95 BMW 318ic Stalls at low RPM, and pointing uphill

Maintenance/Repairs
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1

Hi All,

My 95 BMW 318ic has just over 100,000 Miles on it. For the last several months, it’s been running really rough. It’s hard to keep it running unless I have my foot on the gas. It doesn’t appear to be idling too slowly as the RPMs appear to be around where it should be. If I start it up outright, the RPMs will bounce up and down a few times and then it’ll stall out. This appears to be much worse when the car is pointed uphill, but that could be my imagination.



In my neighborhood, there is a T intersection without a stop on one direction. Sometimes while slowing down to go around this turn, the car stalls.



After the car has been running for about 10-15 minutes, I can stop at stoplights without stalling, but occaisionally the check engine light comes on.



Any ideas?



Thanks,

Brett

2

have the check engine light code read by a shop :wink:

3

You can do it yourself car diagnose.
http://www.pelicanparts.com/BMW/techarticles/JF-Tech/E30_E36_On_Board_Diagnostics%20.htm

Good luck!

4

Thanks for all your help. I got a code 1222 After running it for about 5 minutes. Bentlys says this is “Oxygen Sensor lean/rich control stop”. But in the manual it says that the oxygen sensor can be ruled out when diagnosing cold drivability problems. And the rough idling happens as soon as the car starts up.

As a side note, at lower RPMs there is a low rumbling noise under the car. This noise and all drivabilty issues seem to go away completely at higher RPMs.

Ideas?

Thanks,
Brett

5

No ideas, Unfortunately, those 4 cylinders I’m not familiar with(except E30/S14s).

6

It sounds like it might be a fuel pump problem.

7

I think I found the problem.

Turns out the cold air intake boot had several HOLES in it. The boot itself is a kind of flex shape (accordian) and it had open slits inside the creases. The intake boot also had a hose connector to the idle air control value which also had holes in it.

Unfortunately, these are pretty custom parts so I’m waiting for replacements to be shipped.

With holes in the intake system that large past the MAF sensor, I can’t imagine it being anything else.

Thanks for all your help!
-Brett

8

I have a 1996 BMW 318is (same engine as you). I have also noticed hard starts and bad idling when the car is not parked on a level surface (up/down side to side, whatever). Once the engine is warm, the problem disappears. If you learn anything about the incline problem, I would love to hear it.