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2021 BMW 530e PHEV. Just finished up 4600 miles of driving in a week, mostly highway, some spirited driving through the canyons, rest of the 4000 miles on the oil commuting to work, about 8600 total. Out - ESP 5W-30, MANN filter (which looked basically brand new) In - exact same, see no reason...

In addition, if your RAV4 is anything like my BMW 530e, engine power is extremely limited at cold start with the electric motor still doing most of the work to achieve the requested torque. It gradually transitions load from the e-motor to the engine over the span of a couple of minutes. I trust...

Intake valve deposit hysteria is largely unwarranted in this age, IMO. 30k is quite excessive. Maybe put a borescope in there at 100k to check on it, but on Gen 3 and up EA888 I'm sure it won't be much. The Gen 1/2 EA888s had terrible IVD issues as far as I understand, which is where the...

How about a Toyota Camry? Good gas mileage, very spacious, very reliable. Sedans are great family cars, they're what most of us grew up with. More efficient and better driving dynamics. And you get the added "cool factor..." crossovers/SUVs are now what minivans were in the 90s and 2000s.

Putting a different injector in cleaned up the idle. Runs fantastic now. I did install a known good Index 8 from my stash, the rest of the injectors are Index 11 or Index 12s. I know they say not to mix these, but it'll be good enough to hold me off until I can grab a good deal on a junkyard...

Update on the car, new thermostat housing vs. old thermostat housing. Previous owner must've opened it and removed the thermostat.... real gem on my hands here, folks. I'm probably going to lose sleep over how much fuel dilution there was with this and the two leaky injectors.

I often wonder about E85's place in the world these days. Feels like Flex-Fuel cars were mostly a 2000s fad. Plenty of E85 pumps here in the Midwest (the four closest gas stations to my house have it), but I haven't seen a yellow pump handle in a car here in years. When I lived in Phoenix, E85...

Any station that sells E15 from a pump marked E10 would be in violation of the Clean Air Act, so yes, it would have to change. But at the end of the day, the equipment and certification is cost-prohibitive for existing gas stations to sell E15 fuels, which is why most of the stations offering...

Late to this thread, but my personal understanding is that this was a blanket statement from when your options were generally E10 or E85 (51-83% ethanol). It's simple language that avoids any sort of misunderstanding. For my 2021 BMW, the paper owner's manual that came with the car has the same...

Sadly, the two leakers I had to replace were Index 12s. Put 11s in their place and those cylinders are fine now. The rough running cylinder I'm going to replace also has a 12. I do wonder why these injectors are such duds. The previous owner bought them from a junkyard, and I wonder whether...

Thought about deeper issues but I imagine if I had something internal, I'd notice other symptoms. The car runs fantastic as soon as you hit the gas. No hesitation, misfire codes, smoke, cross-contamination, or anything besides a slightly shaky idle. It makes sense in my mind that if an injector...

Not much, but the Teflon combustion chamber seal is one time use and $9 each if I buy it locally. As soon as I get done with all of this suspension work I'll just toss in a spare and see if it cleans up my idle.

I'm not sure which extended PIDs you might have access to on the Cav, but my 335i has a lifetime misfire counter for each cylinder. In my case I'm able to watch all six cylinders and see that every time I feel a stumble, the cylinder 4 counter ticks up an additional misfire. I swapped the coil...

N54 uses speed density, so any air leaks up to the manifold won't affect running at idle. Additionally, air issues would theoretically cause rough running on all cylinders, not just #4. I have a smoke tester but it would probably be a waste of time. Holds boost fine.

Certainly a failed battery will leave you stranded, no doubt about it. I was more getting at the point that the car, within reason, won't let you run the fan or the radio so long that you don't have enough reserve to start the engine, which I think is a nice feature.

Idle is the only time the problem manifests, which makes sense for a fuel injector issue. It runs great from light load to full boost. Looking at the misfire counter it's only misfiring on cylinder 4 which, to me, rules out a more systemic issue. I have run through about a half a tank with...

Really it's quite a clever system, been in use for over two decades now in BMWs. It monitors the capacity and state of charge of the battery for a couple of reasons - regenerative charging for fuel efficiency in so-equipped models (EfficientDynamics alternator), health monitoring so that it can...

Interestingly, there are no aftermarket injectors for these. The "refurbished" or "new" ones for sale are just recycled old injectors with a new Teflon stem seal and the part number repainted. There is a single Siemens/VDO plant in Italy that has, since they started being produced around 2006...

I just bought an absolute dumpster fire of a 2008 BMW 335xi. After replacing two leaking injectors, I still have a slight idle unsteadiness and occasional misfire on one of the cylinders (not enough to set a code but I've isolated it with live data) which I assume is a fouled up injector based...

No point in spending more money on a 0W-20 that meets the BMW spec when LL-04 5W-30 is cheap, available on store shelves, and approved in my model's owner's manual in every country outside of the USA.