Fix of the week was a new customer that has a very nicely maintained E83 with a very intermittent misfire that would turn on the check engine light. Typically forums are a place with a ton of miss information that will lead you astray such as the overblown (in my opinion) Vanos Seal replacement. This customer did try this along with replacing many other parts as well with basically no change to the original complaint. Turns out that just upgrading the software to the latest version, just like updating to the latest version of Windows fixed the issue. Granted, the forums did have this fix in it as well however its typically the last thing most forum readers try since it involves going to the dealer.
Luckily he found Nelsons Automotive of Pewaukee, and learned that we have the ability to do this here as well as most anything that the dealer can do. My tech, who doesn’t read forums, looked at the car, ran all the tests and verified that this is a common problem seen in my network of BMW shops from around the country and the fix was in fact software.
To my customers credit as well as the forums, which I did take the time to read per my customers request. Did in fact have the answer as well. Bringing it here however, would have saved him a lot of time and money.
