Will my engine run on 5 cylinders

white lancer · #1 12-17-2013, 03:57 AM

Will the 3.0 inline 6 run on 5 cylinders? I have a missfire on #4 and have ordered a new coil pack which should be here today. I was led to believe that if the car detects a missfire it cuts off the fuel to the cyclinder injector to stop any damage to other parts of the car?

I was having a discussion with a mate last night and he was saying that you should not drive the car as it will be putting unburnt fuel into the exhaust system which can damage the CAT. also that the engine management system will detect that the exhaust gasses are very rich and will back off the injectors to all the cylinders making the car run very lean which can lead to overheating? he said I may also damage the O2 sensors?

The car runs a little lumpy on tick over but once driving you can hardly tell that it is running on 5 cylinders

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Moezer · #2 12-17-2013, 05:04 AM

normally with a misfire on a cylinder points to a bad spark plug did u change the spark plugs first to see? also what type of gas do you use?87 89 91? bmws are effy on what they want, look at your gas tank lid it should say what type to fill it up with only

white lancer · #3 12-17-2013, 05:56 AM

Hi. In the UK the octane levels are 95 for regular fuel and 98 for premium fuel. I use the regular. I have not checked the spark plugs - I just assumed it would be the coil pack that has gone. What I may do tonight is change the coils over from #4 to #1 and read the error codes again to see if the error message now says cylinder #1 missfire. I may also do a complete spark plug change as they have not been changed for about 50,000 miles. Will this improve fuel efficiency if the spark plugs are changed?

upallnight · #4 12-17-2013, 11:26 AM

You can drive it if you have a SES light on since the light is probably telling you that you have a misfire and normally the computer will shut off the signal to the injector so that fuel is not sent to that cylinder.

However I would limit the drive mileage on the X until it is fixed.

racingbmwm3 · #5 12-17-2013, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by upallnight

You can drive it if you have a SES light on since the light is probably telling you that you have a misfire and normally the computer will shut off the signal to the injector so that fuel is not sent to that cylinder.

However I would limit the drive mileage on the X until it is fixed.

Misfire would either be spark plug or the coil. Normally 100k miles is what you should get from the spark plugs, but at 50k it isn't out of the question for one to go bad. You don't have to replace all 6, but you might notice a slight performance/economy increase if you do.
Instead of throwing parts at it without knowing the cause, you could also swap the coil pack to a different location and clear the fault. If the fault comes back in the new location, then its the coil, if it stays then its the spark plug. If you want to go even further, you could also move the spark plug to a different location, and if the fault is still in the original location, then its a fuel injector. If none of those three items are the cause then post back on here or PM me.

TerminatorX5 · #6 12-17-2013, 01:19 PM

^^^^ all of the above...

and i've heard some volvos run on 5 cyls...

tmv · #7 12-17-2013, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TerminatorX5

and i've heard some volvos run on 5 cyls...

racingbmwm3 · #8 12-17-2013, 01:34 PM

while messing around at UTI on a 540i, we were able to get the car to idle (barely) on 4 cylinders. We couldn't ever figure out a good combination that would allow it to run on 3 though. I don't see why a 6cylinder wouldn't run on 3 or 4, it wouldn't be driveable though.