I'll admit it, I'm a computer guy. I grew up learning computers, and I love them dearly. They are my life passion. I can repair them, build them from scratch, and make them do whatever I want. However, recently, I have dove into the task of repairing my friends 1999 BMW 323i with him. Behold, I have come to realize that I have hated cars and the technology that has been baked into them.
To start off with, the car is from 1999, so the technology, one would suspect, wouldn't be very advanced. At least, in terms of digital computers, etc. However, that doesn't mean it is simple in any means, and technology does advance to mechanical functions as well. This will be a journey of our frustrations with technology.
To start off with, the car had sat for several months untouched. This meant that the battery was unfortunately dead. Alright, so we pop the hood, and...no battery. The battery was in the trunk. Which, of course, can only be opened via power. Of course, German engineering planned for this, and put two battery terminals inside the engine compartment that ran to the trunk, but COME ON. 20 minutes of jumper cables later, and the car finally turned over and started. We took it for a ride around the block, and it was....well, awful. Smoke came out of the engine from leaking, burning oil, and it make the car smell like ass. A few days later, my friend replaced a head gasket, and the smell/leak problem was fixed. However, I still hate seals to this day, always drying out and whatnot.
The car had other problems as well. The headlights were partially cracked out, and thus, fell out unless they were taped in. $45 later, and new headlights were in, which stopped the annoying clicking noise that would turn on when trying to turn and one of the headlights had unplugged. We needed to mount the license plate, but of course, to our convenience, there was no mounting plate on the rear of the car. We picked up a mounting plate at Advanced Auto Parts, and to our surprise, the included screws were too long. Yay for us! So we had to drive to Lowes to buy new screws that (luckily) fit our bracket.
Since we were no longer driving without plates, and the oil wasn't leaking, and the battery held a charge, things seemed nice. However, a week later, and our luck came to an end...
The radiator was leaking. This meant that we had to keep adding fluid after every drive, and it meant that stinky, burning radiator fluid make the car stink again. Great. After a lot of research, buying O-ring gaskets, and more research, we finally found out that one of the clips for the "super amazing German quick-connect radiator system" were not sealing, and 10 minutes of wrestling with a hose with a lot of elbow grease fixed our problem by forcing the hoses to connect.
The other, larger problem, was that the car kept stalling randomly, and misfiring repetitively. Hours and over $100 was poured into switching spark plugs and exchanging spark plug coils, but alas, the engine was still misfiring. During this time, we had to continuously remove a BMW piece of plastic that covered the engine to protect it from rain. Unfortunately, one of the bolts stripped, and we ended up having to dremel off the rest of the cover to get the thing off. We had to order a new cover and replacement bolt, but otherwise, the car continued to survive, and we were able to refocus on the issue at hand: the misfiring.We didn't know why, and we were running out of options, until my friend, Cameron, unplugged the MAF (Mass Airflow Sensor), and it hummed with no hiccups. Why was this happening? Well, the MAF is in charge of detecting the amount of air entering the engine. If little air enters the engine, the MAF senses this and lowers the fuel ratio to the engine. If more air is detected, it increases fuel to the engine. However, it turned out that an air intake boot(hose) right after the MAF had two large cracks in its plastic, and thus, was sucking air in AFTER the MAF sensor, causing the MAF to see little to no airflow, even though the engine was receiving air. This caused the engine to misfire like a woman yelling at her husband furiously. We went to Advanced Auto Parts again, bought sealing putty, and sealed the pipe. It was a temporary fix, and, with the 42nd street bumps, it only lasted about 15 miles before cracking and stalling the engine, but it showed that we could fix the problem, and a few days later, Amazon to the rescue with a new air intake boot!
....Part 1 of 2
-816 words
No comments:
Post a Comment