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Thread: 2003 325xi (M54) Fuel injectors leaking

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2018
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    Houghton, MI
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    2003 325xi

    2003 325xi (M54) Fuel injectors leaking

    Hello,

    As the colder weather has started here in Houghton MI, I have been smelling gas upon starting my car in when it is dead cold (sitting overnight) (less than 20 or so degrees). I wasn't too sure what the issue was, but I also noticed over the past couple of weeks that I have been losing fuel pressure when my car sits. I have been needing to turn on the ignition on for about 2-3 seconds before turning the engine over otherwise it would take a long time to catch. I figured the issue could be a bad check valve in the fuel pump after reading some posts on the issue, or maybe a leaky injectors. Well, the other day the gas smell was very bad when starting the car cold (I'm guessing it was about 10 degrees or so). I took a peek underneath (after a short drive) and saw some yellow liquid dripping from under the engine pan/shrowd (I assumed pure gas at first, but could have been a mixture of water from melting snow). I immediately popped the hood and saw some vapor coming from under the cover on top of the fuel rail. Instantly thought I had an injector issue. Shut it down, went to class, came back midday, took the cover off, started it up, nothing. Today I started it up in the cold and took another look as saw that two of my injectors were leaking a little bit. I'm assuming the seals are more of the culprit because of it being heavily related to temperature (injectors don't appear to leak when warm).

    Long story short, I am planning on buying a seal kit to replace the top and bottom o-rings on all the injectors, but I also read that injectors on theses car sometimes crack, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to buy a new set (or used set) and just replace everything in one shot. I wanted to get some input first on if the injectors commonly crack and if you think it would be a good idea to replace them. I found a few good used Siemens sets on ebay for about $40. All the other ones I found were either higher flow or really expensive. Whatever input on injector choices that I can get would be much appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Matthew

  2. #2
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    I'd just replace the o-ring seals, then see if the leak has been addressed. Mildly unusual for injectors to crack and leak.
    DSC_0002.jpg
    I did ours not long ago, along with intake gaskets, ccv & all associated hoses, vac hoses. If you have not done the fuel filter/regulator in some time, you might consider doing so. I also did a fresh pump and filter/regulator which made a huge difference in the running. Good luck with it.
    Regards

  3. #3
    Join Date
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    Each injector has 2 orings. The upper oring is used to secure the connection with the fuel rail. The lower oring seals the biz ness end of the injector from vacuum leaks. Don’t skimp in orings. Go to www.realoem.com and enter the last 7 characters of the car’s vin. Hit enter and bookmark the page. Scroll down to fuel preparation to get the part numbers. Order original equipment rings from FCPEuro.

  4. #4
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    2003 325xi
    I appreciate the replies!

    Unfortunately, I ordered a set of o-rings off eBay before seeing your post a while back. They were only $15. I put them on shortly after and it fixed my issue as stoped my fuel pressure from diminishing over time. All was great until last week or so. We got some more cold weather (-20's) and I noticed the same kind of symptoms. Bad smell and fuel pressure not holding throughout the day. It wasn't as bad as it was before, but it was there. A couple of days ago when it was in the single digits, I went to school and noticed a strong gas smell. I took off the fuel rail cover and saw that ALL of the injectors were leaking quite significantly again (vaporizing violently and all). I was kind of surprised because I wouldn't have expected my new, cheap or not, o-rings to fail so soon.

    HAs anyone had a similar experience with off-brand o-rings? I am going to buy OEM ones next, but I want to ensure they will perform better before doing the job again. Are there any options that would be superior? This car is definitely going to be exposed to colder weather throughout the rest of its life. I don't want to risk leaking fuel every time its cold. Its also killing my gas mileage. I'm only getting 13mpg with easy 100% city driving.

  5. #5
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    Just buy the OE o-rings from FCPEuro and be done with it. BMW tests its car’s in cold climes where the temperature go to 20 or 30 below zero for days at a time. There are some instances where aftermarket parts are ok. This is one where aftermarket parts aren’t ok.

  6. #6
    Join Date
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    I recently got a batch of used injectors that had several leaking from the injector body. One was spraying pretty good and three others were just leaking and bubbling. Never seen that before but it can happen.

    Orings are generally problem free unless damaged during installation. There may be very poor quality orings out there that don't stand up to fuel but I haven't seen that yet.

  7. #7
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    Right. I suspect I have a batch of faulty injectors. Sure, the original o-rings were bad (permanently deformed and not providing enough pressure to seal). But that doesn't explain why my new o-rings haven't solved the issue, at least mostly. I'd say its back to as bad as it was in the cold. And my fuel rail doesn't hold pressure.

    I took another look at them when starting it up in the cold and I did notice one bubbling around the base of the neck portion (not near the top). And one of the injectors had almost a stream coming from what looks like a cup screw in the side of the injector (see red line in the picture). I looked at all of the injectors to see if any of them were damp at the top near the o-ring to the rail, and none of them were. But yet they were all soaked at the base of the plastic part (blue line in the picture). I didn't get a very good look at if the plastic neck was two or one piece, but I imagine its two and in the cold, they are shrinking apart from each other causing a leak.

    injector.jpg
    I found a youtube video of some people in Canida also complaining of faulty injectors (o-rings didn't fix) YouTube. So I'm thinking my injectors are bad and I'm considering getting a set of rebuilt ones that are all cleaned up and flow tested. Probably not a bad idea considering these ones have 150k miles on them anyway.

  8. #8
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    Well you could remove the fuel rail and leave the injectors in to test your theory, if they drip you will see it also the fuel pump has a check valve to hold line pressure. Oring s have nothing to to with holding line pressure, the fuel is in the injector. The faulty seals could cause fuel smell but have no effect on pressure. I very rarely have to replace injectors, except for the direct injected engines
    Last edited by jclausen; 02-17-2019 at 01:10 PM.

  9. #9
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    I was considering doing that, or at least remove the rail and make sure I had everything completely seated from before. But I went to have another look at it this morning before heading out. I started the car up and took a look at there was fuel shooting about 5 inches directly up out of one of my injectors and the other ones were streaming fuel all down them. There is definitely something wrong with them. The fuel looked like it was coming right out from that hole I circled before. I ordered some rebuilt injectors. As soon as I get them put in I'll do an update.

    As far as losing pressure. The check valve at the fuel pump was one of my first suspicions before even tackling this project, but after I replaced the o-rings the first time around, it fixed that issue for about a month. I'm positive whatever issue I'm having at the fuel rail right now is causing the loss in pressure.

  10. #10
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    I had an e46 towed in about 4 times for engine turn over no start and every time it came off the flat bed it ran great finally on the forth time is still would not start it was the fuel pump

  11. #11
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    I got some rebuilt injectors installed and there are no more leaks! My old ones were definitely shot and leaking from the hole I circled in the previous picture. I kind of want to section one of them and see where/what exactly failed. My fuel pressure still seems to bleed off when the car is off, so I do think the check valve in the fuel pump is bad, but that's not a huge deal.

    By the way, the number stamped on the side of all my bad injectors is 2842, just incases someone has similar issues.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by MasterBuilder View Post
    I got some rebuilt injectors installed and there are no more leaks! My old ones were definitely shot and leaking from the hole I circled in the previous picture. I kind of want to section one of them and see where/what exactly failed. My fuel pressure still seems to bleed off when the car is off, so I do think the check valve in the fuel pump is bad, but that's not a huge deal.

    By the way, the number stamped on the side of all my bad injectors is 2842, just incases someone has similar issues.
    Where did you get your rebuilt injectors from? A friend has cold weather issues with his 330xi.

    Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

    Gave away my BMWs, driving a VW and an Audi now.

  13. #13
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    I got mine from these guys: Link
    We had a very cold morning and I took a peak to see if my rebuilt ones would leak in about as cold of weather as they would experience and two of them were a little. Not by a whole bunch, but a noticeable amount (nothing compared to the old ones). As soon as they heated up the leaking stopped. I am going to contact the people I got them from and see what they want to do to replace the two injectors since their work has a lifetime warranty. I actually reached out to them before buying and they straight up said that these injectors are extremely prone to leaking from the body and that they were searching for options to address it.

    After doing a little more reading, it sounds like Siemens noticed and fixed the problem with a newer version around 2003 which has a silver body. the old ones have a black body (mine did). So to get a set of the new ones, you'll have to search for a set taken off a newer than 2003 BMW. I have a 325XI but it was manufactured in September of 2002.

    Here are a couple of posts on the same issue.
    https://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sh...=740874&page=2
    https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...ated-injectors

  14. #14
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    Update:

    My rebuilt injectors started leaking horribly too. Here is a video of when I started my can this morning when it was -4 degrees out. The fuel spraying is coming right out from that hole circled earlier.
    The people I bought them from are sending me another set free of charge, but I imagine they will develop the same problem if I used them in cold weather. I have noticed that the leaking only gets worse with use in cold weather, in other words, the leaking becomes more and more pronounced even in warm weather. Hence, I'm basically trashing the injectors I am using.

    https://youtu.be/oOrNGinijds

    I'll probably start looking around some junkyards for some 2004 or newer ones. If I can't find anything I'll probably just have to end up spending $480 on all new ones.

  15. #15
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    You should send them to RC Fuel Injection for cleaning and repair. www.rcfuelinjection.com.

  16. #16
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    Ah, No... These ones had already been cleaned and filter/o-rings replaced. The injectors plastic itself is bad, can't handle the cold, and is shrinking/not holding a seal and is leaking. I thought I had made that clear by now. The more I look into it the more I find on people having the same issue. These older Siemens VDO injectors are simply defective in a sense that they can't handle the heat cycling over time and become weak in the cold. Pretty much like all the other plastic components that fail on these cars, they don't seem to hold up to the heat cycling. It's very frustrating and I am surprised a recall hasn't been done on them given that this is a huge safety issue (but then again that would be super expensive for BMW, so might as well just not).

  17. #17
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    By the way, the solution to solving this problem was to buy the newer version of the Siemens injectors ($75 a piece) VDO A2C59511971. Haven't had any issues sense. I read somewhere that BMW was awear of the issue and had a bulletin on it. Hence the newer version being created.

    Do not buy rebuilt injectors unless they are for sure the newer version. Both sets I received leaked after being in the cold for a couple weeks.

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