My car has this intermediate lever problem, do I need to fix it?
 

I have a 2006 4.4i e53. If the temperature drops to 30ish and under, it will have a hard time start in the morning. The SES light flashes and engine hesitates. Turn the car off, and back on, it gets better. When the engine's warm, the car drives like it should(but the SES becomes steady). If the outside temp is higher, then there's no problem with the cold start, and if I keep driving the car after a couple of days the SES goes off by itself.

I've had this problem for 3 years, and since it costs over $4k to fix it, I just kept ignoring it. During winter months I keep the car in garage which helps a bit, but sometimes when it's very cold outside, the garage is cold too. Plus, sometimes I have to travel to other places and park the car in a hotel parking lot.

Here comes the question: If I don't fix these intermediate levers, will the engine eventually get damaged because of this? If this won't damage the engine, I'll just keep ignoring it. This problem first appeared around 80K miles and now I had 115k miles on the car. I'm hoping to drive another 4~5 years and 60k miles before trade it in. If it won't hurt the engine, then I'll just ignore this bug. Like I said, it only happens in the very cold winter months, and I drive more during summer.

this car is out of warranty long long time ago.

Thank you all for your expert opinion and insight!

BTW, when I take the car for a code read, it says cylinder 1,3,5,7 misfiring. since it's all odd number, it seems one bank is misfiring. I'm not 100% certain it's intermediate lever problem though.

I had the intermediate lever problem on my 04 4.4i, super annoying if you ask me.

Are you sure the repair is 4k? i dont think thats what mine cost (of course mine was done under warranty).. You will need valve cover gaskets soon, so if you decide to do those, do the intermediate levers at the same time

i hope that it is not the chain guide rails - if that is the case, the engine will crumble one day...

how is your battery? it is known that in cold weather batteries die faster, and have harder times cranking engine...

have you had a chance to read the fault codes stored in the car memory? easiest way to go to autozone and have them scan the codes, even though they don't have a lot BMW specific codes. or get the codes read using an Indy mechanic... it would be a starting point

This is an interference engine, valves open into the areas the pistons occupy at TDC. Valvetrain/timing chain/chain guide failures ALL effect the valve/piston coordination. Fixing the levers costs far less then waiting for a failure.

Thanks terminatorX, I don't think it's chain guide because it's strictly temperature related. The problem only occurs when it's super cold, in dead winter. It's either the intermediate lever, or oil separator(but I am more leaning towards intermediate lever). The error code read by autozone says cylinder 1,3,5,7 misfiring.

Thanks TiAgX5, I know it's important to make sure the timing chain in good condition. The intermediate lever however, sounds like the part that controls how wide the valve opens. I don't think it has anything to do with the timing stuff. The timing chain is rated for at least 300k so giving this engine is only 115k it's not something I need to worry about now.

The chain might be rated to 300k, but not the tensioners or guides. But I doubt that is your problem in this case.

Is it safe to drive my X5 if I don't correct the lever issue?

My 05 X54.8is was recently diagnosed as having the intermediate lever problem and I don't want to cause more issues by not repairing.

I don't really know. But from other people's post it seems that it won't cause more problems(other than the harsh starting in dead cold winter morning and the accompanying SES warning). I plan to sell my X5 next summer. X5 becomes very unreliable once it's past 100K.