M42club.com - Home of the BMW E30/E36 318i/iS
DISCUSSION => Electrical => Topic started by: Majikal on January 11, 2008, 03:33:50 PM
-
I went out to go home from work, and the car wont start. I looked around and saw some wires hanging under the front bumper, actually OUT from under the bumper near the drivers side fog. A brown wire and a blue wire. The blue wire has a boot connector on the end, the brown wire is disconnected in a way that looks like it was TORN from a sensor or something. Does anybody know what sensor this is that Im talking about. The car wont start now and my car is going to be stranded at work.
-
The only sensor the car has down there is the exterior temp sensor, and the car will run fine without it. I can't really help with the other part without knowing more. How cold is it, is the car cranking, etc.
-
The car cranks, all lights and everything come on. The battery is fully charged. Ive been having a problem recently (posted recently), with the car stuttering at certain RPMs throughout every gear and not allowing me to pass that RPM, whatever it may be at the time. When the weather warmed up, that went away, so I figured it was the cold weather making something malfunction. It was warm today, but it was raining, and it started happening on my way to work again where it would jump at certain RPMs, and it would stall at idle. I got to work, went out after work to go home, and it started, then stalled, and now it wont start again.
I checked other harnesses under the front, and all seem to be intact except for that ambient temp sensor. I thought that's what it was, and figured it had nothing to do with the starting issue, but now that it wont start and the sensor is completely gone, I figured Id ask if it was related. I dont know what the hells wrong with this thing. Faulty Coils?
-
e30s work well in temperature below freezing. i had my old rusty one running without problems at -23Celsius (-9.4F) few days ago.
chances are if you have a problem when its cold out, the problem remains when warm, it might just not show as much.
i would say you have an ECU problem or a fuel delivery problem
probably more ECU since you said you had a shuttering issue at 3500. your ECU might be fried but i can only guess.
appart from that you can check the basics: fuel pressure and spark...
-
checked fuel, thats good. Im leaning and HOPING towards ignition coil.
-
check if you have a spark
from another webiste: « pull the wire off of the plug, stick a screwdriver into the end and, while holding the plastic handle, move the screwdriver so that the metal part is close to a piece of bare metal on the engine. Then get someone to crank the engine. If there is good spark you should see a spark jump from the driver to the metal. »
i have seen mechanics doing it with a grounded modified spark plug as well
-
checked spark at the plugs, work good while cranking, but the problem was that the car would start and die, then wouldnt start. I dunno man. i just dont know.
-
how's you ICV? does the engine start if you press down the throttle?
-
tried the WOT trick, didnt work.
-
fuel filter?
fuel pump?
I would bet on the first.
When was the last time you replaced it? Also is it actually cold here? its been super warm here the last few days. If you had low fuel you could have had alot of condensation formation and perhaps icing in the fuel line. Just a thought.
Holy trinity, air, fuel, spark. You have spark, i assume you have air. So... check fuel.
-
My girlfriends father suggested fuel filter also. Im purchasing one tomorrow and trying that out.
-
didn't you said earlier that your fuel pressure was fine? or was this at the pump?
-
was at the pump.
-
crank posistion sensor, my car wouldnt start one time either, so i checked the resistance of this piece, and compared to my sisters car (same car) it was way off, i forget w hat the resistance is supposed to be maybe up in the millions? but mine was way less than that, i changed the CPS and everything worked fine.
-
Thats what my mechanic suggested. I was going to order one from pelican but they only list a camshaft position sensor... I might end up changing both. Reading my repair manual it says if the Cam Sensor is bad, the ECM will not know when to deliver spark or fuel to the engine... that sounds like its spot on.
Im going to try to find somebody with an Ohmeter and check the sensors... I hope thats it.