[grimery]

Greetings all,

I purchased a 2007 335i CPO (30k miles) in March 2011. The car is awesome, but has some very annoying habits that are quickly ruining the car for me as it has been ongoing for months and 6 dealer visits later it's still unresolved.

1. When coming to a stop, it would feel like a vehicle rear ended you slightly (sometimes). Most noticeable when cold. Clunking noise in the rear.


2. When accelerating from a "California Stop", or coming up on a red light, you slow down, just before you stop, the light turns green, so you accelerate. You push the pedal down, nothing seems to happen at first (or you accel very slowly), some sort of delay (I understand this to be common of the drive by wire system from my searches) and then power comes on hard enough to make passengers heads hit the headrest. It's like there is some strange deadspot in the throttle position.

3. Similar to #2, but when accelerating from a stop. Pushing the pedal down a little results in too slow of a take off, push it a little harder and makes me look like an ass. This is infuriating and makes me hate driving the car.

3. Reduced power mode. Engine malfunction detected.

4. Sticky brakes


This is a CPO car, and that was why I had no hesitation in choosing this 335i as my first BMW. I have owned two GTOs (04 w/turbo and a stock 06), an 01 WS6, an 06 STI, an 02 GTP (automatic, s/c), and an AWD 2G DSM. I have never had issues with accelerating from a stop or near stop smoothly in any of the vehicles I have had in the past. The 335i would by far be my favorite if not for these issues.

I had never dealt with a BMW dealership before.


Engine Malfunction happened once to my wife while she was driving around town (25-35 zones). The car is equipped with i-drive and this popped up. She pulled off of the road and turned the car off. Started the car back up and it was back to normal.

The car was then driven for 500 miles or so before I got it into the BMW dealership for the first visit. They said they did a cleaning on the VANOS system and would replace a solenoid if it did it again. They told me that they could not reproduce any of the other issues I have listed.

On the 30 mile drive home from the dealership, the i-drive popped up the Engine Malfunction - Reduced Power message. I pulled to the side of the road, shut the car off, turned back on. No message, no reduced power. Drove for 1000 miles without experiencing the issue again.

Took car back into dealership for other issues, told that they couldn't reproduce the problem and that they could find anything wrong or history that it had the reduced power mode when I left the previous time (my guess is I waited too long, too many drive cycles?)


Google searches lead me to read about NIC (Neutral Idle Control) and how some people were successful in getting their dealerships to disable it, and their problems went away. I printed out the TSB and some forum posts of people describing the same issues that I had. I was told that the TSB does not apply to my 335i because it was built in June 06 and didn't have "NIC" or the same transmission as the cars that it applies to.

I had also found posts about doing a reset with holding the throttle down. See post: http://www.e90post.com/forums/showth...54#post8626254

This actually did something. This made a huge difference. This cured issue #4 (the sticky brakes) 100%. This also cured the weird throttle response. The way the car drove after doing this procedure made me fall in love all over again with the car.

200 miles later...I started to notice the throttle response getting a bit jumpy again, thought it was just me.

300 miles later...okay it's not just in my head, wtf.

500 miles later...rage. Issue #1/#2 are back in full force. Throttle deadspot is back.



Called BMW, scheduled to get a loaner car (over a month out) so they could keep the car overnight to see if they could reproduce these problems.

When dropping it off I mentioned the throttle reset procedure and how it really does seem to fix the throttle issues and is awesome for 200 miles. I was told that it was an internet myth by one of the technicians. Everytime I have spoken with BMW they treat me like I'm some crazy person and that there is nothing wrong with the car and that it's all in my head, and that that there is just nothing they can do.

I didn't complain to BMW about these issues until passengers started asking me about the jerky throttle response.


The 2nd day they had it, I received a phonecall telling me that they drove the car, experienced what they said were hard 2-3 and 2-1 shifts, and then called their regional contact and were told to replace the transmission under CPO.

Good news for me I guess....$7000 repair bill, thank you CPO.

After 2 weeks, I was happy to receive the vehicle back. It drove sweet. Just like it drove with the old transmission after doing the internet myth throttle reset procedure.


500 miles later...yeah. Throttle is back to its old habits. I have had the car back for a couple months now. I called BMW, informed them that unfortunately it's back to its old habits, and was told that there was nothing they could do and that it must just be how the car drives or it's my driving habits.

I do not notice the clunking noise in the rear since the new transmission, however there is still the feeling of something tapping the rear of the car when braking to a stop.

I performed the throttle reset today for the first time after getting the car with the new transmission.

It is back to driving amazing now. Do I really just need to reset it every 200 miles until I trade it in for something else (not a BMW)? JB3? JB4? Some other aftermarket addon that will stop the throttle from becoming so sensitive and with this deadspot?

What can I do to fix this? Is it really the adaptive throttle just not getting along with my driving habits? I drove the car for 300 miles babying it and it didn't seem to make a difference than when I did a different reset and drove it normally for the 300 miles. End result seems to end up the same either way.


As for the engine malfunction. When I picked up the car from having the transmission replacement, BMW told me they couldn't find the error code. I then made it one block away from the dealership and the Engine Malfunction happened again. I turned around and took it back to BMW. They then had me wait an hour while they diagnosed it. BMW says that it is the VANOS system causing it, but that when they run their diagnostics on the VANOS system, it comes back as good, so they can't replace it under CPO warranty unless it fails VANOS diagnostics.

Car had fuel pump replaced before I bought it.

I have never had hard or long starting issues with the car. It fires right up.

BMW tells me that they have updated all software when they replaced the transmission. Car has 42k on it now

Suggestions?


If you made it through all that, thanks!