Possibly leaking fuel injectors - Car Storage?

[Elias_N54]

Hi Everyone.

Brand new to bmw and the n54 platform.

I just purchased the car and all was well, but after a few days I sometimes get really bad cold starts with lots of fuel smell, dark ish smoke at the start, and the car is shaky.

I have tried to gather as much information as possible, and I suppose it will probably be one or more leaky injectors.

Im getting a code reader next week and will pull the codes, the CEL has only come up once out of 4 bad cold starts.

The idle settles and the car seems to work fine after a while, and since im new to the car i cant tell if i have lost power when doing pulls, but im driving it easy now to not damage the engine if possible.

Im going to check the sparkplugs for wet tips and fuel smell today or tomorrow.

My concern is that if I do have to replace injectors, I would need to store the car to save up money. Will this hydrolock my engine or will the injectors not leak enough to the point that becomes a problem? Also if it could, would it be fine to just do an oil change before startup after repair and the fuel would be washed out? I am not very mechanically inclined but willing to do these swaps myself as they dont seem too difficult, but the cost of injectors and tools are too much at this moment.

Thanks in advance
WBR Elias

[Converted1]

Good idea to check the plugs it will let you know what cylinder injectors in are leaking. You can change just those injectors but you will likely have problems with the new ones. Index 12 seem to have solved the problem but they are very pricey. Go to the classifieds there is a forumite that sells them for a more reasonable amount. You will need to code them and that will require INPA and a laptop. Yes change the oil and plugs.

There’s a good chance you will also need to change the High pressure fuel pump in the near future. It is also expensive. Stay far away from the rebuilds.

N54s are not for the faint of hear or wallet. Mine only has 60K and it needs this stuff.

[ZHPizza]

It won't continuously leak fuel into the cylinders - just until the fuel rail is no longer pressurized. No concerns with long term damage from sitting.

[ShocknAwe]

Best to get a logging suite and see if STFT is running grossly negative over -10% and if AFR fails to go full lean when letting off throttle.

Symptoms do sound like leaking injectors and residual fuel burn off on start.

No real harm on pump gas if the DME is able to correct for the leak (small leak). But good practice to replace them with new index 12s from BMW if they're leaking.