My daily driver wont drive - United Bimmer Community

**ntroisi84** · 03-23-2010, 02:38 PM

Hello all,

I have been scouring the forums and have found some good advice that I am going to try, but I am posting anyways to see if anyone can answer some questions for me. I drive a 96 328i with about 180k on it. I have only owned it for about 6k miles. I have had no problems with it until this morning on my way to work. I started the car and it started very rough. It idled rough and I had to keep gas on it to keep it running. After a few minutes I took off down the road. It ran pretty good for about 2 hours, then I stopped for lunch and the car started rough again. Every red light it would stall on me. It has a complete lack off power and bucks quite a bit when accelerating or trying to maintain speed. It smelled like something was burning in the engine, so I stopped to check it out. Popped the hood and couldnt smell it any more and the car idled fine. I did notice that the ac lines were completely frozen white towards the back of the engine compartment. Not sure if this has anything to do with it, or the fact that my climate controll is messed up and turns on and off sparatically (I have never used the ac though). My friend said it seemed like the cat conv was burning. Not sure if it is clogged or anything. The temp is fine on it. The check engine light has been on since I bought it. I ran the codes when I first got it and it was just 1189. I never did anything because it ran fine. I ran the codes again about 2 weeks ago and got 1189,1188,1250,1423,1421. Im not sure what these mean though. I havent checked the codes since the problems though. It rained last night but not to hard and have heard the ecu can get wet and fry? I am a novice mechanic at best and could really use some help if anyone has any ideas. I am going now to try to clean the MAF and check the coils as this seems to be a fix for others. Please , any help would be greatly appreciated as I can not work without this car.

**ntroisi84** · 03-23-2010, 03:36 PM

I got the car started and disconnected the MAF. The car revved very high and idled perfectly. I am attempting to clean it. If this is the problem, is there something that would make the MAF go bad, or is it just because its so old?

**ntroisi84** · 03-23-2010, 05:17 PM

well, i bought some MAF cleaner and tried it again, but it didnt work. The car runs perfect without it. Does thi mean I need to replace it? Can I drive it without it? If anyone has some advice, please let mme know.

**ntroisi84** · 03-24-2010, 11:39 AM

Well, not to keep replying to my own thread, but maybe this can help someone else sometime. I just ordered the new MAF sensor and decided to take a look at the engine one more time. Ends up, the rubber boot going from the MAF sensor to the (throttle body?) was damaged. Underneath it there is a little off shoot that goes to a vacume line im guessing. It was cracked and was sucking lots of air. I was able to tape it up and everything seems fine. I just drove for about 5 miles and all is good. Hopefully I can cancel the MAF I just ordered.

**dwrx04** · 03-25-2010, 03:47 AM

very good info, thank you for posting.