[thatBimmerBloke]

About 11-12 days ago, on Saturday evening when I started the car it started shaking, I got drivetrain malfunction warning(full output not available). I turned off the ignition, started the car and it was gone. Earlier that day I had a short 6-8 miles of spirited driving trip.

Happened again on Sunday, again the same scenario.

On Monday early morning I went to the dealer and I could also see check engine oil warning, oil change was due in 2k miles. SA said they couldn't replicate it and it was probably fine and changed the oil, he also said they found codes for only one misfire when I know it happened twice.

Happened again when I was driving back, I drove back to the dealer in the same state and handed over the car. Next day they said it was probably a loose coil which got fixed on swapping the coils, sounds kinda lame, why couldn't they do it the first time? Whatever it was it has been more than a week now and no misfire, earlier it happened on Saturday, Sunday and Monday and used to disappear on restart.

The only thing that changed was that I got MPE installed a week prior to the misfire, I used to go into sport mode right away, even after cold start, to hear the burbles Temperature here has been around 45-55F. Could it have been related to the exhaust? Seems highly unlikely.

What frustrates me is that the SA/tech had no idea what was going on and were just relying on it happening again without taking any actions. The whole week was spoiled due to this and driving back and forth from the dealer.

I've also recently noticed a slight shake on start when I let it run and the rpm drops below 1k after a while, maybe the misfire is coming back or I'm just being paranoid and paying too much attention?

P.S. Car is stock with just MPE and about 42k miles on it.

[thatBimmerBloke]

UPDATE:
Misfired again last night, was a hot day and I could feel the slight shake at start earlier in the day, later I was in Sport+ and it misfired. Took it to the dealer early morning at 7, got there at 6:30 and, car was ready for pickup after 2 hours.
On my last visit, they swapped coils between cylinder 1 and 3, cylinder 1 was misfiring, this time cylinder 3 misfired and they replaced the coil. Hopefully, this is the end of this headache.

[Zanity]

Originally Posted by thatBimmerBloke

UPDATE:
Misfired again last night, was a hot day and I could feel the slight shake at start earlier in the day, later I was in Sport+ and it misfired. Took it to the dealer early morning at 7, got there at 6:30 and, car was ready for pickup after 2 hours.
On my last visit, they swapped coils between cylinder 1 and 3, cylinder 1 was misfiring, this time cylinder 3 misfired and they replaced the coil. Hopefully, this is the end of this headache.

Dealer is useless, they procrastinate until your car blows up.

[thatBimmerBloke]

Originally Posted by Zanity

Dealer is useless, they procrastinate until your car blows up.

On my first visit they did nothing, on the second visit they swapped the coils, on the third visit they finally replaced the faulty coil. lol
I'm pissed about why they didn't swap it the first time and just wanted to wait for it to happen again! It did run fine for a while after the coil swap and they said it was probably a loose coil

[Mr Podman]

Hopefully that swapped coil solves it.



podman

[Troy27]

Replace all the coil packs. I had 3 fail on me. First two under warranty. 3rd one at about 64k miles. The OEM BMW coil packs in my opinion are pure garbage. I believe mine were OEM Delphi. I've had cars with 140k miles with original coil packs. As for the rough idle, if it was right after the coil was switched it actually takes a minute for the cars computer to adjust. Happened to me when I switched all mine. Car runs perfect now

[bimmer456]

Originally Posted by Troy27

Replace all the coil packs. I had 3 fail on me. First two under warranty. 3rd one at about 64k miles. The OEM BMW coil packs in my opinion are pure garbage. I believe mine were OEM Delphi. I've had cars with 140k miles with original coil packs. As for the rough idle, if it was right after the coil was switched it actually takes a minute for the cars computer to adjust. Happened to me when I switched all mine. Car runs perfect now

140k miles on original coil packs is pretty good. Probably should replace them all if one goes bad. As for op, that should not happen.

[thatBimmerBloke]

Originally Posted by Mr Podman

Hopefully that swapped coil solves it.



podman

Originally Posted by Troy27

Replace all the coil packs. I had 3 fail on me. First two under warranty. 3rd one at about 64k miles. The OEM BMW coil packs in my opinion are pure garbage. I believe mine were OEM Delphi. I've had cars with 140k miles with original coil packs. As for the rough idle, if it was right after the coil was switched it actually takes a minute for the cars computer to adjust. Happened to me when I switched all mine. Car runs perfect now

Originally Posted by bimmer456

140k miles on original coil packs is pretty good. Probably should replace them all if one goes bad. As for op, that should not happen.

They replaced one coil, it was in cylinder 1 which misfired initially, then the misfire followed to cylinder 3 when they swapped the coils between cylinder 1 and cylinder 3. They won't swap all coils and said only one was faulty. The service manager said they need to prove to BMW that some part needs a replacement for them to pay for it

Anyway, the car has been running fine, the shake on start when rpm goes below 1k mark seems to be gone too and the engine sounds a bit quieter/different, I can hear the exhaust more. Hopefully no more misfires.

What's strange is that it misfired 3 days in a row(cylinder 1) before they swapped coils to pinpoint if the coil was bad and then there was no misfire for about 10 days.

[Troy27]

If your car is still under warranty don't swap them unless they fail. After the warranty expires swap the coil packs and spark plugs just so you don't have to worry about it in the future. It's very easy. Definitely easier than I thought it would be for a BMW. I've noticed these problems don't really present themselves until you really start pushing the engine. Best of luck

[thatBimmerBloke]

Originally Posted by Troy27

If your car is still under warranty don't swap them unless they fail. After the warranty expires swap the coil packs and spark plugs just so you don't have to worry about it in the future. It's very easy. Definitely easier than I thought it would be for a BMW. I've noticed these problems don't really present themselves until you really start pushing the engine. Best of luck

Thanks buddy.
You mean even pushing the car on stock power will result in these issues? Only thing that changed recently was installation of M Performance Exhaust, you think better flow is pushing the engine a bit more than before?

[Troy27]

If there are little things on the brink of failing stressing them harder is just going to make them apparent. It usually has nothing to do with a minor mod. If you search this forum for misfires you'll find a few and a lot of them are usually cars that have some newly installed modifications. The coils on the f30 aren't even bolted down like on a lot of other cars I've seen. You literally pull them out with your finger. Condensation can easily get in there and corrode them. That's what happened in my last coil pack failure. Misfire in cylinder 1 , pulled the coil out and it was completely rusted inside and out.

[exE36M3]

Yeah, been following a few threads on coil packs. My old 1995 M3 was STILL on it's original coil packs at 273k miles!