Car smells not good in the morning. BMW E53 3.0i.
 

Hi folks,

I have a BMW E53 3.0i, Auto, build date 22.12.2003 (facelift version). In the morning when I start the car it smells a bit from the pipe. It has some oil leak from oil sump and valve cover but is too cold to say that it smells from the heat of intake manifold or other hot components. Anyway, the smell came from the exhaust pipe so should be something internal. I`ve changed lambda sensor, spark plug, the boot from to air intake, water pump, valve cover once etc. Also, I`ve scanned my car with odb2 (Carly and other odb2 scanner tools) there is no check engine light or error stored or generated into the memory. Please, can you help me with this issue? How can I diagnose what is wrong with my car?

Best,

Andi

Is it an oil smell? Or fuel smell?

Llooks like fuel smell. So not burning ok let say. But I don`t have any issue just a slight vibration when is cold on idle but not noticeable in rpm on odometer.

What is your driving style? My father in law had an Olds Aurora that he dearly loved but always had problems with... it started smelling of fuel on cold starts in the morning and throwing no codes, ever, on inspection the dealer told him that it all it really needed was “blown out” that condensation was puddling in the exhaust in the evening because it wasn’t getting driven “hard enough” or long enough. Long story short he was a 63 in a 65 mph zone and took 5 minutes to get to that 63 mph and worked 3 miles from home... so, the next time they visited I showed him what the dealer meant by “blown out” and his problem was gone for the better part of a month before his particular driving style, in that particular car (because he drives everything the same way) came back...
If you’re not getting codes and haven’t noticed any significant change in the performance of the car, maybe just give it a good spirited run up the freeway and see what shakes out.

Much more diagnostic can certainly be done after that if / when needed.


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That slight vibration is most likely a miss. It could be bad gas, bad plugs, bad coils.The next more clostly miss is it could be low compression.

Plenty of article on how to determine a miss. Do you have a scanner? Do you know what the short term and long term fuel trims are? Can you perform a compression test of each cylinder?

This used to be known as an "Italian Tune-Up"... :rofl:

Ha! I love that! Had a buddy that would say “give it a little fix-a-ford” meaning the same thing pretty much.

I have to say, it did solve my father in laws problem, tech said something about that particular engine have a “carbon up” habit so I honestly think just giving it a good running just blew some goop loose.


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Hi Purple,

I drive about 25-30 miles a day (1-2 hours) so I`m not doing short journey. Related to driving way I just drive normal. Not crazy driving in 5-6k rpm but normal driving. As far as I live in London is very difficult to drive like a crazy trust me :D (camera everywhere).

Hi upallnight,

If I have an issue with coil, gas or other issues (reach/lean) I could see on plugs. I fitted new plugs less than a month ago and even the old ones were in good condition. I put 98 Octan gas so shouldn`t be so bad I think.

I have no personal experience with this, but have read about it happening on the forums. Could a slightly leaking injector(s) cause this?

Vanos in direction of rotation problem (can't remember the code) but Alpine White looked like a dalmatian

But get a Foxwell now to check codes and you'll save a ton of cash.

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