SOLVED - Engine Stubles when cold - with SES
 

This morning, it was colder than normal - about 43 degrees. When I got to the bottom of my hill, which is about a half mile from my house, I stopped at the stop sign, and the engine was stumbling and running rough. Looked down at the gauges, and the SES light was flashing. Put it in neutral and revved it a bit, and it went back to normal, and the SES light went out. Any ideas what this might be? I have a Paeke code reader for my M5, but I don't think that the X5 has the 20 pin connector under the hood.

Your X might actually have the 20 pin under the hood. And it sounds like intermediate levers.

Where do they hide the 20 pin on these? and what are intermediate levers?

I don't know where the 20 pin is, I know some have it in the earlier years.

Intermediate levers are inside your engine. If you ever need to fix it, you are in for a lot of money. Most people just deal with it.

You should scan the codes though. Doesn't peake sell the adapter to be able to plug into the OBD2 port.

20 pin OBD port should be next to driver side shock tower under the hood.

I thought someone told me that its only on the pre-facelift 3.0 though not the 4.4. Maybe they were mistaken.

Or maybe it was non-sport models that had them?

Well, here's a pic form a 4.4. At the top of the pic, there are 4 black caps. Its the left most cap, nearest the windshield.

http://i1140.photobucket.com/albums/...rhoseview4.jpg

I think all 2001's have the OBD un the driver footwell. They did away with the 20 pin connector near the shock tower late 2000.

Does the M62 have intermediate levers? I thought the intermediate levers were components to the N62 motors, specifically the Valvetronic system.

I could be wrong.

didn't know about the 20 pin being done away with in 2001.

Not sure about the levers in the M62. You might be right. I keep applying everything V8 to the N62.

Yeah, my 01 4.4 doesn't have that. Its a May 01 production, so farily early. I think they did away with those in late 2000.

Haha and dont worry I do the same thing too, except opposite. For some reason I keep worrying about Timing chain guides on the N62, but some say they aren't there. Then I go to Realoem.com to look up stuff and I see it there. Then I go DOH!!!

I mean, I am assuming something is there to keep the chain in check. Funny thing is, I haven't heard anyone on here complain about a leaking valley pan on the N62's or timing guides.

I checked mne at lunch, and it does not have the 20 pin - it's a 10/00 build. Just remembered that I boiught an OBDII reader for my wifes car a while back. I'll pull the codes tonight and see what it says.

Did a quick search on the intermediate levers, and almost evberything I could find references the N62...

BMW started phasing out the 20 pin connector in 09/1999. Since you have an MY2001 I wouldn't expect your X to have the 20 pin. If you don't have the Peake adapter cable you'll need one in order to use the reader with your X. HERE is a link to the adapter cable.

OK - it just got more interesting. When I got home last night, I scannned it with my OBDII reader and it had no codes, and no codes pending. Backed it into the garage at about 10:30, and heard a slight squealing noise. It was late, so I wrote it off as needing a new belt, and went to bed. This morning my wife drove it to the gym to work out, and called on her way to tell me that it was making a "funny grinding noise". She said there were no messages or warning lights on the dash, so I told her to just ignore it. She then called to tell me that it was still making the noise, only now "it smelled funny". She couldn't describe the smell. so I told her to call me again if it broke down. She called back in about two minutes... siad that it made a loud squealing noise, and died. She tried to restart it while I was on the phone with her, and it made a loud squeal when she cranked it. So now, it's hitched to the back of a tow truck, headed for my house.

I'm thinking that it sounds like one of the accesories on the front of the motor has seized up. Anyone have other opinions?

Chain Guides?

would they squeal like that?

They can make all sorts of noise because the chain is slamming around in the case. I mean a squeal to your wife, you and me are all different. Squeal to me is when a belt is slipping. Squeal to someone else is when there is high pitched metal to metal contact. Hopefully a pulley or tensioner seized and can be a good fix.

hopefully it is not the chain/chain guide
or ur in for a fattty bill

or 2-3 days of DIY

Well, I actually heard the noise over the phone when she tried to crank it, and it didn't sound like metal on metal. If it is the guides, I can fix it. It's our third car anyway, so it's not a big deal if it's down for a few days. The noise it made last night definately sounded like a belt squeal, so I'm hopeful that it's just a tensioner or something simple like that. She sent me a pic of it being loaded on the tow truck, and there was no fluid under it, so that rules out a water pump explosion. This is my third BMW, and the other two have had idler pulley issues, so I expected this one to do the same sooner or later. BTW - the X5 has 109,000 miles on it.

wow, ok let us know what it is.

Pull the belts off, and try to spin the pulleys by hand.

I will.

I just found a thread on another forum from a google search where a guy with a 740i experienced almost the exact same thing - he had a seized alternator. I'm hoping for a simple fix like that. I can pull the alternator and rebuild it pretty cheap. Just put new bearings in my M5 alternator a couple of months ago. Cost $21 - much cheaper than a $400 rebuilt unit!

Yeah, lets hope its a seized alternator. If I had the time to tinker, I would have pulled my alt off and checked to see if it was a voltage reg. $60 and a new reg sounded pretty good. But I just said, eh F*ck it. Its got 91k on the clock, WTH, time to change it. SO I spend 4 bills on a rebuild bosch unit.

Yeah - i just checked several auto parts stores, and $412 was the cheapest I could find. I'll tear into it tonight and see whats up.

Ok. Just came in from the shop. I got lucky, and it was the alternator! Bearings are so shot that the armature was grinding inside the case. I'll get some parts tomorrow and throw it back together. Sure have to pull al lot of crap from the engine compartment to get at that stupid water cooled unit...