Sender: owner-bmw@domain.elided

[David Walker <advantag@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear BMW-digest

Re; 1991 525i sedan

I have an English (privately imported to Australia) 1991 525i automatic sedan.
When moving the car is great - but it really doesn't like idling. It idles
at about 660-700 revs and tends to shudder/splutter but never actually
stalls. If it was a person you'd say it had a bit of a persistent
cough/stutter. The local BMW dealer and my  mechanic have said that the
current performance is quite acceptable. However my 1984 525 idles perfectly
compared to the 91, and I don't want to accept that nothing can be done.

Initially the local dealer (when fixing a few other problems when I first
got the car) said they may be able to 'fool' the car into thinking the
air-con was on so it would idle at a higher rate of revs, but they were
unable to fit a new e-prom chip anyway (something about not being able to
get the code they needed) so that got put in the too-hard basket.

Interestingly last week the problem got much worse and on taking it to my
mechanic he found a hose loose which had resulted in an air leak. Of course
repairing this problem made it much better, but didn't totally eliminate the
symptoms and we're back to where we were. Of course to my layman's way of
thinking this implies there could be a much smaller air leak somewhere else
that has escaped identification. 

Any ideas please.

Many thanks

David Walker

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