WHAT THE HECK?! Please Tell Me I'm Not Alone . . .

Well, I feel like a complete moron now.

As many of you already know, I recently come into ownership of a 1986 BMW 325ES. Beautiful car, a little rough around the edges, but such is life, right? Right!

Anyway, I won't take too long with this, but the long and short of it is, my car was running EXCEPTIONALLY ROUGH! It would idle poorly, die unexpectedly, bog when trying to rev the engine and die/bog and hesitate horribly when trying to drive it.

I went through replacing all of the regular maintenance parts (plugs, wires, filters, fluids) with exception to the fuel filter. The reason I didn't change the fuel filter is because I knew the gas was old, but I didn't know to what extent.

My mechanic friend stopped by and was like, "What smells like old Chevy?" I said, it's probably that exhaust, it smells funky for some reason. He advised me that it was the high water content in the gas, and he pointed out the large collection of water in the muffler tip from the steam coming out.

I acknowledged this and he mentioned that my car is most likely running poorly because of said gas. I agreed it may have something to do, but my luck is that if it's an expensive fix, it's what I'll have to do.

AT ANY RATE!!!!

I followed his advice, drove the car until it was coasting on fumes and wanted to die. Filled it up with 93 (well, he said any grade, but I chose 93) and it now runs like a TOP!

I'm in awe!

Is this just luck? Or is this really a valid 20 dollar fix? I was ready to swap the head, the motor, the ignition system, whatever it took! 20 bucks (20.03 to be exact) later, and it runs like it did probably 190 thousand miles ago.

Also, am I alone on this? Has anyone else ever had something that they thought was going to be a CRAZY expensive fix but turned out to be something stupid and simple?

OR!

Has anyone ever had a friend/mechanic/relative tell them that it was something simple, they didn't want to believe it, but did it just to "humor" them and it turned out to be what was wrong? Have any of you ever done that to anyone else?

DISCUSS and JANK!

-Dave

The best advice Dad ever gave me:

Check the easy stuff first.

I was doing a little routine maintenance on my 99 G20...oil change etc, and had the air box apart to change the air filter. I sat the top half on the strut tower, and bumped it off. The car was on stands, so the piece fell several feet down to the concrete, and it cracked the hosing on the MAF. I put everything back together hoping there was no real mechanical damage. Sure as E36 M3, my check engine light was on, but the car ran ok...not great, but OK. A quick trip to snot-o-zone and a code scanner later, I learned my car threw a code for "an air control/emissions sensor". So I pulled every sensor along the intake and plugged em all back in, still the ses light. Pulled my O2 sensors and checked them out, but they both were fine.

Damn, think I need a new MAF... so I call infiniti...$675...NAPAutoVance ~$480...Ebay ~75 for some seriously crusty looking offerings (compared to mine that looks nearly new despite being 10 years old...thank goodness some people - like my cars previous owner, my MIL- still use their garages to hold cars and not 4 kids worth of sports gear )

So Im about to drop some coin one way or another on this damn MAF. As last ditch effort, I search a G20 enthusiast forum (G20.net) and was told a possible fix might be to reset the ECU using a little screw on the side of the computer.

Long and short, light is out, and now the car runs better than it did before. The ECU "learns" how its owner drives and sets the fuel map etc as such. Well, Im a bit lead footed, and so now it knows WOT is a favorite setting of mine. Sure glad not all car forums are full of stupid chuck norris jokes and political banter...

Just kidding...I love this forum...but seriously...

The day I bought my SE-R, I thought it had starter issues, but I didn't notice this till I was hundreds of miles from the guy I bought it from. Basically, I stopped for gas, and when I went to start the car, it wouldn't turn over. So I had the car push started 4 times in the course of my trip from Atlanta to Ann Arbor. I dunno why it didn't occur to me to ask the guy I bought the car from. I guess I felt slighted cause he failed to mention I might run into that issue. Anyway, I'm posting my woes on to the forum I bought the car from, and the former owner comes on and tells me that I have to ensure that the floor mat is not getting under the clutch pedal, or I won't be able to start up. Free fix.

Black Stig wrote: My mechanic friend stopped by and was like, "What smells like old Chevy?" I said, it's probably that exhaust, it smells funky for some reason. He advised me that it was the high water content in the gas, and he pointed out the large collection of water in the muffler tip from the steam coming out. I acknowledged this and he mentioned that my car is most likely running poorly because of said gas. I agreed it may have something to do, but my luck is that if it's an expensive fix, it's what I'll have to do.

while the poor running was certainly due to the skanky old gasoline, the steam collecting in the tailpipe only marginally related to potential water content in the fuel.

gasoline is a blend of many hydrocarbons, each with a different vaporization temperature and burn rate. gas is blended this way so that it will allow combustion (ie cold-start) across a broad range of ambient temperatures. the HC with the lowest vaporization temp is critical to getting a dead-cold engine started in winter. unfortunately, it is also the first ingredient to evaporate away when a car is parked for a while with gas in the tank. so now the quickest-burning ingredient is no longer present, and your spark advance curve is no longer correct for burning the fuel without that low-temp HC in it. i imagine there's also some octane drop as a result of the lack of that low-temp HC, but i'm not certain of that. so that's why old gas makes cars sluggish and possibly hard to start.

but consider the equation for burning hydrocarbons with atmospheric air (i didn't balance the equation because for this discussion it is only the elements that are important, not their exact amounts):

HC + n2 + o2 ---> h2o + co2 + nox + co + heat

so, water is indeed a byproduct of combustion of hydrocarbons, and the moisture seen in your tailpipe was due to the hot steam in the exhaust condensing on the cold steel.

FWIW, my old 944 ran poorly when i first picked it up, and it had a half-tank of 4-year-old gas. i didn't burn it to empty, rather i filled it up with 93 so it was about 50/50. as soon as the 50/50 blend got to the injectors, the car started running better. next time it got down to half, i filled it again with 93, so the blend was 75/25. again, the improvement was noticeable. cold-start was better, idle was smoother, power was increased. and yes, the exhaust was less stinky.

After having my first neon for 6 months, it started running rough, loosing cylinders and such. I startedlooking things up, plugs and wires where bad I also tested the coil, WAY out of spec on resistance. Get the new parts and I felt like testing the new coil, still Way out of spec... I forgot to get a baseline reading of the resistance in the leads. turns out it was spot on in the first place.

After I get it all back together, it wouldn't start. So i try to push start it down the drive way, still nothing. After it is stuck at the bottom of the drive way I check back under the hood. I forgot to plug the coil back in.

Still not as bad as my sisters Explorer. Thing had some serious electricle gremlins the affected drivability. Turns out it was hacked together from E.B. edition, ranger, and mazda parts. In the end all it needed was a single 15 amp mini fuse

What's wrong with how old Chevy's smell!!??

Ranger with bad idle Check this out and tell me what you guys, and assorted gals, think?

Best cheap fix for a bad problem I ever came across was after I got my FREE 96 Mazda B 3000. Had a tank of 2 year old bad gas that boogered up the fuel pump. Now my free truck has cost me 500.00. Drove it back home and lost oil pressure totally. Pulled off I-95, sat for a few minutes, started it up, oil pressure is back. Got almost home, pressure goes again. All the experts said pull the pan, oil pump gone. One bright soul (I think on here!) suggested removing the oil filter, blowing compressed air thru the center feed, see if that clears out a blockage. I did, it did. Hoo Rah!! Cheap fix.

Datsun1500 wrote: I used to be into VW's pretty bad. I got a call from a guy that was fed up with his 67 Bus not starting after an engine rebuild. He told me I could have it for $200. This was a very nice split window bus, great paint, interior, etc. I figured worse case put another motor in it (it was worth it). When looking at it to see about towing it home I noticed the rotor sitting on the motor. I picked it up and asked if he forgot something? Put the rotor in and it fired right up. He told me I could still have it for $200, a deal is a deal. I told him if he was going to drive it, keep it, but let me know if he ever wanted to sell it. 2 years later he called and said he was moving to Europe and since I did not try and screw him last time, come get it for free. This was in 1988 and I figure the bus was worth about $6-7K...

Karma is real. :)

My most embarrassing moment is small-engine related. I took a riding lawnmower I'd kept having trouble with to the mower shop and said "fix it, call me if it costs more than $100."

He called the next afternoon to let me know it was out of gas. I made my wife go pick it up.

The clock in my Wife's Odyssey stopped working....not a big deal to me, but it was to her. I started thinking about how to fix it, or how much crap I would have to take apart when I searched the Ody Club forum for possible remedies.

It was something like: " take your hand and make fist, at the point where the plastic slopes down on the right hand side of the clock....hit it."

It worked.

JFX001 wrote: The clock in my Wife's Odyssey stopped working....not a big deal to me, but it was to her. I started thinking about how to fix it, or how much crap I would have to take apart when I search the Ody Club forum for possible remedies. It was something like: " take your hand and make fist, at the point where the plastic slopes down on the right hand side of the clock....hit it." It worked.

EPIC!

LMAO! I spit out my Mountain Dew on that one, DAMN YOU! LOL!

That's an awesome fix!

This happens often..I usually get them when the previous owner has given up or are unwilling to proceed.

Ranger pickup with a bad rod was a hole in the oil filter. Bad trans in an Escort was a missing bushing. Thunderbird with a bad fuel pump was really a tripped inertia switch. Ranger with a bad trans was a broken shifter part (free from the junkyard). Grand Am needing new ignition modules became a shot of injector cleaner. Miata with a bad leaking rear seal was a cam sensor O-ring. Free riding mower that had a dirty switch on the Engage/Diengage lever.

Corroded connection at the starter... Bad battery.... Dirt Dauber (ask any southerner) nest on a driveshaft..

A favorite is the Honda that had $800 worth of work done and finally abandoned to my brother. A piece of a label had come off something and blocked a vent hole effectively shutting off the fuel flow in the carb.

My rule has always been "Check the cheap stuff first" and "find what's broke and fix it".

Bruce

Also, am I alone on this? Has anyone else ever had something that they thought was going to be a CRAZY expensive fix but turned out to be something stupid and simple?

It has happened more often than anyone can imagine. Just for an example there was a thread mentioning another E30 where Terrible And Expensive Problems were forecast only to have the culprit be a "$12 Bosch relay" (probably the main relay)...

when i worked at autozone, i had seen this guy in the store a few times, but never dealt with him. i guess i just figured he was another guy fixing up an older truck that had issues. one day i ended up helping him, and found out what issues he was having. the issue seemed like a bad starter, but he had just replaced the starter, and it had been tested good before he bought it as well. battery? just replaced that too. so i have him try and crank it while the hood is open so i can hear/see whats going on, and i see smoke come up from behind the passenger side head. turns out the VC had been leaking on the inake side, and the oil was pooling up and running down the back of the head, and had rotted out the ground strap. replace that with a 3.99 peice from the Help! section and its good to go. the guy was ecstatic

I got free 1990 ford Escort GT that wouldn't run. I noticed that there was a smell of gas when the car sat in the driveway. I looked underneath and the fuel lines were rusted out. I, and a friend, replaced the hard line with 25PSI hose from autozone that was 99 cents a foot and replaced the fuel filter. Car ran fine, even on the old gas that was in it.

My buddy bought a big boat that needed fiberglass and fuel tank work. Tank had over 80 gallons of old gas in it. He didn't want anything to do with it and was glad to give it to me. He even bought a bunch of jugs. I didn't have the nuts to put it in my vehicles, but my mowers/trimmers/dirtbikes ran on the stuff for over a year with no problems.

neon4891 wrote: Ranger with bad idle Check this out and tell me what you guys, and assorted gals, think?

ohh man..

a 4cylinder 4x4 ranger.. Thats a rare bird and a good deal.. The 2.3 should be an easy engine to get should it need a new one.

I would buy it.

ignorant wrote:

neon4891 wrote: Ranger with bad idle Check this out and tell me what you guys, and assorted gals, think?

ohh man.. a 4cylinder 4x4 ranger.. Thats a rare bird and a good deal.. The 2.3 should be an easy engine to get should it need a new one. I would buy it.

ARGGG!!! Mother berkeleyer, I cant evenconsider anything till my returns get in next week

If you have a tank of old gas (which to me smells like an old MG, not a Chevy, but that could have something to do with what's in my garage right now), go find an old Series Land Rover owner. Those trucks will run on brown water and the owners are so cheap they squeak.

Neon...

If it is a MAP sensor it will straighten up and run if you unplug the electrical connection. Doesnt really sound like a bad MAP though may have jumped time...not a contact motor so no big deal as said before.

My MAP sensor story...

A good friend of the family had an 89 ranger xlt with a 2.9l v6. Had it maybe a year and both head gaskets blew. He deiced while he had the motor tore down to fix it up! (He is a mechanic at a local honda dealership and was able to tear it down in the corner of the shop) Had the block bored .6 over, keith black pistons, cam, the whole package...put it together and drove it for maybe a month. He had to be away for training for a full week, so while he was away the truck set. When he came back it wouldnt start. He got fed up with it and offered it to me an my dad for $300...un pluged the MAP sensor and it ran! We ended up with it, the thing ran like a demon, but about 6 months into it the head gaskets let go again

My father was selling a Rambler American once upon a time because his mechanic told him it needed a new ring gear on the flywheel. A guy came to look at it, said it was a very nice car, just not exactly what he was looking for right now. He also told Dad that he would have an easier time selling it if he tightened up the two bolts holding the starter on, that's what makes that noise.

Oy.....

Datsun pickup with a hard misfire on one cylinder: we spent all afternoon farting around with it, checking for bad plug wires, misadjusted valves, sucked intake gasket etc. Owner swore the points were less than a month old so didn't check them right off the bat. I finally pulled the cap and checked, the points had closed up so that there was only about .003 point gap on 3 of the lobes, the fourth one was worn just enough so the points wouldn't open. Talk about embarrasing...

Had a '91 Rodeo 3.1 GM V6 and 5 speed in the shop once with a complaint of the starter just spinning and not turning the motor but on an intermittent basis. Bad starter, right? Replaced it. Four days later, back in with the same complaint. Couldn't get it to do it. We kept it for 3 or 4 days, it finally did it. It wasn't the starter. When it got cold enough, the press-on ring gear was spinning on the flywheel.

Lacy, my Miata, was running horribly below 2,000 RPMs. It would backfire and spit and go nuts when I got on the gas. It happened overnight, so I didn't think it was something simple. I was ready to tear the thing apart (it even had new plugs!). A friend of mine recommended that I pull my head out of my rear and replace the damned plug wires (as he had been suggesting since I bought the car). A trip to Advance Auto, three minutes, and 20 dollars later she was running like a champ!

Replacing plug wires is the #1 fix to all problems on a NA or early NB Miata. Not sure on the later NBs. I try to keep a set of new NGK wires around for just this reason. Also, I often keep old wires that test good, as they often work ok on different Miatas. Even if they last long enough for someone to get home from an event, or until they can procure a new set, well, it's better than paying for a tow.

And I've never found plugs that last longer than the blue NGK. There are some out there that cost 4 times as much that are reputed to last longer, but most people that I know who have tried them say that they might last twice as long. Financially, I don't see it making sense, as it real quick to swap them out.

Edit: So, I open this thread, and I was thinking that the above post about the Miata was the first post. Doh!