2000 e39 misfiring

[filmore]

My car started misfiring 2 months back so I changed out mcoils and my spark plugs . While doing so I noticed oil in one of the plugs .. I dryer it out and put it all back together but I'm still getting misfiring. . Can anyone help me.

[Zekerbox]

I had a misfire on my 2000 540i that I was chasing for months. I changed plugs and coils and it didn't go away. There are three main components to combustion and you eliminated one. Next logical place is fuel. I ended up having a bad injector and replaced mine with a set of refurbished/flow matched injectors.

[MauiM3Mania]

Mod note: Moved from General BMW

[geargrinder]

Code reading is key.

Oil in plug wells from failing valve cover gaskets will cause misfires. Vac leaks and other mixture issues (like injectors) can cause misfires. Codes should show if it's one or two particular cylinders and cylinder specific components to look at, or floating around, therefore ageneral issue/shared component.

[Dan Wright]

I'm chasing a very slight misfire on my 2000' 540i as well, done plugs and coils too. When I scanned the car I got several cylinder misfire code and individual misfire on cylinders 5,7, and 8. Thinking of doing a smoke test next, any other suggestions after that?
Sometimes I get long starts depending on the temperature as well.

[geargrinder]

Yeah. Leaping to a coil-clusion on these motors can be costly, although at their age it doesn't hurt (when I had one conclusively fail I did all 8 last year). But everybody knee-jerks the coil solution.

Yes look for vac leaks. Obv you'd have noticed oil in wells. Being all on bank 2 could be telling. Look at your trims / adaptations to see if they tell you anything. Might want to start your own thread, as the 'pile on the other guys thread' for a problem like misfires isn't always a great idea. Too many causes, what's wrong with one guys car might be fine and totally something else for the next guy with same symptoms.

[filmore]

today a friend with a scanner stopped and read the fault codes on my car ... P0305 P0300 P1523+P1520 and P1622 .so i'm guessing i have to change out my camshaft position sensor and my cooling thermostat anything else i should do

[geargrinder]

Generally on the codes:
- please do the work of posting the descriptions for codes, as we're not all pro techs with 5000 Peepee codes memorized. basically the reason nobody else replies to your post here is because they'll look at it and go "yeah ok codes, i'm not gonna go google those things if the guy did it already and didn't bother to tell me what they are". especially the higher number pee pee codes can be different by engine / ECU too so... help people help you out.
- ideally you clear these, drive the car a bit, then read again and see what went away/came back. Some might be random / phantom / 'stale'... although this looks like a very plausible legit set with pretty clear implications.
- ideally you use a proper BMW proprietary scanner, which can show more than the generic peepee codes. the data is there for 'how many times' and 'at what rpm' etc. for all those codes but a peepee scanner doesn't retrieve it, nor does it retrieve shadow codes which might show codes that have 'come and gone' but are still indicative of intermittent issues. But again these seem pretty cut and dried.

Because I'm a forking standup guy here, let me do your work for you:

0300 Misfire - multiple
0305 Misfire 5
1520 Exhaust Cam actuator reference position
1523 Exhaust Cam actuator movement
1600 MAP cooling thermostat

Basically not uncommon set of codes for a BMW.

Yes could be your CPS however also very well could be your VANOS seals. You can go for the CPS first as the easy option and see if that does it. This is a situation where you don't want to buy a cheapass aftermarket CPS, get the actual dealer part.

The MAP thermostat error is not uncommon, not grave but you can fix it if you want and if the thermostat is old its almost definitely that and not a connector.

[filmore]

thank you for all of your help and advice #geargrinder.. i'm new to this so i apologize and know no for next time
i will also change the VANOS seals.
Would you know of A good web site to get parts from

[geargrinder]

No need to apologize, i'm just cranky cuz everybody noob does this and doesn't realize that its extra work to try to help them out for us to google something that you probably just googled yourself 3 minutes ago! Another dude recently listed like 10 code numbers and said "whats wrong". Anyway.

The place to go for the VANOS info is:
http://www.beisansystems.com/

If you don't want to get that deep into VANOS repair yourself you can always have an Indy do the work.

For other parts, many of us like FCP Euro, because of their no-questions lifetime warranty on everything. Like "my wiper blades wore out" "OK here's new ones". Not to mention legitimate warranty issues of course.