New Code, very weird
 

After yesterday's P0128 and P0155, this morning I developed a P1353. I looked it up, and this came up:
- Faulty Spark Plug
- Faulty Ignition Coil
- Intake vacuum leak
- Faulty Camshaft Position Sensor
- Ignition Coil harness is open or shorted
- Ignition Coil circuit poor electrical connection

Symptoms: Engine vibration at idle, lessened if I gave it some gas. Also made a sort of thumping noise, and I could feel vibration if I put my hand on the crankcase. When I got home, I tried a parked version of the Italian Tuneup, revving it to 4500 rpm a few times then holding it at 2000,2500, and 3000 a bit. The shaking stopped.

Will be taking it in tomorrow to put in the new tstat. Mechanic thinks that will clear the P0155 as well as the P0128, but now I'm worried. :yikes:

Please advise... feeling the bmw owner paranoia now.

Sounds to me like you're running on 5 cylinders. With those codes, I would expect a bad spark plug or coil pack.

Mostly likely a bad coil. Swap the coils between 1 and 6 and if the code move to 1 you found the problem. If the code doesn't move to 1 replace the spark plug in cylinder no.6.

How's your VCG? If it leaks, the plug will be covered in oil, which lead to the misfire.
P1353 is a misfire Cylinder 6 with fuel cut-off. Oil run to the rear of the engine when leaks from VCG.

The VCG was replaced shortly before I bought it, supposedly. I wonder if they bothered to clean up while they were doing it, since the engine is dirty as hell (oil is already dark after 2000km).

I'll check #6 in the morning, though I'm puzzled as to why the engine would run smooth again after revving it for a while, and why it was only shaking at low rpms.

Thanks, guys. I'm puzzled and worried, but undaunted.

:iagree: It may be that holding the engine at various RPMs cleared the plug for awhile. If either the coil or plug is bad the miss will return before long.

Ahh... was going to do the plugs in the spring... wanted to do it myself, but too cold to do it... will def check it out tomorrow, and just have the mech do it. :)
Thanks!

I agree with all the suggestions here. Another thing you can do is pull the plug and see what it looks like. Is it fouled out with carbon or oil? Electrode worn out? Plenty of info out there on how plugs tell a story. Also, as mentioned by others, the top half of the plug and/or wires may be saturated with oil. You can try swapping plug wires around, too (if they will reach), to see if the problem moves with the wire. A dead or missing cylinder can sometimes trigger the other faults/symptons, such as a perceived vacuum leak, faulty camshaft position sensor, etc.

P1353 misfire cylinder 6with fuel cut off
P0128 coolant thermostat(coolant temperature below thermostat regulating temperature
P0155 o2 sensor heater circuit (bank 2 sensor 1

above is word for word out of my bentley repair manual for our X5`S
hope this helps.

when was the oil changed last? did you do it or get it done by someone? when you say oil is dark meaning black and thick on the dipstick?