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      11-12-2020, 07:00 PM   #1
UnopposedCheeseBurger
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New coils and plugs - Car won't start now?

The other week back I was driving and suddenly got a drivetrain malfunction error. Car became underpowered and didn't feel normal. Took it into the local BMW dealership the next day, turns out one of my ignition coils was bad (#7) and needed to be replaced. Was recommended to change my plugs at the same time.

Fortunately I already had a new full set of Bosch plugs and ignition coils for whenever this time would come. I hadn't swapped these out on a M5 before, and all I that researched showed it was a straightforward job, and to expect a couple hours the first time. The dealership wanted about $800 for the labor to swap out with what I already had. I wanted to learn this and opted to do the job myself.

Today I swapped out the spark plugs and ignition coils. Was my first time really seeing how tight of a fit everything is in the engine bay. Making enough space to get in between things was my biggest challenge, but the job was straightforward.

Finished the swap and went to fire it up before I closed the hood. Was shocked to hear the starter trying, but the engine never started. Looked over everything and the connections look to be good. Do I need to reset anything? Any idea what could be the problem?
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      11-12-2020, 07:26 PM   #2
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Was the engine cranking over?
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      11-12-2020, 07:28 PM   #3
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Negative, not anymore after the new plugs and coils. Only thing I hear from the engine is the starter trying.
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      11-12-2020, 07:33 PM   #4
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Gave it about a half hour break and just tried firing it up again. Still the same though, only the starter, engine isn't cranking over.

I am getting a new warning though (in addition to initial Drivetrain Malfunction): "Ignition malfunction: Do not turn off engine. It may not be possible to restart the engine. Consult nearest service center."

Battery is starting to run low too, maybe that new warning is related?

Anyone have an idea what might be causing this given the new warning?
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      11-12-2020, 08:28 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by UnopposedCheeseBurger View Post
Gave it about a half hour break and just tried firing it up again. Still the same though, only the starter, engine isn't cranking over.

I am getting a new warning though (in addition to initial Drivetrain Malfunction): "Ignition malfunction: Do not turn off engine. It may not be possible to restart the engine. Consult nearest service center."

Battery is starting to run low too, maybe that new warning is related?

Anyone have an idea what might be causing this given the new warning?
Did you leave the battery hooked up? When I did mine a couple months back I left my battery hooked up, so when I unplugged my dme's the car saw that and populated 50ish codes and was freaking the f out. when I tried to turn it on it would turn the starter and then sputter for half a second and then die. Decided to scan the codes, which is when I saw the 50 some odd codes. decided to clear them and try to crank again to see which ones came up first, ended up turning over and starting beautifully and haven't had issues since.
other thing I've read is that the dme connections are finicky to say the least. if clearing the codes doesn't work doubke check the connections.
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      11-12-2020, 09:23 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M5Yams View Post
Did you leave the battery hooked up? When I did mine a couple months back I left my battery hooked up, so when I unplugged my dme's the car saw that and populated 50ish codes and was freaking the f out. when I tried to turn it on it would turn the starter and then sputter for half a second and then die. Decided to scan the codes, which is when I saw the 50 some odd codes. decided to clear them and try to crank again to see which ones came up first, ended up turning over and starting beautifully and haven't had issues since.
other thing I've read is that the dme connections are finicky to say the least. if clearing the codes doesn't work doubke check the connections.
Yeah I left the battery connected during the coils and plugs swap. I saw in some threads that it was OK to leave the battery connected. Looks like that isn't the case : /

This sounds exactly like my problem and gives me some hope. Just tried the same and got 58 codes with Bimmerlink. Started to clear them but the battery doesn't have enough left to keep the car on to get through a full clearing process.

Gotta get it hooked up to the battery tender for a bit. Hoping after a charge this is what fixes it.
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      11-13-2020, 01:09 AM   #7
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Yea, you should be good once charged up and cleared the codes.
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      11-13-2020, 03:16 AM   #8
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I'd check those dme connections,a few have said they were sure they clicked in right when they weren't.
Someone else claimed to have changed plugs with dme connections still in place and battery connected just moving the dme's out the way.
I'm doing mine at 40k and plan to attempt it like this.
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      11-13-2020, 06:02 AM   #9
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I would disconnect the battery, put it on a charger. Then, unplug and reconnect the DME connectors as mentioned above. - unless you didn't remove them to begin with. Once the battery is charged, reconnect and try again. If you have a code reader, you might want to clear whatever codes are still in the DME's even after the battery disconnect. THEN try starting
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      11-13-2020, 08:31 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M5theonlyone View Post
I'd check those dme connections,a few have said they were sure they clicked in right when they weren't.
Someone else claimed to have changed plugs with dme connections still in place and battery connected just moving the dme's out the way.
I'm doing mine at 40k and plan to attempt it like this.
X2. The first time I did my plugs there was a pesky DME connector that I thought was in and it wasn't. Every time since I have left the DME connectors all in place and just moved them.
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      11-13-2020, 12:31 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HeyKC View Post
X2. The first time I did my plugs there was a pesky DME connector that I thought was in and it wasn't. Every time since I have left the DME connectors all in place and just moved them.
Just why do BMW make those dme connectors like that,they are over complex.

Last edited by M5Rick; 11-13-2020 at 12:38 PM..
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      11-13-2020, 07:11 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M5theonlyone View Post
Just why do BMW make those dme connectors like that,they are over complex.
German engineering at its finest!
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      11-14-2020, 09:34 PM   #13
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trained techs dont unplug DME's . they use bungee straps and hook them to the hood to hold the DMEs up and out the way..

sucks this happened but is why i pay the money to let bmw do it, bc if this happens, i dont have to worry about jack
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      11-15-2020, 02:06 PM   #14
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No luck so far, seems I can't get the battery to charge (confirmed it's connected to the right positive/negative posts under the front hood)

Had the car hooked up to a 3amp 12v trickle charger for a day, saw that the charger indicated that the battery was fully charged. Got in and turned on the ignition and started reading Bimmerlink. Surprisingly the car still gave a low battery warning and turned itself off.

I attempted this twice, the second time letting it charge for about a 1.5 days. Even though the charger shows the battery is full, the car responds the same when I turn on the ignition. Feels as if it wasn't on a charger : (

Did some research and I think know whats up:
-My car has a AGM battery (haven't had any battery issues, came with the car)

-It got too depleted after I tried to troubleshoot it, right after swapping out the plugs and coils

-After watching a few of these videos (linked below), it looks like if a AGM battery is too depleted, a trickle charger won't be enough to bring it back. I will need an additional, fully charged battery to connect to it.

Where I am at, is that I need to get the car to stay on long enough to have Bimmerlink scan and clear error codes on the car. At the moment, It won't stay on long enough to get through a full scan.

I think I have a plan, but have a few questions:

-My trickle charger has no mention of AGM. Should I get a charger/maintainer that has a AGM feature? or does this not matter? (current one I already had is a Everstart Maxx 3 Amp from Walmart)

-I don't have a spare battery to use for this right now. I do have a larger jump starter that has a 1000amp peak output (Powerstation PSX3). I am wondering if I connect it to the car's battery post, turn it on, don't fire the car up (just turn on the ignition for Bimmerlink), if that would work to provide enough power to keep the car on for a few minutes?

-If the above isn't a realistic option, and I do need to get a second fully charge battery to charge my AGM battery. Can it be any 12v car battery? or does it also have to be a AGM? Would a cheap AGM from Harbor Freight work? https://www.harborfreight.com/12-vol...ery-64102.html

Thanks everyone for the help! this has been a learning experience for sure. Here are the AGM battery videos mentioned above:




Last edited by UnopposedCheeseBurger; 11-15-2020 at 02:12 PM..
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      11-15-2020, 04:38 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by UnopposedCheeseBurger View Post
No luck so far, seems I can't get the battery to charge (confirmed it's connected to the right positive/negative posts under the front hood)

Had the car hooked up to a 3amp 12v trickle charger for a day, saw that the charger indicated that the battery was fully charged. Got in and turned on the ignition and started reading Bimmerlink. Surprisingly the car still gave a low battery warning and turned itself off.

I attempted this twice, the second time letting it charge for about a 1.5 days. Even though the charger shows the battery is full, the car responds the same when I turn on the ignition. Feels as if it wasn't on a charger : (

Did some research and I think know whats up:
-My car has a AGM battery (haven't had any battery issues, came with the car)

-It got too depleted after I tried to troubleshoot it, right after swapping out the plugs and coils

-After watching a few of these videos (linked below), it looks like if a AGM battery is too depleted, a trickle charger won't be enough to bring it back. I will need an additional, fully charged battery to connect to it.

Where I am at, is that I need to get the car to stay on long enough to have Bimmerlink scan and clear error codes on the car. At the moment, It won't stay on long enough to get through a full scan.

I think I have a plan, but have a few questions:

-My trickle charger has no mention of AGM. Should I get a charger/maintainer that has a AGM feature? or does this not matter? (current one I already had is a Everstart Maxx 3 Amp from Walmart)

-I don't have a spare battery to use for this right now. I do have a larger jump starter that has a 1000amp peak output (Powerstation PSX3). I am wondering if I connect it to the car's battery post, turn it on, don't fire the car up (just turn on the ignition for Bimmerlink), if that would work to provide enough power to keep the car on for a few minutes?

-If the above isn't a realistic option, and I do need to get a second fully charge battery to charge my AGM battery. Can it be any 12v car battery? or does it also have to be a AGM? Would a cheap AGM from Harbor Freight work? https://www.harborfreight.com/12-vol...ery-64102.html

Thanks everyone for the help! this has been a learning experience for sure. Here are the AGM battery videos mentioned above:



Yes the jump starter is an option. All you want to do is put the jump starter on there for a minute or so, the trickle charger will maintain you voltage or gain slowly but not enough to get it high enough for code reading. If bimmercode is anything like Ista you have to be between 12v and 14.4v so you just need to get your car up into that range, then hook up the trickle charger and clear the codes.
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      11-15-2020, 09:34 PM   #16
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A BIG Thank you to everyone for the help! Happy to say it's firing like a beast again, though there are some remaining issues....

In a nutshell - I went through all my work again and looked at everything I did under the hood. Unplugged, replugged the DMEs. Connected my jumpstarter, turned on the ignition only; and was excited to see it stayed on for more than a few seconds. Cleared the codes and it fired up with ease : )

I kept the car idling for about 25 minutes. I wanted to observe it and also give it time to charge the battery. During that 25 minute window, I had a drivetrain malfunction error come up 3 times. Specifically under these circumstances:
-The car idles at about 700-800rpm
-Suddenly (unprompted by me) OR when I rev the engine (higher then 5krpm. I cannot yet tell if there is a correlation?) the engine will jump to about 1100rpm and show the same drive train malfunction error. I also noticed that the yellow check engine light begins to start flashing. Each time I see if it corrects itself (it doesn't) and after a few seconds I shut it off. I wait about 10 seconds and fire it up again and it sounds and feels fine. The drivetrain malfunction error still shows. However, it goes away on it's own when idling for a few minutes.
-Twice the drivetrain malfunction error went away on it's own. The third time I cleared it with Bimmerlink.
-Each time this drivetrain malfunction error happened I ran Bimmerlink, and noticed the same set of error codes:

Code 140010:
Combustion misfire, multiple cylinders: detected

Code 140510:
Combustion misfire, cylinder 5: detected

Code 140001:
Combustion misfire: multiple cylinders: injection is switched off

Code 140501:
Combustion misfire, cylinder 5: injection is switched off


What i'm wonderin:
-Obviously there is a theme here with cylinder 5. Any insight on specifically what could be causing it? Could this be a bad spark plug and/or ignition coil?

-All that time looking under the hood, I noticed a lot of allen bits and even a small wrench at the very bottom of the engine floor. I'm guessing from the previous owners. If I wanted to get them out, I'm guessing I need to get the car on a ramp or lift, and remove the underneeth engine guard? I just want to double check it's actually as easy as doing that? or if I need to disconnect anything?

-Is there any break-in process or re-programing needed after swapping out the plugs/coils?
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      11-16-2020, 01:36 AM   #17
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Quick update:
-Took the car out for a 45min test drive
-It handled great. Tried to take it through the gauntlet but could never reproduce the drivetrain error.
-Literally as i'm less then 100feet away from home, the drivetrain error comes up. I can feel the car shake more as it's running on only 7 cylinders.
-I turn off the engine but keep the ignition on, scan it with Bimmerlink, and get the same 4 misfire errors mentioned above
-As I'm getting ready to clear the errors, the drivetrain malfunction goes away on it's own
-I start up the engine and it sounds as if nothing happened, firing on all 8.

Any ideas for troubleshooting this? I'm considering swapping the coil and plug out of spot #5 and into a different spot to see if the problem follows?
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      11-16-2020, 03:47 AM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by UnopposedCheeseBurger View Post
Quick update:
-Took the car out for a 45min test drive
-It handled great. Tried to take it through the gauntlet but could never reproduce the drivetrain error.
-Literally as i'm less then 100feet away from home, the drivetrain error comes up. I can feel the car shake more as it's running on only 7 cylinders.
-I turn off the engine but keep the ignition on, scan it with Bimmerlink, and get the same 4 misfire errors mentioned above
-As I'm getting ready to clear the errors, the drivetrain malfunction goes away on it's own
-I start up the engine and it sounds as if nothing happened, firing on all 8.

Any ideas for troubleshooting this? I'm considering swapping the coil and plug out of spot #5 and into a different spot to see if the problem follows?
check your connections on the coil, you want to make sure that the plug is put firmly into place, I had one that even when I pushed the clip down it didn't want to pull in the plug, so I had to push on it as I put on the plug. Next, make sure the coil is pushed down all the way and in position correctly. and finally just switch coils at first. that way you know if it was a coil issue or a plug issue
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      11-16-2020, 12:30 PM   #19
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If the new coils and plugs are in fact good, sounds like it could be the fuel injector.
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      11-18-2020, 10:45 AM   #20
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check your DME ground wires, curious if you are running tune and if you changed the gap on your plugs.
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      11-18-2020, 01:40 PM   #21
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Happy to share i've had no errors come up in the last two days, since the last misfire in #5 and the drivetrain malfunction mentioned above.

Cumulatively the car has been driven for a total of about 4 hours during that time (daily driver). I tried to reproduce the errors multiple times and was ready with Bimmerlink if it happened; nothing ever did though.

So for now, I'm hoping it's resolved. Not sure what would cause the errors to stop though? My theory is that maybe whatever was loosely connected ultimately settled into place after more driving time.

If these same errors do come up again, I plan to diagnose by switching out the coil in #5 elsewhere and see if the issue follows. That'll help narrow it down.

Thanks everyone for the help!

Re: Tuning - My car is stock, not tuned. But I can tell that at some point in it's life by a previous owner it was tuned, has the signs of it. I used a new set of Bosch oem plugs, kept them as is out of the box, didn't gap them.

As an interesting note - when I removed the coils, 7 of 8 were matching, 1 was an unmarked brand. The plugs were covered with white deposit, which I understand means it's running lean. I'm not sure when the plugs were changed last, so i'm planning to observe it and maybe check the plugs after a lot more driving time. Any recommendations?
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      11-19-2020, 08:59 AM   #22
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I would just wait for the misfire to return. You're on the right track by being able to narrow down to the #5 cylinder. I'd swap to a far away cylinder on the opposite bank so that you know for sure it will follow if the plug or coil are bad. Sounds like it was likely just the coil connection not 100%. It's also possible that injector is going bad. Start with the easier stuff (coil and spark plug). Then suspect the injector.
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