"Service Engine Soon" light flashing

brutus · 1st August 2000, 23:53

On my way back from lunch today went to accelerate on a green light and felt like it was running on 4 cylinders and the "Service Engine Soon" light was flashing intermitent, was a few miles from a BMW dealership, on the way there it continued to run like it was on 4 cylinders and the light continued to flash.

They (Allison BMW in Mt. View, CA) said they will look at in the next couple of days and schedule it for the recall update of the engine managment firmware.

I seem to remember another owner having the same problem, couldn't seem to find it using the search, anybody remember ?

M5'less in Sunnyvale ... Brutus.

bobafett · 2nd August 2000, 07:35

It was me, but it wasn't flashing. I know it wasn't the gas cap, although that's what they (Peter Pan BMW of San Mateo) told me the first time. They didn't elaborate after upgrade for recall. Works tho.

--Dan

BrianC · 2nd August 2000, 08:06

I had that one before, around 5000km or so.
Dunno why it happened but then I lift the hood and checked my oil and realized I was below the LOW line.
Rushed to a close-by dealership and added 2 bottles of engine oil. The light stopped flashing, in fact, it went.
As to why the OBC didn't report LOW ENGINE OIL but rather had the check engine light flashing, up till this day, is still a mystery to me.....

brutus · 2nd August 2000, 19:32

Humm, didn't check the oil before dropping it off at the dealer and I must admit I've become somewhat dependent on the "check oil" message but it has only been ~~ 300 miles since I last added oil and it was the engine running like it only had 4 cylinders which was the cuase of concern.

Guess I'll just have to what til the dealer gets a chance to look at it ...

Brutus.

jkleb · 2nd August 2000, 20:17

I believe that the person whose car did this needed to have an oxygen sensor replaced. I think the message title was something like "I think I blew up my car"

brutus · 3rd August 2000, 03:15

Just picked my M5 up from the dealer, only a little over 24 hours !!!

When the tech got to it the next day the problem had gone away (i.e. the miss), there were a large number of missfire faults for #2 so in addition to doing the DME firmware update he switch plugs between 1 and 2 and coils between 2 and 3 in case it comes back.

Went for a test drive on 92 Octane, same as before, just not as much acceleration as i'd expect, topped off with 100 Octane (3 USG) which would rase the Octane to ~~ 93.2 and the difference was very noticable.

So I guess my M5 just likes higher Octane than the standard 92 we get here in the San Francisco Bay area ?

Brutus.

amfung · 3rd August 2000, 08:03

Check the archive. If I remember correctly, it has something to do with the crankshaft sensor, not low oil. A malfunction crankshaft sensor would "fake" the ECU to register cylinder misfire(s) and activate "check engine soon" light. I had this happened to me once but the problem went away as soon as I did a "reset" to the ECU.