goddamn it, TRANS PROGRAM CAME ON, poten.brake booster. MAF problem.....PLEASE ADVISE

[ryan roopnarine]

hello all....im going to make a 30 minute post here....

any one friendly to me that cares to contribute, please do
any one im not on friendly terms with, please keep unconstructive comments to yourselves, or ill be uncivil like.....

friendlies, please try to read whole thing if you can, and contribute if you think you should

i have a 1992 525i, gm 4l30e tranny, a5s 310r by bmw designation. it is driven hard, about 700 city miles (over 1150km ) per week. tranny fluid is changed every 3k-8k miles at each oil change.

my transmission program light came on today, but i think it would be categorized as "intermittent", as it went away after letting it sit for 3 minutes. suspect device that feeds rpms as being a problem, perhaps entire problem, perhaps part of the problem. rpms drop, as if tachometer is defective, not load/engine decrease. also suspect maf.



if you read my thread from yesterday, you'll see that i ran over something on the highway...resulting in my srs light coming on, as well as my wheel getting bent in the driver's front corner, likely damaging some old electric **** from the shock. also likely damaged, brake booster, maf.

today, i drove to a restaraunt near my home......i went to coast, and noticed the car wouldn't go below 1100rpm, ie high idle or tcc lockup? restarting made this go away, car has a natural low idle at start, about 650rpm or so, but it goes up to about 750 sometimes. when my icv is leaking or constricted, it will either go high and unstable/high, or both at park or shakingly low respectively, this is why i think its an idle issue instead of a tranny one at this point.

my car shifts perfectly through The day. I drive it almost constantly doing rough city driving for 8 hours, shifts beautifully. about 1 hour in something is queer. i notice coasting to a light that the rpms drop about 300 rpm or so. when i say drop i mean DROP. as in not engine slowdown, but like there is a tachometer problem, because the engine doesn't make a slowdown noise, it sounds the same when this happens.

my park idle goes loco about 3 hours in......900 rpm drive idle, unstably high park and neutral rpm. let me also mention that i suspect that my brake booster is very slowly going....i deduce this because i have somewhat reduced braking power, but NONE of the usual symptoms of a bad booster. its just that i'm in touch with the car, and notice the peddle dropping ever so slightly during random coasts, and the idle slightly (like 50rpm) fluctuating sometimes during brake application. if this trans program **** wasn't happening it was the next major repair i was going to make, in about 2 weeks or so was to positively solve this problem, no limits on cost if it was broken



back to my idle crap

I try very hard not to put the car in park or reverse, or anything that would make the idle "clunk" the tranny with any force....idle reduces itself to about 820-930. i'm very successful with this, the tranny changes into these gears maybe 10 times in 10 hours.


I'm driving along at a constant 45 mph, i see one of the lights go on, the check engine, which flashes about twice and goes on solidto get my attention. i wonder what's going on, at which time my eyes wander to the messageboard, and i see trans program., looking over, i see i have no PNRDL panel, this is serious. i immediately pull off and start crying (not really). resting the car to see if it takes to the reset. i check the fluid level, its there goddamnit, start to worry. i restart it 3 minutes, the shifter is there, no automatic startup trans program......i drive it five minutes culminating in a kickdown by me from 40-53 mph, nice normal shifting///only pecuilar thing was that it did the dropdown rpm thing from about 2600 rpm to 2400 rpm. before you second guess me, i know what an engine and transmission dropping in rpm feels like, this WAS NOT that...this was like the tachometer was defective.

i remember trevor's problem with his tranny speed sensor. i remember robert kieffer's problem with t-program and his tps. i pull the stompcodes as soon as i get home.......1215, mass airflow sensor, this might have something to do with it.

here's the background on my "tranny Problems" in the last two months.

about two months ago i changed my oil/tranny fluid. i usually fill them up on a hill facing one direction. i know the quantity perfectly. short story short, i filled it up in the wrong way, and overfilled by about a quart. i drive for a week. i notice toward the end of about a week or so, that i can smell tranny fluid with my windows down and my "safety" check i do randomly by feeling the metal shifting rod is getting hotter and hotter. i check the fluid, and its starting to get brown. i'd estimat the time that the tranny was "overheating" was for 3 days or less, i honestly caught it quickly. i proceed to flush out 17 of the 14 quarts of the tranny, change the filter. the magnet does have more metal powder than when i was only driving maybe 2100 highway miles per month. concerned, i asked a former mechanic at my place of work to review my digital pics of my magnet. he says its a good bit of wear, but that its normal for the amount i drive, and that if it was shifting the same throughout it was probably fine, esp since i change the fluid all the time. (i had logged maybe 45k on a filter during this time, i just forgot to change it)

i leave it for 1 month solid (3k miles) to see what the verdict is. shifter temps are bearable on highway, at nite, during the day in fl (90f temps) they become a wee bit hot. drain fluid, it looks like its "dirty" (particles in suspension) but is almost as red as if it was just put in. so i decide to change it again. my gearstick metal tems drop dramatically, my shifting becomes much softer. just some slight streaks of glitter in it....barely anything.

care to contribute? remember thru all the crap above that it would seem that everything on the LH side of the car has decided to malfunction since last evening, ie Booster, maf, srs crash sensor. also, this evening, i notice that i occasionally smell the "chemical cleaner " smell of exhaust with rich mixture, NOT unburned mixture, which leads me to believe that the MAF is damaged (this is not just at warmup, throughtout 8 hours).

my next course of action is to change my atf again tomorrow. im trying to figure out whether i should pull my tcu and check for cracks like bill did with a magnifying glass, as pulling it will likely kill the stored codes. i will likely measure the maf with a vom tomorrow.

thanks for bearing with me if you did.

ps, forgot to mention i drove it 5 miles home, not babying it, kicking down once. drove great highway and city, normal shifting.

[Paul in NZ]

i cant help ryan but stick with it.......how many miles has your car done now???

[Tiger]

You didn't say what mileage you got on your car now... Brake problem... I'd flush out your brake fluids for new one... I think you are feeling brake fade instead. If brake booster is going bad, your pedal will go stiffer. Maybe you got a crack on vacuum hose going to the brake booster.

As for your tranny, mileage... it may be the end of life if you got high mileage city driving on it. I would check your tranny wire harness to make sure no ATF is leaking there. Try different ATF fluid... as in semi-synthetic or full synthetic as a last shot to save your tranny.

[Javier]

Crank and Cam position sensors shield, Mass airflow sensor, Heated oxygen sensor shield, oil level sensor, Transmission control module, and Program switch, are all grounded trough the same path, X6451 - X6454. Unfortunately, my drawings do not reveal the grounding path for SRS sensors, but would not surprise me is also related.

This ground can be checked trough Diagnostic Link connector position 19, Resistance from this pin to ground should be zero (always, it may be an intermittent issue).

Javier

[ryan roopnarine]

tranny mileage has about 80k miles on it or so, was rebuilt due, likely, to previous owner neglect. of that 80k, 25k was out of my possession, 30k was done with easy highway driving with oil changed at every oil change, 30k was done under hard city mileage.

brake fluid is flushed yearly by me.

brake booster seems to leak reserve vacuum if i really twist the check valve connector but not pull it out. this is weird, it shouldn't be leaking that way.

pls understand, the transmission never slips under even very hard/neglectful acceleration/kickdowns on my part. right after the shut down, restart, the thing shifted perfectly for me BUUUTTT it "dropped" rpms on this test run, as well as in the early day. if you read the intermittent tranny program at bmwe34

http://www.bmwe34.net/e34main/trouble/TransProgram.asp

trevor's problem with a speed sensor caused a trans program......a sensor that detects i would assume output speed for speedometer....i am maybe thinking that someting is causing my rpm drops that is electrical.

[winfred]

if most of this stuff started after the cement block or whatever it was i would be looking at stuff that could of been knocked out of place, a big enough hit can break a motor mount and allow the engine to jump out of place and pull wires and crack the airboot, id also check out the plug/wire going to the tranny for fluid leakage or dammage, tranny mounts can pop too in a impact. it's hard to suggest a corse of action without getting my hands on the car and running my own tests

[632 Regal]

Ryan you have more than one issue here thats causing different problems. You say the brake booster leaks vacumme and you have isle issues which could all be caused from leaks...multiple leaks? This can cause the idle issue and the engine light. The trans issue could also be affected by this too but Javier sounds like its most likely some kind of short. Winfred is right on with the problems started after you hit something. You have to do some checking and fixing to narrow this down cause right not it's all pretty much out of control.

[Javier]

trevor's problem with a speed sensor caused a trans program......a sensor that detects i would assume output speed for speedometer....i am maybe thinking that someting is causing my rpm drops that is electrical.

Speedometer (and other speed sensitive devices, as radio, wipers, OBC, ...) uses the differential mounted sensor, Trany uses a sensor installed in the output shaft, in the trany.

RPM depends on the CPS, weird thing is you said Tach shows a drop but you do not sense it!!

I do agree with Winfred, that concrete chunk caused a shake that break loose something.

Javier

[DanDombrowski]

Well, I'm friendly, right? Although I did borrow your differential allen key and still need to give that back.....

Anyway, I'm suprised that no one else has mentioned this, mabye that means that these cars don't have them, I don't really know about the autos. Does the transmission cool through the radiator? Might want to check that for junk as far as the overheating.

As far as the transprogram stuff, it seems to me that the trans speed sensor gives funny RPM readings when it does, or at least it did both on my girlfriends Camry and my mom's Jeep Grand Cherokee, i.e. idle goes , shifts randomly, Check Engine Light, etc. That's my vote.

[Javier]

this trany has an oil temperature sensor. Wouldn't surprise me it is Hot Oil causing the message. May be you got a hit in the tubbing to the radiator.

Javier