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e46 compact 320td compact starting problems if left for more than 2-3hours

1K views 4 replies 3 participants last post by  BMW 320td Compact 
#1 · (Edited)
LONG TIME NO POST FOLKS,FLAT OUT AT WORK.

Got shut of the company car at last!(1.4 FOCUS) and got a monthly allowance instead.4 years and 130k in a focus,glad to see the back of that peice of s%&t.

I have purchased this absolutley mint late 54 plate m sport 320td albeit 2 stone chips on the bonnet with just 40k on the
clock.Full history,bills,mots etc.I'm now spoilt between this and the 325ti me and wife own.What has really impressed me with it is the midrange(imo better than the 325ti )

View attachment 20135

Going through the forum i have done the flaps,egr valve,oil seperator,oil service,coolant change,new discs/pads.

It has developed a starting problem if i leave it stood more than a few hours,sometimes takes 4-5 goes before it fires up.Longer i leave it takes more goes before it will start.This has developed after a day of spirited and on the odd occasion a bit of sideways driving.

As the egr valve was really gunked up to hell and probably the internals coked up to suit(lady owner previous doing 5-6k a year) i thought it would be best to put some bg244 fuel system cleaner in a fresh tank of fuel to give it a good clear out.Could this be causing the problem?

When runnig the car performs ok with no problems at all,no misfires or lack of power.

Only thing i have not serviced yet is the fuel filter,could this be the culprit pulling some crap through out of the tank?

I have driven 300 miles on this tank of fuel with the fuel system cleaner in before the problem has developed.

fuel filter blocked with crap from tank starving it on start up?
pump problem?
fuel pump relay?
camshaft sensor fault?

DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START HELP!
 
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#2 ·
I'd be wondering about two things initially assuming the battery is fine etc... the priming pump (or associated relay) and perhaps your glow plugs. Thats assuming the starter itself isn't dodgy.

I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that the fuel cleaner somehow dislodged gunk thats blocking something upstream of the filter, as lets face it thats the job of the filter. I use fuel cleaner from time to time without problems on the same motor. I'd be inclined to suspect that the problem would also manifest itself during driving (hesitation etc) if it was purely the fuel filter.

You may be right on the coke front, or rather gunk front, the EGR condition is an excellent way of guessing what the inside of your intake manifold is like, so if you didn't clean that and the EGR was absolutely mingin' odds are it is too. Cleaning that would help performance, but it'd have to be really bad to cause starting problems.

If there are no problems once it is running, and the problems are say from a cold start, then I'd look at glow plugs first. Some may point out injector issues, but I wouldn't think that if she runs fine once started.

To get to the glow plugs you need to take off the inlet manifold, so if you do 'service' the plugs, its an ideal time to clean the inlet manifold, so you could remove two birds from the equation in one go :thumbsup

Of course its always a good idea to plug in diagnostics to see what the car says, it may be something obvious to it but a million different things to guess etc.
 
#3 ·
thanks for quick reply.
first step i'm going to eliminate is the fuel relay.
i believe the relay is identical to the horn relay?
just tried the car after 3 hours standing,would not start and could not hear the pump.
3rd time ignition on heard the pump and started ok.
hopefully this is the problem.

alsocould the pump itself be partially blocked or dodgy and intermitentley working?
 
#4 ·
Relays swapped over and seems to be cured.

just a quick update......

changed the fuel relay with the horn relay and now the problem seems to have gone, it starts first time.

plugged a peake reader in afterwards and it came up with no faults.

i have done just short of 700 miles to a full tank(mainly motorway on cruise at 70-80 mph) so i don't think theres a fuelling problem.

probably change the fuel filter anyways.

whats the glowplugs like to change,heard lots of horror stories about snapped ones?
 
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