[shark715]

Good to hear after everything you have been through...

[omera60]

Thank you guys, I'm glad I could enjoy the awesome weather here with the car

[3rdcoast228i]

Nice, glad they got it fixed for you.

[omera60]

Now I have 500km of critical driving as this will determine if the problem is really solved or not, fingers crossed it is

[bimmerfile]

Originally Posted by omera60

Now I have 500km of critical driving as this will determine if the problem is really solved or not, fingers crossed it is

Let us know at the end of the test period to let us know if the fix held.

[omera60]

Originally Posted by bimmerfile

Let us know at the end of the test period to let us know if the fix held.

Will do

[omera60]

Time for an update;

Before the testing period ended the issue did return, upon this I contacted the technical delegate myself via email, he came to Istanbul to visit me just between 2 trips, we had an appointment yesterday and spent the whole day together troubleshooting. He told me that he told BMW that this is not a mechanical issue however a software one. But they didn't listen to him and swapped parts with no success. As there is no new software available at the time of writing we couldn't do anything in terms of update but he had an idea, as the car monitors the rpm it decides to shift to neutral to save fuel and lower CO2 emissions, if we lower or raise the rpm this would prevent the car from shifting to neutral that hard. So he got a mobile computer/tablet which had ISTA on it and connected it to the OBD port. We went out to do some test driving, while I was driving he was monitoring, it's possible to raise the rpm by 50 or lower it by 70 values. So we first tried -20 which did help with the kick but would cause shaking/rattle when idling so he went up to the max value of +50 above the default, this did make the kick go away but when putting into gear it made the car bang as the transmission engages. So he lowered it to +20, the kick return but extremely subtle so I asked him if he can do +30 as the values go up or down by 10`s. +30 was the perfect spot so we went to grab some lunch, after that we went for more test driving stupid me insisted that we go +40 which by surprise made the kicks come back. So he lowered it to +30 again but for some reason this didn't help this time. After some driving he monitoring or me monitoring he driving we went back to the dealer service shop. I asked him if we can disable the Neutral Idle Control (NIC). He said we can and we connected the car to FAFSA and someone from headquarters connected to it via network and started coding. In the mean time I asked if we can take a 218i coupe test car out for a drive but none was available at the moment but he found another customers car in the lot that just came out of service and waiting to be picked up. So he got the car and we went to a test drive, had the exact same issue! He said that this needs to be sorted out by BMW with software but they won't do it for just one complaint and he needs at least 10 or more cars so he can attach them to my PUMA file. He wrote an email to every dealer in the country to inspect the cars and if issue found (he said it will be) he will then make a case out of it. He also got the info and connected the car and downloaded the data to attach to my case on PUMA. In this time my car was ready so we went out to test a drive, disabling the NIC did help it but it's not gone. He said that if I want to change anything I can without him by just coming to the dealer service (btw he also thought me how to use ISTA and ISTA/P). He said he will be on the case and will do everything in his power to help me make BMW solve this with 3 cylinder engines. We bid our farewells and agreed to follow up by email. If anything happens I will let you know...

[USA-RET]

That's sad to hear.

I didn't realize (being the US) that there were 3 cyl BMW's sold other than the i8. Hopefully there will be enough issues reported for BMW to take some action to correct. Apparently this can be resolved as in your experimentation, the issue was eliminated for a while. Although even when you had it adjusted to operate properly, issue could return after some mileage was accumulated.

Sometimes, when a car is engineered a problem surfaces that cannot be fully corrected. If this is the case w/ the 218i, maybe BMW can at least mitigate the issue to point the customers can live with it.

GM has some serious problems with their A8 automatic. The corrective actions they've take have in some cases eliminated the problem or mitigated it, in others nothing that has been done corrects the issue. Still others that own the car may have just learned to live with the "quirk" as normal (that could be the case with the other customer's car you test drove). Hope BMW can do a better job that GM.

[omera60]

Originally Posted by USA-RET

That's sad to hear.

I didn't realize (being the US) that there were 3 cyl BMW's sold other than the i8. Hopefully there will be enough issues reported for BMW to take some action to correct. Apparently this can be resolved as in your experimentation, the issue was eliminated for a while. Although even when you had it adjusted to operate properly, issue could return after some mileage was accumulated.

Sometimes, when a car is engineered a problem surfaces that cannot be fully corrected. If this is the case w/ the 218i, maybe BMW can at least mitigate the issue to point the customers can live with it.

GM has some serious problems with their A8 automatic. The corrective actions they've take have in some cases eliminated the problem or mitigated it, in others nothing that has been done corrects the issue. Still others that own the car may have just learned to live with the "quirk" as normal (that could be the case with the other customer's car you test drove). Hope BMW can do a better job that GM.

BMW puts 3 cylinder engines (B38) on all of the series from 1 to 4 as the taxes are stupidly high in Turkey. This is their one and only market I've been told for these engines and it's a big one. Almost every BMW you see here has this engine. It's also economic in terms of MPG. I hope he can collect enough cases to put pressure behind BMW's back. As this issue is not a safety concern but rather a comfort one it's not on the top in the to do list. Market size also effects this immensely. The most satisfying thing is I could witness that I'm not the only one. This was a huge relief. I hope down the road I'll be fine but if not I can also fine tune again but let's hope that's not necessary and BMW comes up with a permanent solution on the software side.

[crabu2]

You might be doing this daily... and assuming it's possible, have you tried the adaptive transmission reset?

[omera60]

Originally Posted by crabu2

You might be doing this daily... and assuming it's possible, have you tried the adaptive transmission reset?

Hey,

Thanks for the idea, I did this before couple of times but it didn't help but the throttle got very responsive. I also had the adaptive values for the transmission wiped 4-5 times. Unfortunately it doesn't help, we also checked the values and they are normal. If anyone has any more ideas everyone's welcomed to share or I'll have to wait for BMW to come up with a solution...

[omera60]

So, small update. I took the car to the second service that I go which is closer to my house for inspecting the connected drive as it was having some issues with accuracy of the cars parking position on the app and the internet dropping and coming back etc. We hooked the car up to ISTA and there was a update available, we did apply it (v 4.06.22), it took some time to finish but after that the connected issue was solved more or less however it also fixed the kick issue I've been having, or it made it so small that I can't feel it. I'm happy with what I got now. Just to let you guys know...

[Elvisfan]

Originally Posted by omera60

LOL, I had a manual before this one, it's really hard when you live in the city which has the 7th worst traffic in the World at any given time of the day and auto is standard equipment here. Thanks for the wish though





I forgot to tell you, I always turn off the start stop button, I feel like it takes lifetime out of the engine and the components. But when the kick starts to happen and gets worse, it exactly feels like the start stop function kicking in (no pun intended) but is off as always.

You did mention in your OP that stop/start was disabled.

[Elvisfan]

I just saw this post. Today. I noticed the same bump for the first time yesterday. I thought someone had tapped my bumper. I'll have to keep an eye on it.