sean_w_smith · 8th September 2005, 04:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidS

Sean,

BTW it could be as simple as the alignment of the crankshaft sensor. Have a look at

Engine rough when cold, misfires

post #8.

David

4. Have the dealer check the alignment of the crankshaft sensor. The crankshaft sensor should be located 0.55 +- 0.20 mm from the vanes on the fly-wheel. That is a rather tight tolerance, and it has to be met to make the engine run well under all conditions.

It is rather easy to check the alignment (BMW TIS RA 12 14 520):

1. remove the crankshaft sensor from bellhouse.
2. measure depth from seating plane to teeth on the flywheel.
3. measure distance from seating plane of sensor to front of sensor.
4. measure shims if any.
4. add or remove shims between sensor and bellhouse to get a distance of
0.55 +- 0.2 mm between front of sensor and flywheel teeth.

David

Just read that. Will discuss with the dealer today. They had the sensor replaced and put the original one back on the car. Thanks for all this great info...

Sean

ard · 8th September 2005, 19:40

I'd be pretty upset with all the "cpo doesn't cover it" responses...

On the rear noises- was there a complaint written up on that when the car was still under the original warranty? If so, I would argue it is covered under that warranty and not the current CPO.

Same with the continuing driveability problems....

Good luck getting the froth back on the road!

A

Same with the continuing problems....

KevinM · 8th September 2005, 22:40

Scary stuff...

You certainly have my sympathy and I hope all works out in your favor!