Hesitation / kangarooing when cold

D

David-H

Senior member
 Prees, Shropshire
As the topic says, I sometimes get a weird surging / kangarooing when the engine's cold so tomorrow morning it's going into the dealer's as I have requested that they reflash it to the latest version for the DME (under guarantee).

I await to see what they say as they say that they will probably need it for most of the day to carry out 'extensive checks' and to read the error codes before they can decide what to do. :roll:

I'm hoping that they will just get on and upload the latest version but if push comes to shove may just get them to do it and pay for it myself.
 
Maybe I'm just lucky but, touch wood, never had anything like this problem - and there are quite a few threads on jumpiness when starting. I can induce it to happen, sure - that's what the sport button is for, isn't it? Do you turn your car on and just let it sit running at idle for, say, 5 mins before you drive it anywhere? I do, perhaps others don't and perhaps this wouldn't clear your fault in any event - I just like to think that - especially on shortish trips - the warm-up helps. And a few quiet words to the old gal ofc...
Stevo
 
Its a bit grumpy from cold but soon sorts itself out. Always seemed worse for kangarooing on the reformulated vpower; does it very rarely on Tesco 99 or BP Ultimate.


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Feedback at the dealer's is that there are no fault codes and the chief mechanic has taken it out and thinks that everything's OK.

However, at my insistence they checked with BMW and have now got approval fot the car to be re-coded under warranty. :thumbsup:
 
Adam D said:
Its a bit grumpy from cold but soon sorts itself out. Always seemed worse for kangarooing on the reformulated vpower; does it very rarely on Tesco 99 or BP Ultimate.
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'Grumpy' is a good word for it - easy to kangaroo when cold if you don't take care with the clutch at first. Actually, it's easy to kangaroo at any time if you try to give it the beans of the lights in Sport... And fail :oops:

Interesting about the fuel though, I might switch to BP Ultimate for a few tanks and see what happens as mine had only ever been run on VPower.
 
Bing said:
as mine had only ever been run on VPower.
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Couple of tanks of BP 98 in Fort William though and some Aral 98 / Esso 100 in Germany :innocent:
 
DLH said:
Feedback at the dealer's is that there are no fault codes and the chief mechanic has taken it out and thinks that everything's OK.

However, at my insistence they checked with BMW and have now got approval fot the car to be re-coded under warranty. :thumbsup:
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There is a dealer bulletin about it somewhere. When I was looking into this issue with mine I stumbled across the TIS / bulletin somewhere so BMW are aware of it. The fix in the bulletin is to update the DME software version, which I have done and it sounds like you are getting done. :driving:

My car was relatively late being a June 2007 build BTW.

This is not a little jolt or "kangaroo" on pull away, it can be quite violent and does it when a gear is fully engaged and the engine is accelerating under light to moderate load, the car stutters and kangaroos up the road when in gear, if the coolant temp is less than 50 degrees (seen through intravee).

I flashed my DME and I am much happier with it post flash. It fixed this issue and improved general drive ability significantly.

Before I flashed my DME I was mucking about with different fuels and all sorts of nonsense trying to get to the bottom of it so was well chuffed when it was sorted. :thumbsup:
 
All done now and the dealer (Rybrook, Shrewsbury) were pretty good about it. They also reported that they'd had a thorough check of the car and found no faults other than a 'dodgy' dipstick, so they have removed the lower half of mine and will send me a replacement right away!

So far, the car seems to be pretty smooth but it wasn't totally cold when I collected it and drove home, so time will tell.
 
My car is at my indie now so I'm going to call and ask that they check / update the DME version whilst they have it plugged into the diagnosis kit. Unless PVR tells me it's been done... Makes sense as they're poking around anyway.
 
You have all the paperwork, if it is not on the invoice - it has not been done :D
 
pvr said:
You have all the paperwork, if it is not on the invoice - it has not been done :D
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You say that... but Bing didn't know that it had ever been fed something other than vPower until a couple of hours ago.. what else are you hiding...? :poke:
 
pvr said:
Surely you are not referring to "that" incident? :o
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If you mean the 'argument' with a tractor... then yes... I thought that the paintshop made a pretty good job of it, unless you get the light just right you can hardly tell that half the OSF wing is made of P38...


:wink:
 
Bing said:
My car is at my indie now so I'm going to call and ask that they check / update the DME version whilst they have it plugged into the diagnosis kit. Unless PVR tells me it's been done... Makes sense as they're poking around anyway.
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Sounds good as long as they have access to the latest data (do BMW release the data / tables / software to Indies?).
 
I'll ask - they are both ex BMW master techs, so I'm sure they have their sources... If they need them as I'm not sure why BMW wouldn't give it to them if they are approved in some way.

PVR - funny guy :P
 
PerryGunn said:
pvr said:
Surely you are not referring to "that" incident? :o
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If you mean the 'argument' with a tractor... then yes... I thought that the paintshop made a pretty good job of it, unless you get the light just right you can hardly tell that half the OSF wing is made of P38...


:wink:
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The only problem was afterwards with those pesky lights, they were never right since :lol:
 
Just spoke to my indie, he says they'll check the DME and upload the latest version - something he says they'd recommend anyway. No joy on the lights yet though...
 
So I have my car back. DME updated - in Gary's words 'it was fucking massive mate'... 29 updates, took the best part of an hour and a half :o

However, he said that it's one of the best things to have done on a car like this. No idea what benefits I'll get, but I've reset the MPG and will take it out tonight / over the weekend for a blast. Perhaps I am not skilful or familiar enough to notice anything - any ideas what I should look out for ?
 
Having just done a Valve shim job on an E46 M3 (S54) - I can confirm that this definitely helps to reduce the hesitance and kangarooing from cold.

If it's not been done it may well be worth having it done! Makes a huge difference to the way the engine sounds, feels and runs!
 
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