[Teal]

Car:
Late 2011 335D, Stock drivetrain, CBU cleaned about 10k ago, JBD Piggyback Thinggy.

Mileage: 90k, owned since 54k

Issue:
This weekend heading home, I pulled onto the main road and gave it the normal hardish acceleration. When digging into 2nd or 3rd gear (don't remember) at about 2000rpm, I felt an immediate vibration from the driveline as the engine was loaded up. I pulled throttle out and it goes away. Driving easy the rest of the way home it's fine - no issues or vibration.

What it felt like immediately was a driveshaft vibration. I've been in racecars with an unbalanced or dented driveshaft and it does resemble that feeling, of course WAY less extreme. However, since it only happened in the peak torque band when under ~1/3-1/2 throttle, I am guessing a damper of some sort is failing.

I am now able to repeat the issues under the same conditions - drive-off in 2nd or 3rd gear when in a decent amount of boost and the torque kicks in as i dip into throttle, it happens.

So - any input on previous experiences with this issue or it being one that will get continually worse, etc? The other thing I checked briefly with a flashlight was the harmonic balancer - which is also still OEM as far as I know and I know that will need attention but wonder if this is an early symptom since low RPM and high load is worst case torsional vibrations for the engine and FEAD.

Thanks!

[RL18]

Originally Posted by Teal

Car:
Late 2011 335D, Stock drivetrain, CBU cleaned about 10k ago, JBD Piggyback Thinggy.

Mileage: 90k, owned since 54k

Issue:
This weekend heading home, I pulled onto the main road and gave it the normal hardish acceleration. When digging into 2nd or 3rd gear (don't remember) at about 2000rpm, I felt an immediate vibration from the driveline as the engine was loaded up. I pulled throttle out and it goes away. Driving easy the rest of the way home it's fine - no issues or vibration.

What it felt like immediately was a driveshaft vibration. I've been in racecars with an unbalanced or dented driveshaft and it does resemble that feeling, of course WAY less extreme. However, since it only happened in the peak torque band when under ~1/3-1/2 throttle, I am guessing a damper of some sort is failing.

I am now able to repeat the issues under the same conditions - drive-off in 2nd or 3rd gear when in a decent amount of boost and the torque kicks in as i dip into throttle, it happens.

So - any input on previous experiences with this issue or it being one that will get continually worse, etc? The other thing I checked briefly with a flashlight was the harmonic balancer - which is also still OEM as far as I know and I know that will need attention but wonder if this is an early symptom since low RPM and high load is worst case torsional vibrations for the engine and FEAD.

Thanks!

Sounds like the giubo aka the flex disc the driveshaft connects to.

[Teal]

Originally Posted by RL18

Sounds like the giubo aka the flex disc the driveshaft connects to.

Any experience with that? I would certainly suspect it - but when doing some quick research some comments were vibrations when not loaded - but maybe that is only if it is severely damaged.

That said - It's probably the least expensive fix out of all the possibilities so

[RL18]

Originally Posted by Teal

Any experience with that? I would certainly suspect it - but when doing some quick research some comments were vibrations when not loaded - but maybe that is only if it is severely damaged.

That said - It's probably the least expensive fix out of all the possibilities so

No experience with it in my 335d, but I have had vibration in vehicles before that turned out to be things like u-joint binding or cv binding. But that seems to be the most common vibration issue with these e90s. You check cv joints for binding? Can't imagine it's the driveshaft at your mileage and really hope it's not the differential.

Does the vibration feel like it's coming from the front? Or the rear? Does it seem to be a balanced vibration or does it feel unbalanced (as in a vibration you feel more on one side of the car vs a vibration in the middle of the car)? Maybe engine mounts or tran mounts if you feel it out front.

[Teal]

Originally Posted by RL18

No experience with it in my 335d, but I have had vibration in vehicles before that turned out to be things like u-joint binding or cv binding. But that seems to be the most common vibration issue with these e90s. You check cv joints for binding? Can't imagine it's the driveshaft at your mileage and really hope it's not the differential.

Does the vibration feel like it's coming from the front? Or the rear? Does it seem to be a balanced vibration or does it feel unbalanced (as in a vibration you feel more on one side of the car vs a vibration in the middle of the car)? Maybe engine mounts or tran mounts if you feel it out front.

I can check the CVs but not sure engine load would affect them that much. But I'm used to FWD CV things.

Vibration is definately central. Can't tell if front or rear tho. I remember my first impression to think mid/rear... But once I remembered about the harmonic balancer issues with these - my paranoia is aimed more towards the front lol. Might have to sneak under there this weekend and inspect both.

[montr]

Motor mount?
Mine failed and I got a lot of vibration

[Yozh]

Could also be a central driveshaft bearing.

[Teal]

UPDATE: Drove the car yesterday to work to try and get a better feel for the issue. Got a engine fault on the way home - Injector 5 fault.

The vibration did get worse the last few miles from home and now under less load at highway speeds... I guess best plan of action is to replace this first before tearing apart the driveshaft. Thoughts?

[DieselOG]

Originally Posted by Teal

UPDATE: Drove the car yesterday to work to try and get a better feel for the issue. Got a engine fault on the way home - Injector 5 fault.

The vibration did get worse the last few miles from home and now under less load at highway speeds... I guess best plan of action is to replace this first before tearing apart the driveshaft. Thoughts?

I had injector 5 fail a couple of months ago, I ended up with two codes
004bd4 DDE: Injector, cylinder 5, activation
004f6f High irregular rotation

The vibration from the failing injector was causing the high irregular rotation code

[Teal]

Originally Posted by DieselOG

I had injector 5 fail a couple of months ago, I ended up with two codes
004bd4 DDE: Injector, cylinder 5, activation
004f6f High irregular rotation

The vibration from the failing injector was causing the high irregular rotation code

Yep those look like the ones. I don't have them on hand it was late... but makes sense. Looks like it's time to get dirty.

Might be a week or so to dig into it but will report back for sure. Thanks guys - normally a silent creeper here but a lot of good info for sure.

[RL18]

Maybe valve cover gasket while you that far in for preventative maintenance

[Teal]

UPDATE:

I changed the injector last weekend and was able to do a solid warm up and test drive and all vibrations are gone! This seemed to be the root cause of the vibrations only felt under load when the injector couldn't keep up with demand. Last night another CEL showed up tho... have not checked it yet... The saga continues!

[Yozh]

Post codes.

[lotussuperseven]

I'm having the same issue under load. Just today it felt like an engine miss at idle. No codes yet.

Any recommendations how to determine injector issues without any codes?

[dmanb2b]

Originally Posted by lotussuperseven

I'm having the same issue under load. Just today it felt like an engine miss at idle. No codes yet.

Any recommendations how to determine injector issues without any codes?

Unless you have a BPC tune, a bad injector should throw a code. Perhaps CBU if car is stock?