Hey Simon, Mike, Weasel, TLeong:

I would like to proudly join this "E53 Mis-fire Club" as of yesterday, 4:58 PM, Eastern Time.

Thermometer showed 29F, not what I would call inordinately cold. However my 2006 4.4i begged to differ, and gave me quite the scare when I turned the ignition. Substantial bucking and stuttering of the front end, with a flashing "Service Engine Soon" light. Naively I hoped against hope that this would stop as the X warmed up, but it continued for the next 2 minutes. I put it in Drive and slowly rolled about 100 feet. Problem was not going away! I stopped, put it in "Park" and turned off the engine. I waited a good 30-40 seconds in the gloomy silence. Turned the ignition back on, and everything was back to normal. No bucking. No engine light.

Everything went well today also.

Weasel, assuming this is a 1-time deal, any possibility that engine can be damaged somehow during that 2-minute nightmare? Is this only an E53 thing, or does it happen periodically on other Bimmers? And finally, any action I need to take after the fact, or just pretend like it was a bad one-time deal?