Weird blowing air sound from engine [SOLVED]

[m7ammed]

Got my car last night after it was sitting at the dealer for three months. I was using the car to run some around the city, and was pushing it hard a lot of the time. I was accelerating hard and then suddenly I get the engine light and I turned it off and on it was gone. I heard wooooosh sound under medium acceleration, but when I stopped the car at the house and revved it a bit I couldn't hear it again.

Today drove it to work and then to the dealer, the read the code. When they wanted to drive it inside the battery died, so they got it replaced and cleared all errors, deleted all adaptations and handed me the car back saying to drive it for a 100-150 KM see if any lights or errors come on. The sound is still there.

Here is some info about it:

- Comes only with medium to hard acceleration, if I drive steady it is not present.
- Only comes with load, me and the service guy went out in the car, while cursing at 80 km/h we shifted the gear into N and reved the engine, no sound present in that instance.
- Power delivery of the car seems fine, and I don't feel any lose of power.
- It sounds like if some one was blowing air, and as I make small adjustments with my feet under acceleration you can hear variations in the sound.


Any ideas what it is? if it was something big wouldn't I notice lose in power? or if something was disconnected it would get an error some where?

I will drive the car more, but would love some input on the matter.

[ORIGIN M.]

Something is loose..

Maybe a leak on the intercooler pipes/fittings themselves.

There is a vacuum leak somewhere. You are losing boost pressure.

[Dackelone]

Mohammed - make a video or recording of the sound for us to listen too. It is too hard to figure out whats what without a sound or video clip.

[m7ammed]

Originally Posted by Dackelone

Mohammed - make a video or recording of the sound for us to listen too. It is too hard to figure out whats what without a sound or video clip.

Just recorded some videos on my S3, not sure if the sou d will come through. I will upload them when I get home.

The best way to describe it is its like air sound as if I was doing really high speeds.

[m7ammed]

Already did 110 km on the car no faults. Video links below

[Dackelone]

I bet they left off some sound insulation from under the dashboard when they had your car torn apart. Check under where your feet are to make sure all the pannels are in there. Perhaps they left out some padding or pannels. I seem to remember someone else having an issue like this - when his dashboard was removed for a passenger airbag replacement.

[m7ammed]

Originally Posted by Dackelone

I bet they left off some sound insulation from under the dashboard when they had your car torn apart. Check under where your feet are to make sure all the pannels are in there. Perhaps they left out some padding or pannels. I seem to remember someone else having an issue like this - when his dashboard was removed for a passenger airbag replacement.

Was thinking the same, but the issue is the only removed the glove box area. And all parts when they were off were put in the trunk, and no parts are left uninstalled. Will have to double check and see maybe something isn't installed properly. Also what throw me off is the engine light, but car is pulling really strong makes me doubt there is an issue mechanically. Could I have a problem with hoses and turbo system connection and still get normal power delivery? Another point is this sound comes under acceleration, wouldn't a missing insulation cause the noise all the time?

This is confusing, I've already done 147 KM with a lot of hard pulls in all gears.

[Dackelone]

Originally Posted by m7ammed

Was thinking the same, but the issue is the only removed the glove box area. And all parts when they were off were put in the trunk, and no parts are left uninstalled. Will have to double check and see maybe something isn't installed properly. Also what throw me off is the engine light, but car is pulling really strong makes me doubt there is an issue mechanically. Could I have a problem with hoses and turbo system connection and still get normal power delivery? Another point is this sound comes under acceleration, wouldn't a missing insulation cause the noise all the time?

This is confusing, I've already done 147 KM with a lot of hard pulls in all gears.

Maybe under the hood... check the cowling area to make sure its secure.

I think it is a plug or insulation on the firewall under the dash. One the driver side - in the engine bay there is that "sound generator"... it will make that WOOOSH noise when you accel and lift off.

IF all else fails... just keep driving the car and take it back and have the dealer fix it. I woukd demonstrate the noise to them. Maybe you can also get them to pay or partly cover your broken headlight clips. Seems fishy to me that they are broken now.

That cable that they replaced.... did it run from the starter/Alternator all the way back to the battery right>? Then on the driver side under the dash.... they must have removed some pannels. The tech could have also been bending or leaning over the headlights as he worked on your car. Just saying.

Dack

[m7ammed]

Originally Posted by Dackelone

Maybe under the hood... check the cowling area to make sure its secure.

I think it is a plug or insulation on the firewall under the dash. One the driver side - in the engine bay there is that "sound generator"... it will make that WOOOSH noise when you accel and lift off.

IF all else fails... just keep driving the car and take it back and have the dealer fix it. I woukd demonstrate the noise to them. Maybe you can also get them to pay or partly cover your broken headlight clips. Seems fishy to me that they are broken now.

That cable that they replaced.... did it run from the starter/Alternator all the way back to the battery right>? Then on the driver side under the dash.... they must have removed some pannels. The tech could have also been bending or leaning over the headlights as he worked on your car. Just saying.

Dack

The cable ran from under the glovebox (fuse/distribution box is there) to the rear, and that is why they only removed that half of the dash. I did demonstrate the noise to them, but since the battery died they say the low voltage could make the car behave in a weird way and through errors that don't exist; Thats is why they want me to drive the car and see if the problem goes away. Sound is still there after doing 150 KM.

You can clearly here it the "Test 1" vid at the 0:15 mark and how it goes and comes back when I left the throttle.

Here is a hard pull/launch just to demonstrate how well the car is running.

As for the lights I just gave up and talked to the service manger he implied, that hitting some sort of bump could have broken it. I will epoxy it and just use this as an excuse later to buy LCI headlight when I decide to replace them

[m7ammed]

Just dropped the car off at the dealer, they will check all turbo hoses. Will go back in a couple of hours to see what they find.

[m7ammed]

Just got a call from the dealer, the problem was found. The right side intercooler connection is cracked. Also they noticed there is a small leak in the radiator, so that will need replacing. Hopefully this will be the end of it. I hope this thread helps some people in the future, will try to take pics of the old parts once they take them out. Also it is good to know that there could be problems with piping but the car would not throw a fault code.



On a side note Seems this car was designed to last only for 3 years !!! shame all this stuff came after warranty expired. but at least now I know whats wrong it going be fixed in time for me to use my car on my wedding this Thursday, as I'm going to be driven in it to the wedding hall

[RimasRS]

Originally Posted by m7ammed

Just got a call from the dealer, the problem was found. The right side intercooler connection is cracked. Also they noticed there is a small leak in the radiator, so that will need replacing. Hopefully this will be the end of it. I hope this thread helps some people in the future, will try to take pics of the old parts once they take them out. Also it is good to know that there could be problems with piping but the car would not throw a fault code.



On a side note Seems this car was designed to last only for 3 years !!! shame all this stuff came after warranty expired. but at least now I know whats wrong it going be fixed in time for me to use my car on my wedding this Thursday, as I'm going to be driven in it to the wedding hall

Congrats man...

And thanks for sharing useful info

[Dackelone]

Wow! Cool they found the problem so fast. Very cool that you will be driving your car in your wedding party. Congrats!

[m7ammed]

Originally Posted by Dackelone

Wow! Cool they found the problem so fast. Very cool that you will be driving your car in your wedding party. Congrats!

You don't how much pushing and nagging I had to do, to get it done!!! They are submitting a goodwill request to BMW to see if they would cover it or even part of it, but they told me not to get my hopes up. Parts will come tomorrow afternoon from another branch in the west of the country, so fitting will start on tuesday will post pics of the parts once they are off.

Yeah I love this car so much that I wanted it to be part of my celebration, people over here usually go for big cars (7 series sized) to be driven in to the wedding. I'm doing 1addict style

[Dackelone]

Originally Posted by m7ammed

Yeah I love this car so much that I wanted it to be part of my celebration, people over here usually go for big cars (7 series sized) to be driven in to the wedding. I'm doing 1addict style

^^


Maybe you need to come to Germany for your Honeymoon! BMW Welt and Museum ?

[///Machiavelli]

Originally Posted by Dackelone

^^

Maybe you need to come to Germany for your Honeymoon! BMW Welt and Museum ?

Originally Posted by m7ammed

I did try that lol, but future wife didn't buy any of it ... but she assured that is going to be a trip for the future (ring included !!!).

Good idea Dack! That's exactly what I did! Though the museum was closed on my delivery day we still did the whole Welt, factory tour, 'ring etc etc.

m7ammed: word of advice, don't take the new bride up the Furkastrasse unless you're absolutely sure all the winters snow has melted. Or in your case, hasn't started falling. Trust me, I speak from experience. I should post up that video one day...

[m7ammed]

OK word of advice for people on how to check the piping, all threads I read said to check from the engine bay. The best way is to check it from the engine bay AND from the bottom by removing the under tray. As you can see from pics below no way you could see issue from the top.

Here is the old intercooler while it was installed on the car, do I need to point out what's wrong?


New intercooler


Car is going to finish tomorrow afternoon.

[Dackelone]

So the pipe that cracked was your intercooler end cap? wow! I don't think I have ever seen that before.

[m7ammed]

Originally Posted by Dackelone

So the pipe that cracked was your intercooler end cap? wow! I don't think I have ever seen that before.

I'm hoping BMW says the same thing, and cover some of the costs. They did cover 70% of the electrical cable/fuse box costs, so here is to hoping.

Also note to everybody, my car is totally stock engine wise since brand new and has done, 108K KM when this happened. I wonder if sitting idle for 3 months then being pushed has allowed this to happen.

[benc0151]

Wow I hope i can find out that my issue is something similar. My mechanic who is meant to be an expert has so far replaced the turbo, egr valve, full intake de coke and removed cleaned the dpf and reset all engine fault codes , he said everything was reading correctly but it has no guts at all just doesnt go, i was miffed i can here the loudest whhoooossh sound from the cockpit coming from the engine bay , car hesitates , just doesnt accelerate like it should do at all, it sounds very similar to this, im hoping it is , its now gone to another garage for a second opinion

Originally Posted by m7ammed

Just got a call from the dealer, the problem was found. The right side intercooler connection is cracked. Also they noticed there is a small leak in the radiator, so that will need replacing. Hopefully this will be the end of it. I hope this thread helps some people in the future, will try to take pics of the old parts once they take them out. Also it is good to know that there could be problems with piping but the car would not throw a fault code.



On a side note Seems this car was designed to last only for 3 years !!! shame all this stuff came after warranty expired. but at least now I know whats wrong it going be fixed in time for me to use my car on my wedding this Thursday, as I'm going to be driven in it to the wedding hall

[christofis135i]

Old thread, hopefully someone can give me some advice with this noise. Under partial throttle.

[ssaint135]

Originally Posted by christofis135i

Old thread, hopefully someone can give me some advice with this noise. Under partial throttle.

Sounds like the smaller turbo for the twin scroll is boosting up. Is it always so audible?