My 02 500i absolutely refused to start today. Cranked it over - didn't fire.

It's a little cold, so on with the choke, don't touch the gas - a little spluttering, but no start.

Take out the spark plug - a little carbonized, and drenched in gas. Clean it off, crank a bit to clear out gas, put it back in, it fires briefly, then dies.

Sure sounds like fuel problems. Since it sat out in the rain last week (but started fine when I put it in the garage), maybe I got some gas in the fuel, and it froze last night. Off with the fuel line - plenty of gas coming out. It's almost empty, so drain it and put in fresh gas. No go, still won't start.

Off with the carb - maybe there's water/ice there, or just junk. Neither, it's clean as a whistle on the inside. Reassemble, and it still won't start. Dang - 700 miles on this cat, and this is the first trouble I've had.

Anyone have any idea what this could be? Sure hate to go to the dealer, the last time it was there, I came back and found the mechanic hauling motorcycle engines on the rack.

 

Hey John O, that sounds like the same thing that happened to me about a week ago. I thought I just flooded it, so I went through the motions took out the spark plug waited a long while tried again and still no go, just tried to fire. Then just for the heck of it I put in a brand new spark plug and it fired and ran perfectly ever since, go figure [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img]

 

The weather here has been dramatic. I've found the when its cold, either the idle needs to be increased a good amount or the throttle cracked a little with the choke on to start. It was near 70 two weeks ago but only in the 20s since. With all the ethanol in the gas its hard to imagine fuel lines freezing anymore.

 

Rooch, my man, you were right on the money. Replace the spark plug, and it roared back to life. Well, spluttered, coughed, and spit its way back to life, but it's running great now. Thank you, thank you, and thank you.

That was weird - it had all the symptoms of fuel feed problems. And it was running fine up until that one morning when it just refused to start.