Not sure if anyone has had to do this yet but thought I would share my experience. Roughly 2 weeks ago my wife's 04 2.5 (I have the same year 3.0) had a rough idle on start and the accompanying service engine light. I hadn't installed the BMW scanner in my garage computer yet so I used the generic scanner and found it was running lean. A quick browse on the internet suggested it could be the mass airflow sensor or a leaking intake hose. No problem I thought, just swap the sensor from my 3.0 to hers and check. Not so fast quack foo. The sensors are different diameters which makes sense given the engine size difference so that idea was out the door. Checking the intake hoses is not a simple matter as they appear to have built the vehicle around it so I opted to take the lazy route and ignore it until I can come up with a better idea.
A few days later (she continued to drive it) she told me that she had a cloud of smoke on engine start which gave me more information to diagnose the problem. Well, really it was a google diagnosis but the long and short is that these symptoms were indicative of an oil separator failure. This is also known as a ccv or cvv and is basically a high tech pcv valve.
Now that I knew what the problem was, I needed parts. Fortunately the link I looked at for the diy included a link to Tischer BMW which sold a kit which included the cvv and the necessary hoses for 150 bucks shipped. Ok, not too bad. Let's give the Henderson BMW folks a call and see if they can come close (when possible I like to support the local businesses). First they advise me that they don't sell it as a kit and second, all the parts I required would be roughly 450 bucks. And he didn't even seem embarrassed about this. So much for shopping local. 6 days later, UPS is at the door with my parts. Thanks Tischer.
So now, onto the repair. First off, I did not take pictures and really, if you look at this link the process is almost identical and I couldn't do as good a job documenting it so why bother. Fantastic diy by Starless.
http://www.forums.bimmerfest.com/showthread.php?t=417819
This repair was on a 3 series but almost identical with these few exceptions.
1- You will have to remove the strut bar.
2- The intake hose is one piece and is a pita.
3- Oil dipstick tube is attached (bolted) to the motor mount and bolt will have to be removed.
4- You do not have to remove the cabin filter area as the X3 has enough clearance.
Things proceeded fairly well however the DISA valve (this sits on the side of the intake manifold) is a major pain to remove as there is very little clearance between the strut tower and the manifold. You can remove a fastener on the plastic liner attached to the strut tower and push this in which will buy you fractions of an inch more which basically works. Ok, DISA out but hmmmm, why is the DISA flap moving back and forth with no resistance. Time to google again. Ok, not good. Common failure and potentially another couple hundred bucks. But wait, gotta love YouTube.
So I mix up some epoxy, do the DISA repair and let this set while I complete the rest of the cvv repair. The hose which runs from the cvv to the oil dipstick tube looks ok but when I pull back the insulated cover, it appears to have melted and sucked inward with a dime size hole (see pics at bottom of post). Well that's good news and means I am on the right track. Perhaps the cvv is fine but at this point I am going to replace it anyhow and quite honestly I don't think I could have replaced the rest of the hoses without pulling out the cvv anyhow. The rest of the repair was fairly simple and total time including the DISA repair was 5 hours. Having done this once, I am pretty sure I could get this down to 4 hours. Connecting the hoses to the cvv was fairly easy and didn't require a lot of extra effort, which after having read the original diy had me concerned.
Anyhow, fairly simple job and running well. As a side note, from the time we purchased this we had noticed very minor surging at lower rpms during a constant speed (say roughly 30-35 mph). I am wondering if the DISA failure was causing this and while I didn't notice it after my test drive, too early to declare this resolved.
A few days later (she continued to drive it) she told me that she had a cloud of smoke on engine start which gave me more information to diagnose the problem. Well, really it was a google diagnosis but the long and short is that these symptoms were indicative of an oil separator failure. This is also known as a ccv or cvv and is basically a high tech pcv valve.
Now that I knew what the problem was, I needed parts. Fortunately the link I looked at for the diy included a link to Tischer BMW which sold a kit which included the cvv and the necessary hoses for 150 bucks shipped. Ok, not too bad. Let's give the Henderson BMW folks a call and see if they can come close (when possible I like to support the local businesses). First they advise me that they don't sell it as a kit and second, all the parts I required would be roughly 450 bucks. And he didn't even seem embarrassed about this. So much for shopping local. 6 days later, UPS is at the door with my parts. Thanks Tischer.
So now, onto the repair. First off, I did not take pictures and really, if you look at this link the process is almost identical and I couldn't do as good a job documenting it so why bother. Fantastic diy by Starless.
http://www.forums.bimmerfest.com/showthread.php?t=417819
This repair was on a 3 series but almost identical with these few exceptions.
1- You will have to remove the strut bar.
2- The intake hose is one piece and is a pita.
3- Oil dipstick tube is attached (bolted) to the motor mount and bolt will have to be removed.
4- You do not have to remove the cabin filter area as the X3 has enough clearance.
Things proceeded fairly well however the DISA valve (this sits on the side of the intake manifold) is a major pain to remove as there is very little clearance between the strut tower and the manifold. You can remove a fastener on the plastic liner attached to the strut tower and push this in which will buy you fractions of an inch more which basically works. Ok, DISA out but hmmmm, why is the DISA flap moving back and forth with no resistance. Time to google again. Ok, not good. Common failure and potentially another couple hundred bucks. But wait, gotta love YouTube.
So I mix up some epoxy, do the DISA repair and let this set while I complete the rest of the cvv repair. The hose which runs from the cvv to the oil dipstick tube looks ok but when I pull back the insulated cover, it appears to have melted and sucked inward with a dime size hole (see pics at bottom of post). Well that's good news and means I am on the right track. Perhaps the cvv is fine but at this point I am going to replace it anyhow and quite honestly I don't think I could have replaced the rest of the hoses without pulling out the cvv anyhow. The rest of the repair was fairly simple and total time including the DISA repair was 5 hours. Having done this once, I am pretty sure I could get this down to 4 hours. Connecting the hoses to the cvv was fairly easy and didn't require a lot of extra effort, which after having read the original diy had me concerned.
Anyhow, fairly simple job and running well. As a side note, from the time we purchased this we had noticed very minor surging at lower rpms during a constant speed (say roughly 30-35 mph). I am wondering if the DISA failure was causing this and while I didn't notice it after my test drive, too early to declare this resolved.