BMW Maintenance

 My wifes Beemer has been experiencing a misfire and fixing it finally came up on the Honey-Do list. The plan was to drive her car into work and hook it up to a big dollar fancy schmancy code scanner we have there. Well don't cha know, it would read all the codes on that car except the engine codes, and let me tell you that car has the ability to code anything. I think I saw one in there for dog crap in the tire treads. Anyway, maybe its the software or maybe I did something wrong but what matters is that I wasn't able to pinpoint which cylinder had the misfire. Sunday morning I went on Amazon and ordered six ignition coils for only $130 which I thought was a good deal especially considering that when I got them they were the same as the factory originals. I also ordered some platinum spark plugs. Did I need six coils? No. Was replacing all six a sure way to get rid of the bad one? Yes. I understand these things eat coils so lets call it preventative medicine.
 Monday while at work my wife texts me that the parts are in. I mean I want to support the local brick and mortar stores but how can you beat that? One day, parts at my door step, no driving or calling, only a 5 minute investment of my time. Today I'll stop at the local parts store and buy a caliper for the big ass station wagon so some of my vast fortune is spent locally.
 When I got home my wife asks how the car is running. I thought it was fine but to be fair the problem was only under light load and my ride home was mostly heavy load. Zip Zip! I don't like to be passed.

 The biggest part of the job is removing all the plastic pieces that pretty up the engine compartment. I don't like them, They hide all the mechanical bits and make working on these things a drag. Maybe BMW thinks all this prettiness sells cars. I dunno. If you cant appreciate the looks of the engine on its own then leave the hood down. I mean there isn't even a freakin dip stick under there so why does suit and tie guy need to even look at it. Some day only a dealer will be able to open the hood.

 Replacing six coils and spark plugs wasn't that big of a job. I did find five BMW/NGK spark plugs and one odd brand plug. That odd plug looked shady and I suspect the coil over that plug was my only problem. I'll keep the rest for spares. I got everything swapped out, put back all the prettiness and slammed the hood with confidence. My wife was sitting in the car and as I walked past her I asked her to start it up and get the a/c rolling while I washed my hands. She pushed to start button and it just cranked. No start. My wife knows me pretty well and when the F-bombs started flying, she backed off and just let me work it out.
 The First thing I had to do was pull all that frickin plastic prettiness off of the engine again. It went faster this time because I now had some practice at doing this but still it was getting less and less pretty. I couldn't find any electrical connections knocked off and was really starting to worry what the hell I could have screwed up. Eventually I started removing wiring harnesses from the new coils.

 When you push the wire connector into that plug on the coil, the top lever flips down and cam locks the harness in place. Turns out if you don't initially push that connector in far enough it will still draw the connector in, just not far enough. It feels seated and there is no slop but its not actually connected. Why they designed them to be able to be connected wrong is a mystery to me. I mean we put men on the moon decades ago, mold a piece of plastic so morons like me can get it right the first time. I corrected my mistake on all six cylinders.
 This time I asked my wife to start the car before the pretty plastic went in place. Half a revolution later she fired and was purring like a kitten. Now I decorated it with all the plastic bits and this time slammed the hood with relief.
 My reward was being chauffeured to the ice cream shop for a sunday. Works for me!

Later.