Hello anyone need big help 2 weeks ago my car 740il purchased in June 2011 with 91,000 miles died in a traffic Jam on LIExpressway NYC I managed to restart car and drove back home 2 days later travelling to work car died again in traffic jam on RFK bridge car was towed off bridge to mechanic in New Jersey who advised me that fuel pump was not working I told him to change later after work he told me car is not working cannot stay on that he discovered 4 codes one of them was electronic thermostat told him to change he kept car for over a a week to figure out what is wrong finally last tuesday he gave me the car back engine was on when I got in car after driving les that a mile car started to stall and buck I drove 35 miles to home and next day wednesday I drove back to New jersey After work I went to start and car engine refused to turn received failsafe warning and stop engine oil pressure but mechanic changed oil and filter now it is an holiday and everyone is closed Need help to restart car and bring it to a dealer please someone help and email @ cambriedog@yahoo.com
The electronics are complicated enough in those cars that a gazillion things could be going on - a good mechanic plus being guided by whatever the fault codes are, hopefully will give an accurate enough diagnosis to get you repaired and running. Very common issues by this age & mileage: Plastic parts on the radiator fragile, likely to break/leak - same for expansion tank - If your fan clutch freezes up, the fan blades can break off, severely damaging the hood, coolant hoses, etc. - Plastic water pump impeller can break up and cause problems through the engine coolant passages. In short, around the 100k mark, highly advisable to do major work on the cooling system - radiator, expansion tank, fan clutch, fan blade, water pump, thermostat, serpentine belt, hoses, and anything else I'm forgetting. There's more of course - potential problems with valley pan gasket, very common for the valve cover gaskets to be leaking oil, the buried & difficult to access at the rear of the engine OSV, ie: oil separator valve (which should be done if doing anything else that gets you close to it), oil pump bolts potentially loosening, transmission should be serviced as much as is possible (my mom had to replace hers last year, around 110k - cost about $5k), then there's stuff like 02 sensors, coil packs, sometime eventually above 100k, various front axle pieces/bushings will wear out and need replacing, and so on. What exactly you specifically will experience is always the question - I don't mention any of this to sour you on the car, but these are common issues. I think it's possible the earliest of the E38's show a higher frequency of these issues than later models, maybe. My mother's '97 could probably use valve cover gaskets, but not desperately, and hasn't had a problem with the valley pan gasket or OSV yet, that I know of so far, anyway (time will tell). Some links: http://www.e38.org/ http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/344734 http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/124059 http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/124310 http://www.cardomain.com/ride/205279/1998-bmw-7-series/page-16 http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/175047 http://www.cardomain.com/ride/240317/1996-bmw-7-series/page-5 http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/11919 http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/816587 http://bimmer.roadfly.com/bmw/forums/e38/ http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/607468 http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/552039 http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/264840 http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/121268 http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/793672 http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/439586 http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/233246 http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/49387 http://home.comcast.net/~vicent/osve38.html http://forum.roadfly.com/threads/5284090 http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/140918 http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/410780 http://www.magnum1.com/ http://www.magnum1.com/BMW-740/740_Pages/740.html http://www.magnum1.com/BMW-740/740_Pages/Maintenance-Pages/Valley-Pan-740.html http://www.magnum1.com/BMW-740/740_Pages/Maintenance-Pages/Valve-Cover-Gaskets-740.html http://www.magnum1.com/BMW-740/740_Pages/Maintenance-Pages/Oil-Change_Gasket_Oil-Pump-Bolts-740.html http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=310&order=desc&page=3 Not suggesting you consider going the Zionsville route here, but scroll down and the pics and writeup is worth digesting - http://www.zionsvilleautosport.com/store/screen/prod/store_code/6134/product_code/E389SDCK.htm Hopefully someone will have some additional insight for you - if you're getting a dash full of warning lights, you may be better advised to just flatbed it to the dealer than to try to drive it. If it is an oil pressure problem, for instance, you wouldn't want to risk engine damage - very expensive repairs there. Perusing Craigslist & Autotrader, there seem to be any number of 100k+ E38's out there going for +/- $4k prices, which I would assume reflects the expected maintenance expense to run one of these cars up to 200k miles. They're nice cars, but potentially maintenance-intensive moving past the 100k mark.
