Hi all, I was wondering if you could help me with a few tips - I've had my MCS N18 '12 for a couple days now and I love the thing.

However, I've noticed on cold starts, for the first 10-15 seconds the car has a small loss of power and the revs drop ever so slightly until you shift to second gear - then all becomes normal. Weirdly, the idle then is consistent, there are no drops there - but when the car is idling, the revs drop below 1000 rpm - but again, it stays consistent. The car turns on normally without problems, a warm start is perfectly fine and has no loss of power when driving. I took it to an independent BMW specialist and the diagnostics said that there is a problem on the third cylinder, looks like a clogged injector.
I've purchased the car from a BMW dealership in Germany and it has 6 months warranty - called them the next minute and they will update the software (it still has 2012 software) which may also fix the issue, but as a precaution, they will also clean the injector.

Apparently, it can get clogged due to driving on short distances, for idling too long, for using non-premium fuel and for sitting in the dealership for too long.

The car has had only one owner and full service history - it now has 66k kilometers or 41k miles.

The last service (oil, filter change) was done on 64k kilometers, (40k miles) while the previous owner has had done oil changes on 13k, 22k, 48k (kilometeres that is - the last one bothers me a bit because the interval was quite long). I've checked the dipstick ad least 5 times and there is more than enough oil.

Sorry for the lenghty post - but I am a software tester so my job is to look for faults, and prior to buying the car I've did my research and was looking for a well-kept N18, but now I'm quite worried because I now realise that the oil change intervals were way too long. Also, here's a video of the car idling warm - what do you think?

I guess my questions are:
1. Am I being just too paranoid? I plan to change oil every year and check it with every fuel fill-up.
2. Is this engine sound normal or is my chain going to die?
3. Is there anything I should ask or insist on from the dealership when they will be cleaning the injector?

I do less than 10k kilometers a year, this is really a weekend blast car I purchased as a gift to myself.

Thank you all for your answers!

 

I'll give this thread a slight bump as I'll be visiting the dealership soon - Appreciate your help!

 

I’ll usually let me car idle until the cold start revs drop to ~750rpm or so before I start driving. Normal idle speed is about 750rpm. Nothing in your video would give me pause for contemplation, but it is very hard to diagnose sounds over the internet. These engines are known to be noisy.

 

That idle sounds very loud to me. I would suspect the timing chain is failing. My car is that loud for a second or two then quiets right down. You can always just pull the valve cover to inspect. If you are going to the shop, ask them to check the tensioner too.

 

Hey guys - an update: my car had a faulty ignition coil, that's why the diagnostic readout said that the third cylinder had an issue - fixed under limited warranty from the dealer. However, the story took an ugly turn when they were updating the car to the latest software, the CAS system got blocked and the car spent additional 5 days in the garage. The CAS was replaced on the dealer's expense (felt bad for them, but hey).

We're back on the road, the car is as great as ever. Curiously, after three empty tanks (one tank is good for almost 400 miles in my case), the car is not using any oil, and I've been checking it religiously.