DREW I NEED HELP!!!!!!!!!

[fishki]

Well after changing out my rotors and pads the parking brake now works fine since the inside drum for the park brake on the rear rotors was worn down... how the hell that happened I dont know since the little pads for the park brake were fine, and then it started spewing oil out from the side of the motor so i took it back to bmw to get it fixed and it was an itty bitty o-ring on a constant pressure switch, cost me over 500 bucks

And i still cant find that damn tank vent thingy, I think it is in the tank which requires taking out the rear seat to get to it..... i think

[Drew]

I don't think so....

But please be more specific on what you are looking for and why?

So are you looking for the activated charcoal canister shut valve (fuel tank vent valve)

Or are you looking for the purge control valve sometimes mistakenly called a vent valve.

The first choice should be near your charcoal canister and is probably behind one of the rear wheel well liners or underneath the car.

Purge valve will be under the hood in the engine bay. Possibly under the intake manifold on some m3's.

Do you get a rough idle?

Have you checked you your gas cap?

Do you have the part you are looking for to replace already?

[Drew]

Fish! What the hell. Engineered hardwood on concrete slab flooring. FML

Had to to the store and by me some new tools took me 2 days to get all the damaged boards up. Day 2 went a lot better tho. I think I owe mr. Dremmel a beer.

The glue I bought ... Liquid nails subfloor was not thick enough. So I had to order a gallon bucket of some other shit... Henry something can't remember what it was called now.

I hope it will all sit level again.

Who they hell came up with this idea of putting down wood on concrete slab... Fucking PITA!

[fishki]

omfg, some ppl actually do glue down engineered over concrete, personally I would never ever do that. unless you have absolute control over the relative humidity enjoy a floor that buckles and cups.

what part of the house is that in?

and you might as well pull up 9, 19, 32, 36 and 41, will make it easier to get back into that corner

[Drew]

I do not enjoy


That is my living room. But the whole main level of the house has the flooring... So kitchen, dining and living room.

So we had these home gym mat squares down so my daughter could learn to walk and fall without too much pain. So we originally thought she spilled water and we didn't see it. But there is a crack in the slab there. So maybe moisture came up and we trapped it.

So this is my floor and I'm not redoing the whole house right now... These same board go up the stairs and throughout the second level. I'm just going to patch. We were left 2 boxes of extra flooring which is plenty to patch this up and then some.

From what I read this is what people do for this type of floor on a slab. There is some hybrid engineered floor that floats but didn't sound common.

I already put 4 boards back in but I didn't picture them for you. 2 are coming back out cause I did not notice where one sits low until it was too late.

Can I maybe spot glue these boards in a way as to allow them to breath and help moisture escape? It's not in an area that will see traffic. Should I try and seal the crack or is that a lost cause?

Is there such a thing as a moisture barrier that could have been used? I know it too late now, I mean when it was originally installed?

What the hell is most common flooring for a slab foundation anyway?

Ps. I live on a little marshy island in San Francisco Bay. There are lots of lagoons or tide pools around the island. So I suspect moisture will be a thing. That said I am not on land fill, the outer edges of the island are the. We have 2 seasons here... Wet and dry.

I think the floor may have survived if we didn't cover it with mats.

That sucks as we want to buy a carpet and I'm worried that will also help hold the moisture in.

[fishki]

First things first, is it engineered or laminate? Makes a big difference. How thick are the boards? Does it have a tongue and groove that lock together? Take a close up pic of the tongue edge of a new board.

The crack in the concrete floor is probably your culprit, more than likely there is no moisture barrier under the slab, wood flooring expands and contracts and there should be expansion gap at the walls. Also glue used for gluing wood to concrete needs to be a water free adhesive.

[Drew]

[Drew]

[Drew]

The boards look to be a little more then a 1/4 inch thick.

I cut through them with a circular saw to pull them out. Made hella saw dust. And I had to cut off portions of the tongue and grooves to slide some of the boards I put back in.

This is the New glue that I ordered. I was using liquid nails for sub flooring at first. It actually dried pretty solid but I didn't check how high a certain part sits so I'm going to pull it back up.

[Drew]

The 4 boards I already installed. 2 are coming back out. I also didn't mix the color variation so well so I will pay more attention to that when I finish it up.

[Drew]

I ended up taking out 9 and 19.

And so it is done...

[Drew]

So any word on your fuel tank vent valve?

I have a feeling it may be the purge valve up by the engine they are talking about.

In my searches for BMW this is what I have found called the vent valve. I also looked at a parts diagram and what I would call the vent valve on a Mercedes they call a diagnosis pump. Now I don't know if it's actually a pump or just a valve that shuts off so the system can vacuum or pump out the vapors. I'm not really sure.

Maybe you should ask around on a BMW forum and they can give you some more insight.

Also you may want to consider getting and OBD or OBD II wireless adapter for your phone so you can read and clear codes on your own. This will only do engine codes but their cheap and handy.

OBD is on board diagnostics and started in the early 80's and OBD II is the modern system that came out in the early 90's and was mandatory by 96. It's just a generic protocol for codes so everything is universal for emissions related issues.

There are still proprietary codes from manufactures you won't get codes or data from. But these OBD adapters for your phone will do quite a bit and save you some cash.

[fishki]

my car stereo is android and I have a bluetooth obd II code reader (torque) that stays plugged in and gives real time info. so yeah I can see the codes but clearing them does nothing

[Drew]

What do you mean it does nothing?

The codes do not clear? They come immediately back or they come back after a short drive?

[fishki]

They just come back on after I drive awhile....

And then I see the voltage thing in red..

[Drew]

Well dude, you got some fun stuff to deal with.. haha


Code p0444 purge control open circuit. This doesn't sound like a physical Evap system leak. You either have a bad purge valve itself or a wiring problem. I've read of BMW people working on their cars and plugging back in wrong. Could also be a problem with the fuel tank pressure sensor, either bad sensor or wiring. The sensor is usually attached to the fuel level sensor or in tank filter, or both depending on the design. I don't know what is common for this code. But the purge valve should be located in the engine bay. If you can find it we can start with some simple electrical tests.


The voltage codes are referring to your 02 sensor or air mass sensor readings as the are read in Milli volt scale. It's not a power problem OT just means your fuel adaption has hit the limit on either the lean or rich side. This could be a bad 02 sensor, air mass sensor, or intake air leak (vacuum leak)

The o2 sensor code you have could be the culprit or an effect of how the engine is running. Hard to say. But it's referring to the front o2 sensor before the cat.

To check for a vacuum leak take some brake/parts cleaner or something similar and spray it around the intake and hoses. See if the engine starts to run funny. If so you have a vacuum leak you need to fix. Check this first before you buy anything.

[fishki]

I think I found the part I need... https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/bmw-fu ... 3907831770

I also think I found where it belongs, not exactly my car in the video but should be close enough to find it and it says that is what clears this code

phpBB [video]

oh and btw... this is the culprit that caused my oil leak and cost me 500 bucks

[Drew]

Yeah thats the purge control valve. Hopefully that's it, I read some say it fixes it and some not. Really hard to say with out a test. But that's what the code is calling out.

Make sure that video is for the M3 as I saw it's different on M3's but I'm not sure on the generations so it could also be the same... Good luck.

I also saw a couple of posts and I've seen it before where the rubber elbow/fitting to the valve is cracked. And the vacuum leak is the entire issue.

[fishki]

I like how its called a fuel tank vent valve, wth, being called that I was thinking it was part of the gas tank to vent it...

[Drew]

Yeah BMW is strange. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone refer to a purge valve as a fuel tank vent valve. It's odd cause if you think about it it's not really "venting" the tank. But that depends on how define vent... Potato/Patoto

So really old cars would have just an open vent to prevent vapor build and pressure build. Even older may not of even had a vent. This prevents the tank from becoming a bomb in an accident.

Enter 70's emission and they took that vent line to a charcoal canister, through the charcoal and then a open vent.

Enter the early 90's maybe late 80's and we get to cars like yours. It's what we call Evap control system. Charcoal canister now has 3 lines on it. Line 1 from the tank that brings vapors. Line 2 is a vent on the charcoal canister that has a valve that can shut off or close off the system. This is what really is the fuel tank vent valve but is mostly known by its full name activated charcoal canister shut off valve, or just shut off valve for short. Line 3 is a vacuum line that comes from the engine, it's goes through the "purge control valve" and it purges the system of vapors.

The purge valve is normally closed. And when it opens it pulses.

The shut off valve is normally open allowing the tank to vent. Even when the car is off the tank can vent. This helps prevent tanks from swelling from vapor pressure if it was parked somewhere really hot, this is the era of plastic tanks and we don't want them to burst.

The system is monitored by a fuel tank pressure sensor. This checks for high pressure, clogged system. And also to not pull too much vacuum on the tank... This is the era of plastic tanks and we don't want to collapse them.

Now BMW logic as it turns out is different. But my description is what you will find when you scan any obdII car. Just like your code showed. Notice your code never mentions vent valve. And the purge valve doesn't vent, it opens to allow the engine to pull in vapors and burn them, not vent them. But in a way I guess you could consider that a vent.

I think BMW calls the shut off valve a diagnosis pump. I'm not sure if it works different or it's a shut off valve that is called this cause it's used for diagnostics. So all obdII cars are self diagnosing them selves after they purge. The purge happens, the shut off valve stays closed and the purge valve shuts off. Then the computer monitors the fuel tank pressure sensor to see if it holds vacuum for a specifies time. Then the cycle repeat... It does this a few times and the cycling is different on all cars but the end result is the same. I doubt BMW is any different and these are regulated emissions systems. I bet they just want to do their own quirky thing. Whatev

Then enter PZEV systems, I'm sure you've seen this on the back of some cars. Most don't advertise it, but Subaru loves to put emblems on their cars so they always have it.

PZEV = partial zero emissions vehicle. What this means has nothing to do with exhaust emissions. Again were talking fuel tank vapor recovery. It's the same as the system above but we have eliminated the shut off valve. We do this by getting rid of a plastic tank and going to a beefy metal tank. They also seem to have more robust seals in the system. The rest is basically the same. We still have a purge control valve but the fuel system never vents fuel vapors to the atmosphere. Hence the name partial zero emissions vehicle.

But yet pzev still has a purge control valve that BMW conveniently calls a vent valve... I don't man.... Bavarian's

[fishki]

had they called it something other than that ^, I probably would have known what the were talking about. charcaol canisters and evap I have heard , but not tank vent

[Drew]

oh and btw... this is the culprit that caused my oil leak and cost me 500 bucks

Well I just spent 400$ on my car. New seat belt and some small misc stuff. Shit that's employee cost with no labor.

You would not like to see some of the bills I ring up... Lol. But Mercedes customers seem OK with it... Haha. But sometimes I get very surprised and think why would anyone put money into this piece of shit. But they do.

On another note... I just spent 1100$ on a new pair of glasses. I've bought some pricey ones before but these take the cake!

[fishki]

The only reason i tolerate the cost of upkeep on this car is because...
1, its mine
2, im the only one around this area that has one, prolly within 100 mile radius or more
3, i love to troll my kid and his friends with it when they are out cruising around
4, its been called "sexy as fuck" on a facebook car club page
5, I refuse to grow the fuck up

I have done alot of work to this thing, but all in all my kid can have it when I kick the bucket, and he drives it some anyway,

its painted imola red, i put on some apex arc 8 black satin wheels 18x9 front/10 rear, lowered with teins, hood was changed out to a vented carbon fiber gtr hood, black side vents, racing dynamics front strut brace, stop tech drilled brakes, carbon fiber front splitter, apr carbon fiber wing, euro headers, reflashed performance software, rear window spoiler.

ess tuning has a supercharger I will someday get, need to save up for it, and also not sure if i want to dump more money into it.

and I dont even race this thing, i just slowly cruise around for 30 minutes and then go home, kid makes fun of me i got a fast car and drive slow

BMW = Big Money Waster

[Drew]

Well I wasn't saying you were wasting your money on that 500$ oil leak. More that a 500$ repair at a dealer is nothing.

[fishki]

lol nah, its a waste, and that stupid o-ring is not even replacable, have to buy the entire part, bavarians for ya...

But I really don't trust anyone but bmw to work on it, they do imaculate work, checkups are always free, they even wash and detail it for free every time i go in there, and they have all my records, just so far to drive and damn expensive if i need something fixed I cant find/do myself.

The 2 best things about owning a BMW, the day you buy it, and the day you sell it.

I would like to take that new merc amg gts for a spin tho
just wish they would do away with that big ass emblem in the grill