Re:<E28> Need Diagnostic Help.. 535i running rough

[E Baumeister <erickbau@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ron,

Have you ever replaced the main relay? That cured this problem on my former
'88 535ia

Erick Baumeister
BMWCCA 131280
Tracy, CA

> Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:06:40 -0500
> From: "Ron J" <ron@domain.elided>
> Subject: <E28> Need Diagnostic Help.. 535i running rough

> On the way back the car started to behave strangely.  It initially started
> when the car was idling.  It would stay at the normal idle speed, and then
> all of a sudden on its own surge up to 1500 rpm, and stay there steady.  If
> you tried to hit the gas the car would almost stall out.  Then the RPM would
> settle down and the car would be fine.  Then in Kentucky I pulled into a
> subway to grab a snack for our 6 year old passenger.  When we got back out,
> the car wouldn't start, like it was out of gas, even though we had a full
> tank.  I continued to turn the engine over and the car finally started up,
> and we drove away.  Then while on the highway in 5th gear running at about
> 2000-3000 rpm doing about 70 mph, the car would start to stumble, like it
> was either losing spark or running out of gas, and then catch again.  I also
> noticed the fuel consumption guage start to act strangely.  Just before the
> car would start to act strangely, the feul consumption guage would start to
> climb up really high.  (The car has metric guages so its measured in
> litres/100kms.  1 gallon is approx 3.8 litres, and 1 km is approx 0.6
> miles. ) the guage would swing from a normal 9 ltrs/100kms to over 25/100,
> and then the car would stumble.  This makes me think that the car is being
> fed too much gas.  I dont know how that guage works, or what it measures for
> its calculation.  But its saying that the feul consumption is way off the
> chart whenever the stumbling starts.    The car would do this intermittently
> all the way back to Toronto Canada.  Sometimes it would do this steadily for
> 10 min and the sometimes only 1 or two times in 20 min.  It wasnt
> consistent, and the only precursor was the feul consumption guage.

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