Yet another no crank - no start thread

[flerkis]

Hello friends

New e88 owner here. I'm a veteran of the e46 - having owned 4 of them, one of which was an engine-out manual swap (1999 sedan) - so I'm kinda familiar with BMW's.

BUT - my neighbor parked his 2008 135i, (88k miles with a complete service history), automatic convertible and went to start it and, well, no crank, no start. So naturally I bought it thinking "sure I can fix this car and drive the crap out of it."

He replaced the battery with an AutoZone battery but no joy.

So far, I've replaced the relay, the distribution box and the starter but still "no start, no crank."

In the service history the IBS connector was done under warranty a few years back and the High-Pressure fuel pump was also done in 2019.

Looking for some guidance here - what can I be missing on this thing? It's dirty and I need to window-weld the glass back into the top but must get it started first.

Can it be a battery-coding thing? Since he popped the factory one out and put in a new one (I've charged the factory one and it seems to be fine), could that prevent it from starting?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Any other data points I should be sharing?

[MightyMouseTech]

Originally Posted by flerkis

Hello friends

New e88 owner here. I'm a veteran of the e46 - having owned 4 of them, one of which was an engine-out manual swap (1999 sedan) - so I'm kinda familiar with BMW's.

BUT - my neighbor parked his 2008 135i, (88k miles with a complete service history), automatic convertible and went to start it and, well, no crank, no start. So naturally I bought it thinking "sure I can fix this car and drive the crap out of it."

He replaced the battery with an AutoZone battery but no joy.

So far, I've replaced the relay, the distribution box and the starter but still "no start, no crank."

In the service history the IBS connector was done under warranty a few years back and the High-Pressure fuel pump was also done in 2019.

Looking for some guidance here - what can I be missing on this thing? It's dirty and I need to window-weld the glass back into the top but must get it started first.

Can it be a battery-coding thing? Since he popped the factory one out and put in a new one (I've charged the factory one and it seems to be fine), could that prevent it from starting?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Any other data points I should be sharing?

First thing to check is always the main ground strap near the the drivers side engine mount.

[Converted1]

Car might not think it’s in neutral or brake applied. Fiddle those things a bit

[WilsoN55]

I recently bought a 135i and immediately noticed a weak start but couldn't find any engine codes and was just a bit baffled.. it eventually ended up in a no start situation and when I dug deeper I found that the starter cable was severed (corrosion/movement?) at the firewall connection, replacement cable was $140 from dealer, changed myself, no further issues. Might be worth looking into.

[flerkis]

Turned out to be the ground strap. Thanks for the assistance.

Now, to find out what the "check engine - reduced power" light is all about....

[dtla1]

Originally Posted by flerkis

Turned out to be the ground strap. Thanks for the assistance.

Now, to find out what the "check engine - reduced power" light is all about....

I would say most common either dying HPFP (car doesn't get enough fuel and goes into a limp mode), but since recently replaced, maybe not, Or a cracked charge pipe, tends to crack near the throttle body because it's plastic under pressure and the engine want's to move stressing it here, the cracking results in less air getting to it and it'll usually idle a bit weird as well. Or maybe even a failing/failed water pump (google it but it's an electric water pump and plastic thermostat housing that are known to fail)

Or it's just a leftover code from the ground/electrical issues.

[Maurtis]

We just got our 2008 135i vert from the shop that was having a no crank - no start issue. The start button would give a single "chunk" when pressed, but nothing more.

The battery was only two years old (OEM replacement from the dealership) and the car is driven daily, so figured that was probably not the issue. The independent repair shop I took it to replaced the battery anyway and she seemed to start fine, so back home I went. The next morning she would not start again, so the battery was not the issue. I called the repair shop and they said they "probably" load tested my old battery and it failed but could not find the test paperwork... they are on my no-go list now. So off to a BMW specialist we went.

The first thing the specialist checked was the ground cables, but those were all good. Signal tracing ended up showing a bad CAS module. They said there were no codes thrown to indicate the CAS was bad, which made the debugging process take that much longer. We had that replaced and she is up and running again!