Help is the end near????:(

[Dark_knight74]

Hello gang as you know I am new to the group and bmw, I have a 1997 528i with 95,000.00 miles on it. I have had the car to days signed papers at the bank on the car put all of my saving into buying the car I am totally FREAKED right now!!! I was driving and my check engine light came on the car still runs smooth no ruff idle, no misfires, but the light came on steady, not flashing. I know you can not diganose a car via the internet but any ideas would be greatly accepted beside FLAMES... The car over all runs great but than Darn light check engine light is staring me in the face. Did I make a mistake buying a car with this many miles / Or how long does a car like this 200,000 or more please let me know as soon as any of you can I am not going to get any sleep till this is over....


Thanks and

Thank you guys again.


Ricky

[CBA]

lmao..


no worries man your engines not toast bmw's are infamous for engine lights i know mine comes on and off 3 tim,es a week sometimes more depending on driving conditions... most of the time its the maf sensor and its just dirty.. see if this works for ya tho, take the car for a boot on the highway and dont worry about goin easy on the throttle she'll take it and like it lol... turn the car off let it sit and turn it back on.

[CosmosBlack]

CBA's right, I would suspect the MAF sensor. Sometimes you can clean it, sometimes not. And you wouldn't be able to notice the symptoms in certain cases, depends how bad they are.

The other simple thing I'd check would be the gas cap. It's probably not the cause, but being a new owner, you might not have closed the gas cap properly. This does cause the "service engine soon" light to come on.

[Mach 5]

With 95K an O2 sensor could be going out as well. They are not that hard to replace. There are I think 4 on your car though and you don't want to just start throwing parts at it. You can also clean the MAF using 91% rubbing alcohol, VW's have very expensive MAF's that are prone to failure, it is from them that I learned of that you could clean them. Fill a Ziploc bag with alcohol, drop in the MAF, and shake it. The process is similar to cleaning a K&N filter.
Ben

[CBA]

wtf!! just spray the fuggin thing down with a TB cleaner or brake cleans.. shaking it in a bag will only result in getting water thru the weatherpack seals and then fucking shit up later on in the cars life.

[TECH]

Don't do anything to the Mass Airflow Sensor. You could cause a problem with a part that isn't broke. Those things don't go out very often on BMW's. Like mentioned, my first suggestion is to make sure the gas cap is on right. You'll still need to have the fault cleared if that was the problem.
The next most likely problem is the oxygen sensor. Or secondary air system. There are numerous things. If it runs fine, doesn't run hot, and has oil pressure, don't sweat it until you know what the code is.

[CBA]

he updated me on it looks like the o2 took a pooh.

[CosmosBlack]

Ouch...big $$$.
Do they have 4 of those on the 528?
I have 4 on mine and they are like $100 a piece, right? Not including labor!
Mine is coming up next I guess, I'm at 86k.

[pherbolario]

Yea, definitely check the gas cap... but the light won't go away on it's own right away but the light should go away if you drive it though out the day...but you said you have 95k miles on it...the O2 sensor could have definitely gone bad...it's not going to ruin your car if you don't get it fix right away but you should definitely get it done. you have (4) O2 senors...sometime you don't have to replace all 4...you may have to only change the front 2 or the back 2...each O2 sensor will run you about $125...

You should invest in one of those research peak computer thingys for your car...it should only run you about $125-$150...but those things work really good...it's a lot cheaper in the long run if you have one of those...also it's good if you change your on oil, you could reset the oil lamp...

hope this helps...good luck