Right guys, I've posted this on a couple of bmw forums I'm on but not had much in the way of responses so I thought I'd try you lot!

A good friend of ours has a 2008 318d and it's not a happy car right now. It's down on power and running very rough, and also the exhaust smells odd like fuel isn't being burnt correctly. It's like it's misfiring but I wouldn't say it's one particular cylinder, more like they are all just not firing quite right.
I went over and put my Carly on it today and I got the following faults :

004A74 - Embassy (Status GSG LIN, 0x18, LIN).
004A79 - Message (Error status GSG LIN, 0x17, LIN).
0040E9 - Abgasrueckfuehrsteller, position control. (I've translated this and think it's the EGR control system).
00441 - Injector cylinder 1, control.
00442 - Injector cylinder 2, control.
00443 - Injector cylinder 3, control.
00444 - Injector cylinder 4, control.

I cleared all the faults and took the car for a short drive and then ran the diagnostics again. 004A74 & 004A79 were the only ones that were still there. However as it's running pretty badly I assume the others will soon return.

Now - I'm sure I had 004A74 & 004A79 on my 330d, and that was the glow plug control unit. As the next fault on the list (0040E9) is indicating a egr position fault, could it be that the egr is stuck open? Would this cause it to run so badly and as a consequence throw up all the injector faults?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Nick.

 

Well just in case anyone is interested, my mate looked at the car this evening and it looks like it's a problem with the fly wheel! The only engine faults are 4A74 and 4A79 which are the glow plug module. The engine isn't miss firing and all the injectors are fine. So like I said originally, it does feel a bit like a misfire but not if you know what I mean. It looks like it's all been caused by the flywheel failing and so is now unbalanced causing the real rough running.
It's a bit of a concidence as he had another bmw not very long ago with the exact same symptoms. They suspected that maybe it was the timing chain so stripped it all apart to find it was absolutely fine. It was then they noticed the flywheel had siezed. Put a new one in along with a clutch and good as new!

 

Hopefully that will be a lucky diagnosis and not too costly

 

Yeah let's hope so! She did take it to a bmw specialist a few days before and they said the same thing but obviously they want to charge a whole lot more than my mate will.
My mate checked the engine and could find nothing wrong. When scanning it, everything checked out ok. He even checked all the injector values and they were spot on. No warning lights on the dash either, so everything is pointing to something mechanical, and a fucked flywheel that is all out of balance does seem perfectly plausible. Just a real coincidence that he had one not so long ago with exactly the same problem.
Anyway, it's all booked in for him to do it next Wednesday. The owner also wants him to do the glow plug module as well which should clear those two faults. Fingers crossed it'll be ok after that. I'll update this thread then - hopefully with good news!

 

Well for those who are interested, the flywheel and clutch were replaced today and now it's as good as new! I seen the old flywheel and it was quite obvious that it had failed. The glow plug module was also replaced which has cleared the glow plug related fault codes. Our friend who owns the car is very pleased. Happy days