Went out to my car on Wednesday morning to leave for work. Went to start it and it did start, revs increased to 1000 rpms and then immediately died without warning. Tried to restart and same thing happened. Car is a 2007 MCS manual with 14,500 miles on it. I live in Cedar Rapids, IA so I had it towed yesterday to Naperville, IL (Bill Jacobs) to have them look at it. Received a call from their Service Manager this afternoon saying that they have looked it over and can not find anything wrong with it at this point through diagnostic tests. He said they will have to keep until Monday to do more tests. Just curious if anyone else has experienced this. It is an August build car and I have been reading that this is about the time they started making changes from the initial build. Please let me know if you have experienced this.

 

Translation of the dealer language:

"We had important things to do for our BMW and VW clients and haven't looked at your car yet but we may get around to it on Monday."

Personally I would be there at 07:30 Monday and demand to see the car starting and being hooked up via the OBD II port.

 

Hard for me to take a day off work to drive 250 miles to sit and maybe not get it fixed.

 

Did the CEL light come on? Sometimes air leaks can be a problem.

Am surprised they towed it that far for you. Usually they won't tow past 100 mi without paying 12 cents a mile. Had a few BMWs before so I am quite familiar with their service.

 

Not so sure I agree with the statement have to take care of the BMW clients. These guys are graded on reports from the consumer ie us, and I know they all want those fives.....Probably will send data via PUMA to see whats going on

 

i don't have my mccs yet, and i know it's not the right weather now where this is more prevalent, but might it be bad gas? had the same sort of thing happen to me this winter, turned out to be bad gas. ran some red heet through the system, switched gas stations and grade for a few weeks, problem went away.

i know even on my current car ('96 mazda mx-6 ls), unless the computer diagnostics tells the mechanics what to look at, they're pretty much at a loss as to where to start looking. at first i would have said maybe the oxygen sensor, but i would think the on-board diagnostics would flag that for the mechanics.

 

Have you heard from the dealer on the explanation?

 

I think the bad gas theory is the most logical one at this point, as you apparently did not get an engine code. You may have to drain the tank.

 

Im always surprised when there is multiple threads discussing very similiar problems. As I stated in as forum about my 2007 S w/ manual with exactly the same thing, MINI in Munich wrote my SA that a Heat temp sensor was failing to work. The car always will rev to 1,000 when it fires
My questions for the OP is: Are your exhaust tips EXCESSIVELY black with carbon? does it run fine when warm?
My SA said there was absolutely no codes and they regretted they where unable to figure it out after having the car for a day.
The sent the info on to Munich and they deduced it was a heat sensor choking the engine with too much gasoline.
The also decided to fix my melted hood scoop.

I thought mine was gas as well originally, with your car Im willing to bet its a sensor as well. my 2 cts

 

I'll give a different opinion for anyone else that has this problem. My car suddenly lost power while driving and the RPMs dropped rapidly and then the engine quit. On start up it would crank rev up and then the RPMs would drop and the engine would stop. My problem was a disconnected hose. If you remove the air intake box you will see a small tube connected to a round black plastic thingy. The hose disconnected from the round black thingy and caused a power loss and the engine cut off. Just hook it back up and your good to go. Hope that helps someone else. Also, with some of the hoses being silicon they need to be tightened up from time to time as the silicon compresses overtime and will pop off.