I have a 90 325is. It has 232,000 miles on it.
The starter went bad. I replaced it.
Immediately after the fix, I noticed poor driveability, especially while the
engine was warming up. It idles poorly and drinks a lot of gas.
When my starter failed there was an electrical surge. My power window
"circuit breaker" popped out- evidence of too many amps I guess.
What I do know for sure, is that I have an air leak around my injectors. I
can hear it. And when I spray throttle body cleaner around the injector the
engine revs up.
I have read in the Bentley manual that O-rings on injectors often go bad on
high mileage vehicles and cause an air leak. But it is curious that this
happened when my starter went bad.
Could an electrical surge cause my injector o-rings to melt???????
If I am going to replace the o-rings, should I just go ahead and replace the
injectors. Maybe they were electrically compromised when my starter shorted
out.
I am a real novice and want to fix my car as easlily as possible.
All responses are appreciated.
- Ben
Voinin - 04 Jun 2006 19:00 GMT
> I have a 90 325is. It has 232,000 miles on it.
>
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
>
> Could an electrical surge cause my injector o-rings to melt???????
I can't help much in this, except to say that coincidences happen. It's
very possible that the O-rings went at the same time as the starter and
there is no link between them.
Your car is 16 years old, maybe 17. Rubber, plastic, metal, all wear
out and as your car gets older the frequency of failures are more and
more likely to happen. For example, in my car the rubber grommets that
hold and seal the line that leads from my brake fluid reservoir to the
master cylinder went bad just as I got a leak in the upper radiator
hose. Two completely unrelated things which happened at the same time.
I understand that with the interconnectedness of so many things in cars
that a failure of one thing may lead to the failure of something else.
But coincidences happen all the time. Simply replace the O-rings (you
should consider replacing all of them at once) and don't worry if one
thing caused the other. If the O-ring fails right away, THEN you should
start worrying about something else causing it.

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Fred W - 05 Jun 2006 17:20 GMT
>> I have a 90 325is. It has 232,000 miles on it.
>>
[quoted text clipped - 37 lines]
> thing caused the other. If the O-ring fails right away, THEN you should
> start worrying about something else causing it.
Perhaps the car was hard to start due to the bad o-rings and that
contributed to the starter failure?

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-Fred W
Ben Martin - 06 Jun 2006 02:32 GMT
I have made some progress.
It has been determined that my leak is in the air-intake manifold gasket. I
can see the leak when I use a flash light. I hear the leak. I bought the
gasket (actually a kit of 5 separate gaskets.) I am going to go ahead and
replace the injector o-rings while we have the air-intake manifold off.
Thanks to all!
- Ben
> >> I have a 90 325is. It has 232,000 miles on it.
> >>
[quoted text clipped - 43 lines]
> --
> -Fred W
Jeff Strickland - 04 Jun 2006 21:39 GMT
I don't think your failures are related in any way. Since you seem to know
you have at least one failed o-ring, you should replace them all before
doing anything else. You _could_ have a bad injector or two, but I see no
connection between this kind of failure and a shorted starter. If the
starter really did short, the electrical path to ground will be through the
short and not through any other component. Frankly, if the starter really
shorted to ground, I'd think there would be damage to the battery before
there was damage elsewhere. If the battery is in good shape, the other stuff
should be okay too.
>I have a 90 325is. It has 232,000 miles on it.
>
[quoted text clipped - 31 lines]
>
> - Ben