Hey,
I was hoping someone could help me diagnose a possible engine problem with my '03 330i that has about 170k.
About 10k ago my engine light started going on and off intermittently but I had no problems so I just ignored it. Then, the other day I started my car, and the whole car was vibrating from what seemed to be the engine bay. The engine light was on. I revved the engine a bit, and the faster the engine revved the faster the car seemed to vibrate. I started to drive down the block a bit to get a feel for what was going on. I could tell the engine wasn't putting out a lot of power, and there was a bit of a lag when stepping on the accelerator, especially in the low-RPM range. I eventually just turned off the car and back on again, everything was back to fine. The engine light has since turned off.
I'm thinking that maybe one of the cylinders wasn't firing, which would explain the power loss and the unbalanced engine. I don't want to bring it into the mechanic yet because I'm thinking they can't really get much from the computer unless the engine light is on, so they'll just guess at the problem, at a huge cost to myself.
Is there anything I can do by myself, that is cheap and not to complicated, that might fix the problem? I was thinking maybe just checking and replacing the spark plugs. I'm thinking this could also be a problem with one of the sensors. Are there any common sensor that are prone to failures that are easy to replace by oneself?
Thanks for any help,
John
I was hoping someone could help me diagnose a possible engine problem with my '03 330i that has about 170k.
About 10k ago my engine light started going on and off intermittently but I had no problems so I just ignored it. Then, the other day I started my car, and the whole car was vibrating from what seemed to be the engine bay. The engine light was on. I revved the engine a bit, and the faster the engine revved the faster the car seemed to vibrate. I started to drive down the block a bit to get a feel for what was going on. I could tell the engine wasn't putting out a lot of power, and there was a bit of a lag when stepping on the accelerator, especially in the low-RPM range. I eventually just turned off the car and back on again, everything was back to fine. The engine light has since turned off.
I'm thinking that maybe one of the cylinders wasn't firing, which would explain the power loss and the unbalanced engine. I don't want to bring it into the mechanic yet because I'm thinking they can't really get much from the computer unless the engine light is on, so they'll just guess at the problem, at a huge cost to myself.
Is there anything I can do by myself, that is cheap and not to complicated, that might fix the problem? I was thinking maybe just checking and replacing the spark plugs. I'm thinking this could also be a problem with one of the sensors. Are there any common sensor that are prone to failures that are easy to replace by oneself?
Thanks for any help,
John