[wu852]

Has anyone had this problem... I drove from pittsburgh to Boston today and on the way, my car sometimes just turned off by itself. I would b driving then i shift the car into neutral ( have a manual). and before i know it, the service engine soon light turns on and the power steering is off, etc etc. I have to restart the car before everything gets back to normal but after a while, it will happen again. Happaned about 3 or 4 times on the drive up. Any ideas or suggestions?
thanks

[wu852]

also should I be concerned? is it safe to drive back to pittsburgh...? I dont feel that safe. for example when turning off a ramp, suddenly the powersteering disengaged and i almost couldnt make the turn off the ramp... kinda dangerous....

[shimshimhada]

Why are you putting the car into neutral turning off a ramp? Or do you mean when you pass through neutral?

Doesn't sound normal though. I would take it slow, if you need to keep driving.

[wu852]

sometimes when cruising i put it in neutral....its quieter if you change the exhaust like i did... lol but yeh. is that normal? It seems like the the car is stalling without actually stalling, just the aftereffect of stalling

[shimshimhada]

lol, you shouldn't be putting the car into neutral at higher speeds. Just keep it in gear, and that's not normal.

[difush]

I have an automatic and it never happen to me. I say its very dangerous to have the engine stalled when driving. It happened my dad's Merc. before, I was going down a pretty steep hill and the engine stalled. Its not just the power steering, the power brakes also went and the stopping distance, I would say more than doubled. It a fortunate thing that there were no cars in front.

For the Merc., the dealer told us that it has a faulty engine management computer or something and they change it and the problem was gone.

[David328M-Sport]

Sounds potentially deadly. Being intermittent may cause some fault finding issues but maybe the service computer can delve deep into the ECU and extract the suitable info.

Be safe and let your dealer know as soon as you can.

All the best.

[stack]

Mine did that when I got some bad Gas. I had to have the car towed and the tank drained. That kind of stuff always happen when you are out of town. I couldn't get the gas station to return any of my calls and I was not going to drive 6 hours back there so in the end it cost me $400 to be fixed

stack

[clutch09]

Yo WU,
Walk Back.

Sounds pretty serious man, have you given Alex a call? Call if you need anything. The above post makes some sense, when did the car first start stalling?

[Driv3r]

Originally Posted by wu852

Has anyone had this problem... I drove from pittsburgh to Boston today and on the way, my car sometimes just turned off by itself. I would b driving then i shift the car into neutral ( have a manual). and before i know it, the service engine soon light turns on and the power steering is off, etc etc. I have to restart the car before everything gets back to normal but after a while, it will happen again. Happaned about 3 or 4 times on the drive up. Any ideas or suggestions?
thanks

Oh dang....you have an exhaust too and this happens to you too?! (i have Eisenmann)
-I have a manual and while i was on the highway i do the same as you and occasionally coast in neutral.. while doing this my car suddenly turns off and wheel stiffens, it was pretty scary. One time while i was on the highway, it shut down and so i had to time to react, i just popped it into a gear and the engine came back alive...im worried about this problem too...if you get it solved let us know..

[sblument]

if that happened to my car I would take it to the nearest BMW center and have it looked at, immediately. Sounds dangerous.

[sblument]

uuh, assuming you've got enough gas, haha

[wu852]

yeah its really shady... i can reproduce the problem everytime now... what happnes is if im driving and i shift to neutral and let teh car just roll.... the rpm needle kidna goes bazurk for a while and then stops at 0 rpms.... the service engine light turns on.... and the power steering breaks etc dont work.... this is potentially very dangerous and dont know if i should be talking to BMWNA about this.....

[wu852]

o i forgot the rpm needle starts to go crazy when im rolling and i start to apply the breaks... then everything goes nuts...

[ages944]

crud.

This sounds just like a problem that a lot of the E46 owners are experiencing with their Vanos systems. Do you by chance have a really rough idle with erratic RPMs, or do your problems only appear while in motion?

Whatever the case, the dealer needs to see the car ASAP, imo.

[wu852]

happens only while in motion...... no idea whats going on. iv had this car since last august and this is the 1st real problem iv had... bringing it to the dealer first thing in the morning.

[wu852]

so i just got a call from the dealeship and they claim theres no problem wiht the engine... they were unwilling to run more diagnostics until i put my stock air box in. Does anyone thingk the fujita intake could really contribute to this.... as of now i guess i have to put the stock box in and bring it back to the dealership...........

[ages944]

lol, that sounds a bit retarded to me. I thought the whole point of aftermarket airboxes was to allow for more airflow.... It also sounds retarded to me since you don't seem to have mods that are any different than half of the other ppl on this board.

that being said, dealerships can be a PITA that way. I would change your airbox back to stock, but I can see the next line being "We won't do anything till you change your exhaust back to stock..."

either way, good luck with it all, and keep up posted.

[Lucid4000]

What was the out come of the problem?

[RyBMW]

Originally Posted by wu852

so i just got a call from the dealeship and they claim theres no problem wiht the engine... they were unwilling to run more diagnostics until i put my stock air box in. Does anyone thingk the fujita intake could really contribute to this.... as of now i guess i have to put the stock box in and bring it back to the dealership...........

This problem was happening to some G35 coupe owners also. The cause of the problem was the aftermarket intake. It was only this one brand of intake that was causing the problem.

How long had you have your intake installed? Try removing the intake and put the stock air box in and see if the problem still exists.

[MIKEYMIKE]

Originally Posted by wu852

so i just got a call from the dealeship and they claim theres no problem wiht the engine... they were unwilling to run more diagnostics until i put my stock air box in. Does anyone thingk the fujita intake could really contribute to this.... as of now i guess i have to put the stock box in and bring it back to the dealership...........

Ahhhhhhh, so you have an intake.

Well, I know for a fact a lot of guys with G35's were having their engines going out on them when they had cold air intakes installed.

Turned out the intake was getting so much air at higher speeds it was causing the engine to stall out. The remedy was to put a windshield on there so the wind wouldn't hit it straight on...or just remove it.

[Alex@TAG]

anyone still having this problem?

they hadto replace my ENTIRE Vanos system about 2 months ago, engine cut out on the freeway, then once i got it running again, it was powered down bigtime and constantly stalled.

they replaced the vanos unit, then 3 months later (this weekend) im driving on the highway, shuts down, service engine soon (chk engine) comes on, and is powered down. I pull over, turn it off. once back on, the car runs ok just a bit in limp mode, then yesterday, i start the car, and its fine feels strong as ever but now its guzzling gas like its its job! i went thru a quarter tank in under 35 miles...