Ok, I've debated whether or not to post this but its so bizarre that I had to share it. Its a little long...
I have a '98 528i that I've owned for about six years. Great car, white/tan, Style 5 wheels and has been very reliable the entire time we've owned it. About a year ago it started having a random misfire in the engine, first showing up about every two weeks or so and then slowly getting more and more frequent. At the beginning it was so far between times it misfired I couldn't even try to diagnose the problem, but it missed often enough that my wife didn't want to drive the car. I'm sure some of you have relate to this! The car has 184k on it and we were sort of looking around for another car prior to the problem occurring so this pushed up our plan a bit. Since I buy salvage cars for a living I bought a low mile Pontiac Vibe (Toyota Corolla wagon) and had it fixed, then started trying to figure out the 528i in my spare time.
Off and on over the next year I replaced every part that I thought might be causing the problem... going off a Snap-on scanner for help. Everything always said misfire on multiple cylinders but I went through each component as a process of elimination. Nothing worked. New spark plugs because they were old anyway, known good coils and boots, airflow meter, cam sensors, crank sensor, inspected the VANOS system, fuel pressure regulator, fuel filter, fuel pump, everything I could think of that might cause a random misfire. Remember, I work at a wrecking yard so all these parts were available to me off of good running engines, but, I would try something, drive the car, the misfire would occur, I'd limp the car home and then try the next thing a week or a month later when I got time. It was really frustrating. Eventually the problem started getting worse and worse, to the point where I could start the car and it would misfire within a few minutes or so. This was a good thing since I thought whatever it is might completely fail so I could figure it out. Well, I didn't figure it out and here's where things get strange...
I'm going for a walk with my wife one night and we're talking about the car and what to do with it. She says, "I'll call Glenna and ask her what the problem is with the car". When I ask her who Glenna is she says she's her friend that's a "reader". I kinda laughed and said, "Sure! Go for it! What do we have to lose?". I made a point of not telling my wife any specifics about the problem and just let her tell her the symptoms. She calls her friend, who lives in LA, and explains the problem to her as "it runs good, then it runs bad, then it runs good again" and within the first minute of the phone call Glenna tells her this... "Well, I don't know anything about cars, but I can see what the part looks like that has the problem. Its a silver box near the dashboard with a bunch of wires coming out of it. I don't know what its called but if it were a person it would be their heart! Tell your husband that if he plays around with the wires, unplugging it and plugging it back in he'll fix it". Okay, she now has my full attention. The only thing left on my list was the ECU, knowing that I would have to match up part numbers to test it with another unit. After hearing what Glenna said it got me really motivated to check it out and could hardly wait to get off work to look at it. I go straight home and open up everything to get to the ECU, start the car, which runs very well when its not misfiring, and started messing with the ECU wires. As soon as I started pushing the wires around I could make the engine misfire or not misfire depending on how I pushed them. You cannot believe how excited I got knowing that I was tracking down the problem, but, I still couldn't pinpoint a wire or connection that was causing it. The ECU was not the problem because I could hold it in place and move the wires going into it and nothing would happen, it was something else connected to the rats next of wires in the ECU weather-proof box. Well, I couldn't figure it out. I got my son outside to look at it (another set of eyes) while I did an internet search for ECU wiring problems and five minutes later he walks in and says "I think I fixed it!".
I jump up and go outside and he shows me the connector that is attached to the side of the ECU box, the weather-proof barrel style connector for the ignition wires going to the coils. The round connector pushes together and then the center section spins to tighten it the rest of the way. It had a natural detent that it was tightened to and my son decided to twist a lot harder (thought it might break it) and it broke loose and spun another 3/4 of a turn. Fixed! The entire time the car was misfiring, randomly, was because that connector was just loose enough to make the contact pins barely touch. I couldn't believe it. This is when I realized that Glenna said if I played with the wires and unplugged them and plugged them back in I would fix it was exactly what happened. I laughed when my wife first told me that would fix it, but I'm only laughing now because she was completely 100% right!!
I have always been skeptical of psychics and their abilities, although I try to stay open-minded about everything. I can tell you now that I believe something is going on there with Glenna and her ability to see things. The fact that she doesn't know anything about cars and managed to explain the problem to my wife, who also doesn't know anything about cars, is amazing to me. It literally took us ten minutes to fix the car after see told us what to look for.
Dan
I have a '98 528i that I've owned for about six years. Great car, white/tan, Style 5 wheels and has been very reliable the entire time we've owned it. About a year ago it started having a random misfire in the engine, first showing up about every two weeks or so and then slowly getting more and more frequent. At the beginning it was so far between times it misfired I couldn't even try to diagnose the problem, but it missed often enough that my wife didn't want to drive the car. I'm sure some of you have relate to this! The car has 184k on it and we were sort of looking around for another car prior to the problem occurring so this pushed up our plan a bit. Since I buy salvage cars for a living I bought a low mile Pontiac Vibe (Toyota Corolla wagon) and had it fixed, then started trying to figure out the 528i in my spare time.
Off and on over the next year I replaced every part that I thought might be causing the problem... going off a Snap-on scanner for help. Everything always said misfire on multiple cylinders but I went through each component as a process of elimination. Nothing worked. New spark plugs because they were old anyway, known good coils and boots, airflow meter, cam sensors, crank sensor, inspected the VANOS system, fuel pressure regulator, fuel filter, fuel pump, everything I could think of that might cause a random misfire. Remember, I work at a wrecking yard so all these parts were available to me off of good running engines, but, I would try something, drive the car, the misfire would occur, I'd limp the car home and then try the next thing a week or a month later when I got time. It was really frustrating. Eventually the problem started getting worse and worse, to the point where I could start the car and it would misfire within a few minutes or so. This was a good thing since I thought whatever it is might completely fail so I could figure it out. Well, I didn't figure it out and here's where things get strange...
I'm going for a walk with my wife one night and we're talking about the car and what to do with it. She says, "I'll call Glenna and ask her what the problem is with the car". When I ask her who Glenna is she says she's her friend that's a "reader". I kinda laughed and said, "Sure! Go for it! What do we have to lose?". I made a point of not telling my wife any specifics about the problem and just let her tell her the symptoms. She calls her friend, who lives in LA, and explains the problem to her as "it runs good, then it runs bad, then it runs good again" and within the first minute of the phone call Glenna tells her this... "Well, I don't know anything about cars, but I can see what the part looks like that has the problem. Its a silver box near the dashboard with a bunch of wires coming out of it. I don't know what its called but if it were a person it would be their heart! Tell your husband that if he plays around with the wires, unplugging it and plugging it back in he'll fix it". Okay, she now has my full attention. The only thing left on my list was the ECU, knowing that I would have to match up part numbers to test it with another unit. After hearing what Glenna said it got me really motivated to check it out and could hardly wait to get off work to look at it. I go straight home and open up everything to get to the ECU, start the car, which runs very well when its not misfiring, and started messing with the ECU wires. As soon as I started pushing the wires around I could make the engine misfire or not misfire depending on how I pushed them. You cannot believe how excited I got knowing that I was tracking down the problem, but, I still couldn't pinpoint a wire or connection that was causing it. The ECU was not the problem because I could hold it in place and move the wires going into it and nothing would happen, it was something else connected to the rats next of wires in the ECU weather-proof box. Well, I couldn't figure it out. I got my son outside to look at it (another set of eyes) while I did an internet search for ECU wiring problems and five minutes later he walks in and says "I think I fixed it!".
I jump up and go outside and he shows me the connector that is attached to the side of the ECU box, the weather-proof barrel style connector for the ignition wires going to the coils. The round connector pushes together and then the center section spins to tighten it the rest of the way. It had a natural detent that it was tightened to and my son decided to twist a lot harder (thought it might break it) and it broke loose and spun another 3/4 of a turn. Fixed! The entire time the car was misfiring, randomly, was because that connector was just loose enough to make the contact pins barely touch. I couldn't believe it. This is when I realized that Glenna said if I played with the wires and unplugged them and plugged them back in I would fix it was exactly what happened. I laughed when my wife first told me that would fix it, but I'm only laughing now because she was completely 100% right!!
I have always been skeptical of psychics and their abilities, although I try to stay open-minded about everything. I can tell you now that I believe something is going on there with Glenna and her ability to see things. The fact that she doesn't know anything about cars and managed to explain the problem to my wife, who also doesn't know anything about cars, is amazing to me. It literally took us ten minutes to fix the car after see told us what to look for.
Dan
