Increased Emissions - Solved!

[ec_E92]

Originally Posted by GregW / Oregon

Aren't you under warranty?

He said he's at 82k so guessing not.

[drchuck72]

I bought a US 2009 M3 (I am in Canada) back in October. I drove it for the month November and then put it away when the weather started to turn bad as I still have my E46 M3 Cab until the end of February when my lease will run out.

I had some battery issues yesterday (battery froze) and I fired up the E92 to get the winter tires on in case I needed to drive it while I sorted out the battery issue with the E46. When I fired it up, the increased emissions light came on.

I came across this thread by accident. Glad I did. I guess I will be taking the car to its first Canadian Dealership for warranty service. Thanks to the OP. Good post.

[emthreeboy]

interesting!

[Gkap]

thanks for the info

[JCtx]

Originally Posted by cccmanhattan

I had took the intake off and found the pump you've circled in your picture, but the only valves I can see are burried off the back of the engine, behind the headers. How do you get to them to change them?

For those out of warranty, how much that pump really affects emissions? If it was to be eliminated, would you get a CEL? Cats might take a minute or two more to heat up, as they also have heated sensors, and no other car has that crap that I'm aware of.

Anyway, has anybody figured out what the hell causes the engine to load dramatically after about 4 minutes of starting? You can hear that loading by a dramatic change in exhaust noise. Does it have anything to do with that spupid valve? The 240 seconds it takes to do that sounds too much like coincidence, no?

[rob612]

how much did this cost you to fix? I'm having the same problem

[Shemp65]

I got it minutes after buying my M3 on Friday. 100 miles in and the SES light came on with "increased emissions" warning. Taking it in to service on Tuesday.

[BPMSport]

Originally Posted by elp_jc

For those out of warranty, how much that pump really affects emissions? If it was to be eliminated, would you get a CEL? Cats might take a minute or two more to heat up, as they also have heated sensors, and no other car has that crap that I'm aware of.

Anyway, has anybody figured out what the hell causes the engine to load dramatically after about 4 minutes of starting? You can hear that loading by a dramatic change in exhaust noise. Does it have anything to do with that spupid valve? The 240 seconds it takes to do that sounds too much like coincidence, no?

It really does effect emissions when the cats are cold. They really don't work their magic until they are hot. Most cars have the cat heat up cycle built in, you just don't hear it as much as you do on the M3.

If the secondary air pump was pulled out, you would lose emissions readiness and a CEL will be thrown. It's part of the biggest problem with the E39 M5. The secondary air passages in the head become clogged and then the car sets a slow flow code on the secondary air pump. Then the car will not pass emissions without software to disable the secondary air system.

For your reference: http://www.sae.org/events/training/s...5baltusis3.pdf

[SenorFunkyPants]

As I understand it data output from the O2 sensors influence the ECU fuel mixture settings...I would imagine that a faulty sensor produces either "out of range" readings forcing the ECU to use a default setting for mixture or readings that could cause reduced performance.

[poopdeckpappy]

Originally Posted by gr8000

I don't even want to think about something like this happening after the warrant is expired. I got another 8 months for my 2 years waranty to lapse, so I hate it when issues like these start to emerge...

I've got the same problem. I'm long past warranty, I'll post cost and service time next week.

[Shemp65]

I had the SES light and "Increased Emissions" come on about 100 miles into my new 2011 M3 Coupe. Got it about a freakin' hour after I bought the car Friday nite. Drove it this weekend, took it in today, and they found a bad spark plug over the #7 cylinder. Fault is now gone.

[JCtx]

Originally Posted by Mike@Powerchip

For your reference: http://www.sae.org/events/training/s...5baltusis3.pdf

Thanks buddy. Pretty complicated to just remove indeed.
Hey, this crap was invented when we had carburetors, since during deceleration, fuel was still sucked along with the air (engine is an air pump), and needed to be burned before hitting the cats. But why the hell we still have that crap on fuel-injected cars? Is it really needed? Just curious of your opinion. Remember removing all that crap from my FI bikes, and plugging the ports. Never a CEL, but they were obviously A LOT less complicated than cars .

[RuthlessE90]

Originally Posted by poopdeckpappy

I've got the same problem. I'm long past warranty, I'll post cost and service time next week.

I would like to know as well

[rob612]

Originally Posted by poopdeckpappy

I've got the same problem. I'm long past warranty, I'll post cost and service time next week.

any update??

[dpiette]

Just had the same problem with my 2011 E90, about 5,300 miles.

But it happened hot (after driving on the freeway in Houston after about 15 miles. Temp ain't a problem). I opened the gas cap (worked on my E60) but figure I will have to take it in directly. Driving to Austin twice in the next week, then out of town for a week, but I will post my resolution when I return.

[dpiette]

Just got a call from my service adviser.

Secondary air valve, just like you said.

But now I have to wait until Monday because they don't have any in stock.

It bothers me that I made an appointment 3 weeks ago, brought the car in yesterday at 8:00 AM and they didn't even look at it until this afternoon.

They could have had the part in today.

OK, I'll quite whining now.

[BPMSport]

Originally Posted by elp_jc

Thanks buddy. Pretty complicated to just remove indeed.
Hey, this crap was invented when we had carburetors, since during deceleration, fuel was still sucked along with the air (engine is an air pump), and needed to be burned before hitting the cats. But why the hell we still have that crap on fuel-injected cars? Is it really needed? Just curious of your opinion. Remember removing all that crap from my FI bikes, and plugging the ports. Never a CEL, but they were obviously A LOT less complicated than cars .

On these cars the fuel injectors are turned off on deceleration, that way no fuel hits the cats. It will resume injection at idle or before depending on the circumstances. Even my 1990 7 series turbo does this with the prehistoric Motronic 1.3 ECU, which is one of the first adaptive ECU's ever offered on BMW's, employing static correction factors and other features that we commonly see in today's ECU's.

I turned off my secondary air system for a couple of months to get rid of the loud noise at startup (which I actually like..). Last week I turned the system back on and it began throwing code P0056 within a few days. The code read out with my BMW laptop is:

lamdasonde endstufendiagnose heizung nach kat bank 2

beheizte lamdasonde heizungssteuerkreis (bank 2, nach katalysator) - fehlfunktion oder leitungsunterbrechung

In English this translates to:

"oxygen sensor heater after cat diagnostic output stage bank 2

heated oxygen sensor heater control circuit (bank 2, after catalyst) - lack functional or line interruption"

Ironically enough, a client of mine with a 2011 M3 coded for the exact same code except it was P0036 (bank one instead of bank two in his case). His code would come on immediately after clearing it. Turned out he bumped an o2 sensor and bent it from a curb at the gas station.

In my case, nothing has changed. I am thinking that the sensor has either become fouled up from the cold start being disabled, or it has just failed for whatever reason they fail. I cleared it and it came back within a couple of days. Then it cleared itself, and yesterday after picking my car up from the bodyshop (LCI trunk and tail lights retrofit), it coded again.

Remember that even when the cat efficiency checking is disabled in the code, the car will still code for errors with the post cat o2 sensors as it is in both of these cases. This means if the heater circuit goes bad or if the sensor is damaged, a CEL will still illuminate.

I am going to take it to the dealer and they will probably replace that sensor and send me on my way. I'm going to leave the software in there otherwise it will have that code plus two more for cat efficiency. I figured it's best to give them the car with the problem isolated as much as possible because they might try to blame the high flow cats if it comes in with all three codes.

[GasmanRN]

Originally Posted by TXM32B

Did your O2 sensor(s) go out during normal operation of the car? I had an aftermarket x-pipe and high flow cats installed and have experienced the same issue. Is your M3 stock or modified? Thanks.

TX did you ever get this issue resolved? I've got an '08 M3 E92 high flow cats with a custom x-pipe, ran great for months code just popped up about a week ago. Thanks in advance for help, Rob.

[BPMSport]

Originally Posted by GasmanRN

TX did you ever get this issue resolved? I've got an '08 M3 E92 high flow cats with a custom x-pipe, ran great for months code just popped up about a week ago. Thanks in advance for help, Rob.

You should read the codes and see if they are P0420 and P0430 (cat efficiency). Chances are if you have HFC's and they haven't coded yet, that's what it is. Only way to fix it (properly) is to have the rear 02's turned off in the software, which we can do if interested.

[GasmanRN]

Originally Posted by Mike Benvo

You should read the codes and see if they are P0420 and P0430 (cat efficiency). Chances are if you have HFC's and they haven't coded yet, that's what it is. Only way to fix it (properly) is to have the rear 02's turned off in the software, which we can do if interested.

Ok, cool. Thanks for the info. I'll check the codes. I live in the Bay Area, I'm guessing there's no way to resolve the codes remotely? I'd have to drive down there?

[BPMSport]

Originally Posted by GasmanRN

Ok, cool. Thanks for the info. I'll check the codes. I live in the Bay Area, I'm guessing there's no way to resolve the codes remotely? I'd have to drive down there?

If you'd like I can send you my remote flashing kit which will allow me to read the codes remotely using Factory BMW software out of Germany

It will tell us exactly what is up, and will read faults from every module in the entire car (over 20 of them), including "shadow" codes (codes that don't show up on normal scanners).

[GasmanRN]

Originally Posted by Mike Benvo

If you'd like I can send you my remote flashing kit which will allow me to read the codes remotely using Factory BMW software out of Germany

It will tell us exactly what is up, and will read faults from every module in the entire car (over 20 of them), including "shadow" codes (codes that don't show up on normal scanners).

I'll give you a call... thanks for the help.