Rough ride in my 95 BMW 325i

[cheripie]

Hello to all. I am new at this so please bare with. I have a 95 325i with approx 128k miles. Last month it started giving me problems beginning with the "check coolant" warning light, high temp gauge and heater only blowing cold air. I had the radiator and thermostat replaced. Problem solved. Then the car started throwing white smoke from rear so I had to have the head gasket replaced. No more white smoke. Now the car is sputtering when i'm at a complete stop as if it wants to shut down. Upon take off, the whole car vibrates, sounds like an old VW bug, the RPM's shoot up to 2500 at 20 mph and car won't shift until I take my foot of gas and then put it back on. ghead used What in the world is going on? Can somebody please help?

[bimmerfan620]

1st off, welcome to the bmw-forums club.. 2nd, It sounds like you have a drivetrain problem.. Doesn't sound like it is involved with your motor from what you explained. What it sounds like is if you have an automatic, it might be your tq converter going out, or the trans itself giving you problems which would make it need a rebuild.. But it is just my suggestion, and to determine the problem I would actually need to see it for myself.. But just wait a bit, and you will get some more opinions from other members shortly... don't sweat it, it's just a car... nothing to freak out over, isht happens.. :wink

[Furious]

welcome cheripie,
your starting to get the typical 9 year old car faults, its funny but most cars have to have lots of work done on different things around the 9-10 year mark.

what kinda gas do you have in the car? try running the current tank out then put some high grade (94 octane if you can) and run the car hard for a bit , see if it clears up the problem , to me it sounds like a bad tank of gas, however if its not at least you have ruled out that possiblilty and did good for your car.
second thing i would check is the intake system, do when they did the head gasket did they change the intake gasket?

[bimmerfan620]

from the symptoms, I don't think his problem is related to the engine/intake... It's reving up higher than it should at a certain MPH, and doesn't shift when it should, showing signs that he is having drivetrain problems....now I don't know for sure, since I'm only diagnosing over the net, but it really sounds like it could be possible...

[cheripie]

Hi all. Thank you for the welcome and for your responses. Yesterday, as I was driving on an uphill highway, (in 3rd), I just put the pedal to the medal and let the RPM's go up until the car was forced to shift. Since then (and i've been driving all day in extreem heat) the car has been running great. I do, however, have a new concern. When I step on the gas from a complete stop, I hear a a vibrating sound coming from underneath/middle. It only lasts a second and then goes away. Any ideas? Could this be related to the previos problem?
Thanks

[miatawnt2b]

Sounds like you may have/had a pluggged up CAT. The rattle may be what's left of teh cones inside the CAT from when you blew it all out on teh highway. If that's indeed what the problem was, sounds like your OK now and got away without an expensive fix.

Jie