Z4 Starting Motor Issues?

oliver3505

New member
 Berkshire, England
Hello Z4 community,

I'm writing to try and find a solution to an issue I've been experiencing seasonally with my Z4. If anyone could maybe help me with a solution (or at least a step-by-step troubleshoot) I'd be grateful.

Just for reference, it's a Z4 2007 Roadster, specifically the M 2.0i and it's stock other than KandN air filter, rims / exhaust.

Whenever I'd go to crank to key the starting motor would make it's noise but not actually start the engine. The battery seems to be in good order as the electronics do work. But since I've drained the battery so significantly the tire pressure / steering would go out afterwards.

This does happens every 3-4 weeks also, so it's extremely consistent. This actually happens after I have a fair drive (and subsequently a hot engine), so my initial thought was maybe this was a crankshaft position sensor issue where it's cracked and the change in temp creates too much noise for the sensor to recognize the starting motor thus providing any spark.

If anyone had any other contributing ideas to why this may of happened I'd be happy to hear. Thanks for reading anyways.
 
As per the answer to 90% of all queries on here: read the codes to be certain before you start changing stuff.

But, @bigwinn is quite probably correct.
 
The lads are quite right its essential to scan the car for codes it may have set to point you in the right direction to find what's playing up.
Well worth investing in a code reader like a Creator 410 or a Foxwell scanner, both available on ebay or Amazon.
As well as a possible Crank Sensor its also worth checking the camshaft sensor(s), a bad camshaft sensor will reveal itself by having an extended cranking time, I found this out when I forgot to plug mine back in after doing some work on mine and I had removed its plug to make room to get at something else close by.
 
Thanks for the advice, so I assume I'd need some kind of adaptor to read off my phone?
By far the easiest answer is to ask nicely on here (maybe a separate thread?) if anyone is near to you with a code reader and wouldn't mind plugging it in to your car in exchange for a couple of beer tokens.
 
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