car shut down itself while at traffic light

[erichui]

Hi guys,

I've experienced this twice this week already.

What happens is, while stopping at a traffic light, the car engine suddenly shut itself down (I have a 30i with auto transmission) while I was on my brake and in gear (D or M/S mode)

When the car engine was off, the engine fault light lights up and remains on.

When I try to start the car again the car starts fine and there is no warning or anything (checked my Idrive vehicle information and its not showing anything.)

I actually recently took my car to carry out some warranty work, and mentioned that particular issue to them, and they didn't really say anything or check anything it seems.

I have been overseas recently so haven't driven my car much (currently only done 600Kms). Anyone here have any ideas on what could be going wrong?

Thanks.

Regards,
Eric

[Jay Zone]

If the engine light came on then it generated a fault code that they can see when you take it in for service.

Take it in when it happens again. Have them look at the fault code. You might want to try a better dealership too.


JZ

[mikeinaustin]

happened to me once, the first week i had the car. when you say the engine light came on, are you saying it is still on, i mean right now? if so, take it to the dealer and have them check the fault code. For me, no engine light.

[Memphis1]

that happened to me twice on my mb clk, once on the highway doing like 80 the car just shut down for like a second and then it burped and turned back on, the second time was at a light just like you describe it and the dealership was never able to replicate or figure out what was wrong. has to be the electronics or faulty ground wiring.

[T89]

This is scary...


T

[erichui]

Originally Posted by mikeinaustin

happened to me once, the first week i had the car. when you say the engine light came on, are you saying it is still on, i mean right now? if so, take it to the dealer and have them check the fault code. For me, no engine light.

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. The engine light only came on when the car engine was switched off, but the light doesn't stay on after I switch the car back on. Therefore the light isn't on anymore.

I guess I will have to have it happen once more before I will bring it back again. Thanks guys.

Regards,
Eric

[Jay Zone]

Originally Posted by erichui

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. The engine light only came on when the car engine was switched off, but the light doesn't stay on after I switch the car back on. Therefore the light isn't on anymore.

I guess I will have to have it happen once more before I will bring it back again. Thanks guys.

Regards,
Eric

Your car records all the faults in its CPU. So it is there even if the light goes out. Last time you went to the dealership they probably purged the memory, so wait for it to happen again and then take it in.


JZ

[Z4@Phuket]

Now , the car computer is so smart. It records everything. Once I remove the airbag with battery disconnected. It still showed fault when I have my car at BMW service. So take your can in, no need to wait for the second time. The computer should comes up with some fault.

[mikeinaustin]

in my case there was no fault or code. the "check engine light" you see is the exact same as when you put the key fob in but haven't yet pushed the start button. the purpose of turning it on (and other indicators) is to let you know the bulb behind those indicators are still burning.

it is not the same as the indicator being "on" if you know what i mean. if your case is the same as mine, your "check engine light" has never come on because of a fault.

[mikeinaustin]

well it happened to me twice this weekend again.

it appears to only happen in sport mode when idling at a stop light (engine was warm). i have 6000 miles on the car and it has never happened in normal mode.

[ppanZ4]

the High Pressure Fuel Pump..(HPFP)

[mikeinaustin]

well in my case, no. 3.0's don't have a hpfp. we do have a normal fuel pump though. the check engine light is not on. my first guess is it's some type of software issue. i say this simply because it does not happen in normal mode and that would seem to rule out icv, maf, fp, ..., issues.

[Jimmy1989]

The engine light etc comes on when the car, or any car for that matter, stalls... shouldn't happen in an automatic. An old car of mine used to cut out etc. At traffic lights it turned
out to be a problem with the idle valve stickin, possibly something similar?

[teagueAMX]

Originally Posted by erichui

Hi guys,

I've experienced this twice this week already.

What happens is, while stopping at a traffic light, the car engine suddenly shut itself down (I have a 30i with auto transmission) while I was on my brake and in gear (D or M/S mode)

When the car engine was off, the engine fault light lights up and remains on.

When I try to start the car again the car starts fine and there is no warning or anything (checked my Idrive vehicle information and its not showing anything.)

I actually recently took my car to carry out some warranty work, and mentioned that particular issue to them, and they didn't really say anything or check anything it seems.

I have been overseas recently so haven't driven my car much (currently only done 600Kms). Anyone here have any ideas on what could be going wrong?

Thanks.

Regards,
Eric

Originally Posted by erichui

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. The engine light only came on when the car engine was switched off, but the light doesn't stay on after I switch the car back on. Therefore the light isn't on anymore.

I guess I will have to have it happen once more before I will bring it back again. Thanks guys.

Regards,
Eric

When you restart the engine does it start right away or does it crank for a while then start?

Does it idle OK once you start it or does it run kind of rough? Do you have to race the engine a little bit to make it run right?

Once you got it started and begin to drive again in gear, does it hesitate at all or does it take off smoothly?

How long does it take while idling at the light for it stall out?

[mikeinaustin]

restart is instant, drives smooth once re-started.

idle is fine.

just depends on stall time. the first time, the car was idling for around 30 seconds, then cut out. the second time the car shut off within seconds of coming to a complete stop.

after the second time, i switched back to normal, and it never happened again even though we drove around doing errands for another hour or two.

[flpnout]

I had this similar issue on my previous 2004 330ci and it was a manual transmission. It started doing the same thing once I reached 9500 miles. It was a sporadic issue that when you come to stop at a traffic light, it would just idle down and shut off. Sometimes the idle would try to recover, but mostly fails and shuts off with engine light. Once I started it back up it was fine and would not happen for days or even weeks. I brought it to two different dealerships and both reported "no issues found" or "could not replicate issue". They even kept it for a weeks at a time. They were trying to blame me on using non-premium gas. Which is not true as I use Chevron 91 octane on all my BMWs. I decided to take to another dealership (we have many here in the bay area) and they finally stated on the closing work order that it was a software issue. At that time they claim they did not have a fix, therefore I just had to wait for Puma to come out with a software update.

After several attempts to have the issue rectified, I turned it over to my attorney with all the paper work stating I have taken it in 4 times to have the problem resolved and the paper work that stipulates "it was a software issue with no fix at the moment from Puma" worked in my favor. BMW ended up buying the car back so that it would not be considered a "lemon" once my attorney handled the matter.

[mikeinaustin]

fyi, car idles at 650 rpm (when in drive).

yes i figure when i take it in they will say there are no error codes and they cannot reproduce...

for me, the first time it happened was 3 days after i got the car, so it was their gas in the tank!

[lfvb007]

Same issue here. Shut down at idle. Another thing I figured out is related to temperature and humidity. I live in Miami, so during our "winter", nothing happens and now I have the problem almost every other day. The dealership has no clue, since they cannot reproduce.

[Vintage]

mikeinaustin - let us know what the dealer finds - looking forward to the diagnosis

[kevingiardini]

Hey erichui,

I have the exact same problem happen to me. I have a 2010 bmw z4 30i, and the first day while driving in a parking lot, I was going low speed and I stepped on the break and when i hit accelerations again, the car was shut down and the engine light came on. I stepped on the break again, and than after realizing what was going on, I put it in park and started the engine and the engine light was gone and everything was fine again. At first I thought it was a glitch or something and the BMW sales person told me to wait and see if it happened again. Well, one week later, the same thing happened, this time I took a picture of the engine warning light and took it to the dealer. seeing your story, I feel like this could be a manufacturing defect. and while your engine shuts off when you do a full stop, my does it while in drive mode. Luckly, when I took it to the dealer, they crashed it and are now in process of getting me a new one. BMW need to look into this issue. this is a safety problem that I don't believe they should ignore.

BTW, my driving mode was place on normal not sport or sport plus when this instance happened. I love this car, I hope the new one is not screwed up.

[mikeinaustin]

dealer checked all the computers and the data stored in them, nothing wrong, no indication of anything to help diagnose the issue.

however, i do have one more data point. i finally was looking at the display when it happened. in this particular case, i was in 3rd gear and came to a stop. normally, it would shift to 2nd then 1st. in the error case, it was in 3rd and as i pressed on the brakes to stop, the car immediately shutoff, never shifted out of 3rd and i don't think it even tried to. so with the car dead at a stop, it showed "S3' in the shift display (sport mode, gear 3).

i also agree that as the temperatures rise, it is easier to reproduce. for me though, only sport mode, never, and i mean never a hiccup in normal mode.

[riccis]

Well it happened to me for the first time today too. Never had an issue before. I have a 30i auto.

I was coming to a slow stop at lights. Went to move off and.......nothing. Looked down and pretty much the same as everyone else. Engine light was on but engine was dead.

I was in manual mode at the time and I think I was in sports mode (not 100% certain but fairly confident). This weekend has been pretty much the first weekend with very good weather and ambient temp was showing as 27 degrees C. Not exactly very hot but my bald head is showing a little redness ;-P

Took me a few secs to figure out what was going on too but finally put the drive back into 'P' and fired up the engine. It started immediately and thankfully no one was behind me but strange all the same. Once the car started, dashboard appeared normal (no warning lights).

The best way I can describe it is as if the car had stalled. I'm not sure if that is possible on an auto (as Jimmy mentions above) and it certainly didn't judder or anything like one with a manual transmission typically does when you stall it (not that I ever have ;-P ). Anyway, I have a theory that it may have a little something to do with the adaptive transmission so I will likely reset the ECU (as per steps in another thread) and see how things go.