My X5 35D nightmare :((
 

Hi, guys, I’m sorry in advance but it’s going to be a long post to give full details.

I little history on the car. I bought it in December of 2018 with 84k miles, completely stock, 1 owner from Audi of Virginia Beach with a comprehensive service history and the car ran like a dream for 10k or 1 year. The car is a 2012 35D X5.

One day during pouring down rain I was driving to work and all of a sudden the car shut off on the highway. I pulled over, gave it a crank and it fired up. My mechanic(BMW mechanic with over 40 years experience I used the last 10 years) was on the way to work so I decided to stop by him, the car kept randomly shutting off while on the freeway every few miles but every time restarted right up. Made it to him, he checked the car, found a little wet spot by injector 5, dried it out, car set overnight. He said he checked injectors and they were fine(I thought it was the dreaded injectors shirt from leaking partition).

Picked up the car and it was fine for a few weeks. Then it started to randomly smoke at idle from the tail or sometimes driving(moderately, no heavy acceleration) with a lot of white smoke and pronounced lack of power and knocking, with heavier acceleration it would throw a half engine code. R TD he weird thing also that if it ran fine and you accelerated, it would be doing fine under steady throttle but then all of a sudden it would start puffing smoke, knocking and accelerating on its own even if you pushed brakes, and shutting off after that.

Brought the car in, we checked the codes and it was catalyst threshold temperature on one of the banks. So I brought to dealer for a diagnosis of DPF and SCR as advised by mechanic, dealer confirmed clogged DPF and SCR, I asked to check injectors but don’t think they did. It given $8500 bill for the above mentioned I picked up the car.

As I was going to do it down the road anyway I did a full delete(SCR, dpf, egr, swirl flaps) with DUDMD tune stage 2. After the start, it was running fine but again producing a lot of white smoke at idle and while driving so the problem persisted as well as the same occasional knocking and lack of acceleration.

So we went back to what started it all-water on injectors. Pulled all injectors, sent them out for testing, injectors 5&6 were completely shorted, so last night we reassembled everything with two new injectors(same harness), codes them in. After the full assembly it took probably 20 times to crank and prime the fuel before the car fired up. After it started it ran fine with no smoke, just black smoke on acceleration. Took it for a test run, at first it was ok. Then under a regular throttle(nothing heavy or flooring) all of a sudden the car started pouring white smoke to the point you cannot see behind you with that same knocking, kept accelerating on its own even after pressing brakes, and shut down.

We pulled on the side of the road, checked fluids and under the car, oil is still in the car. No metal particulates or anything in the oil filter, the car cranked but didn’t start as if there were no fuel(just a guess). The only code was fuel pressure plausibility low or something very similar. As it was 2 am already, I just told mechanic I’ll have the car towed to his shop and we’ll deal with it later.

Basically it all seems to started after the damn rain and even after replaced injectors and removal of supposedly clogged SCR and dpf the problem remained unchanged. I’m at a complete devastation as it is my daily and first diesel car, both me and mechanic are lost right now.

When we(I would ask him to work one the car as I was there which he didn’t care about) remover the manifold there was a little oil in it, and turbo bearing seemed fine no rattle or anything.

Please help!!

VCG has absolutely no leaks, only code after the car died was a fuel rail pressure plausibility one, and cranks were very slow even with the jumping cables hooked up. Could it be the faking HPFP?

Did you run a fuel pump/rail purge program after replacing the injectors? It forces fuel through the system so you don't have to crank so much. I have read numerous times about running a dry HPFP while cranking after an injector replacement and burning up the pump. I cannot say this is the problem but after reading through your situation the only red flag I see is cranking that much before the engine fired up. If you run the pump purge it should only take 1-4 cycles of cranking the engine before it fires right up.

Good luck. I know it's frustrating but these really are great cars. I had my 2009 for 7 years at it clocked 225k before I sold it (still running perfectly with deletes) and moved on to my current 2013.

Sounds suspiciously like a diesel runaway - any high oil consumption? Possibly oil leaking in via turbo? Shooting in the dark here but sounds as if fuel (or oil) being shunted into the cylinders without being commanded to do so and car is going into failsafe after that....


2012 E70 50i

It certainly sounds like diesel runaway. The throttle body should have protected against the runaway. The throttle body does a few things: allows regeneration, smooth shutdown and runaway protection.

The white smoke could be oil or it could be excessive unburnt diesel.

Thank you, guys, how do I know if it’s a runaway and what does it mean as far as repairs go?

I’m didn’t check the rail pressure yet, will be doing that this week.

Sorry for this obvious question: are all the connectors on the fuel rail back on correctly? I guess you would see a code for this? I would think if fuel pressure is out of control you would see a lot of funny stuff going on. Do you have ISTA? I would get that or find somebody close by with it - very helpful.

Did you use a torque wrench on the injector?



Did any of the injectors you took out have additional shims? Some do and you have to put them back in. Did you personally see the injector come out? BMW's TIS talks about it:

"Important!
Only for vehicles with a production date between 27/01/2012 and 05/10/2012:
Several cylinder heads were installed with an additional injector shim underneath the injector.
If during disassembly an injector shim (2) was removed in addition to a copper gasket (1), it is imperative that it is reinstalled.
If the injector shim is not installed or two injector shims are installed, a malfunction of the engine may occur (e.g. irregular engine running, exhaust fumes).

Important!
If the injector spacer shim is lost, the entire cylinder head has to be replaced!"

and..

"Important!
Several cylinder heads were installed with an additional injector shim underneath the injector.
Before installing the injector it is imperative that the depth of the injector shaft is measured using a depth gauge.
The depth of the injector shaft is 126.25 mm.
Ensure that an injector shim is installed if one is needed.
If the injector shim is not installed or two injector shims are installed, a malfunction of the engine may occur (e.g. irregular engine running, exhaust fumes)."

If you lost a shim maybe you can have a replacement made. You can check your build date with a BMW VIN decoder. I'm sorry if I'm throwing you off course but I see you have a 2012.

Yikes. Seems a bush league solution by BMW for a machining.mfg fault....

Where did you get this information? My cars production date is May 18 2012, injector 5 did have a silver washer besides the copper one. Both the mechanic(the quite a few he did) and every bmw shop I called asking if they ever saw a spacer on e70 35D for injectors or just one of them said no. So when reinstalling we didn’t put it in.