ok check this out
i go to the car wash after work, they turn your car off when it goes thru the wash,,then and then restart it when it comes out the other side they pull it up then they dry it off ,problem is it didnt start after it went thru the wash it just cranked and cranked and cranked so i kept trying to start it let it sit then tried agein , then every single relay under the hood started clicking on and off on and off like crazy ,still it just cranked no spudder nothing just a solid continuos crank then i thought it was the fuel pump really my freind went under the car and tapped the gas tank repeatedly ( id dont know why) but when he did that i noticed that the rpm tach and the MPG gauge underneeth it were jumping up and down like crazy i have no clue of the problem but its really odd a couple ppl told me that the car just need sto sit and it will start but im not sure about that i looked under the hood and nothing was wet ,not sure whats up
Your car's DME compartment was likely flooded. This is a known issue for early E36s, and it's a good reason not to take your car through an automatic wash.
Another good reason not to take your car to an automatic car wash is because they suck.
They do a good job of drawing cool patterns in the dirt on the car, and on black cars especially, you get tons of hairline scratches.
None of the cars in this signature have EVER been run through an automatic car wash (well, not while I have owned them anyway.)
What is a DMW compartment?
The DME compartment is where your engine's computer sits. Water + electronics = bad.
i hate brining my car to the car wash but here were i live in new york its alot diffrent from the places were most others on this board live ,most ppl around here live in apartments as i do, so you have no choice but to go to a car wash witch i hate paying money for my car not to be cleaned the way i want or properly but i have no choice really
i hate brining my car to the car wash but here were i live in new york its alot diffrent from the places were most others on this board live ,most ppl around here live in apartments as i do, so you have no choice but to go to a car wash witch i hate paying money for my car not to be cleaned the way i want or properly but i have no choice really
I'm in the same boat with having nowhere to wash my car. :shifty I do everything else (ie wax) but have to bring it to get washed. I minimize the need to wash by using a CCD regularly, wash about everything two weeks. Is your car wash automatic or hand? If it's auto, try to find a good hand wash place. Shop around... :)
About 3 weeks after I bought my M3, i decided that because I didn't have time (poor judgement) I would take to car wash.
There was a large avian dropping on the roof, but I thought I'll just let the wash take care of it.
Normally, I remove myself.
This was a hand car wash I had used several times with my Ti.
I figured, what the hell, car needs a wash.
So in I went. Waited patiently. Car comes out of the wash house and attendant drives to drying area and proceeds to finish up.
After about 1 min i decide to mosey over and check out the job he's doing.
Everything looks fine.
I'm preparing to hand the guy a tip when I look at the roof where a bird splat had been.
It's gone...in it's place was a 2 inch gouge down to the primer.
@#!$#$ :mad:
Some jackass had left his ring on.
I had the pleasure of viewing that every day for over a year.
I tried to touch it up myself and I was reasonably successful, but it always looked like a snail trail.
Take to any wash at your own risk. I never will again.
The DME compartment is where your engine's computer sits. Water + electronics = bad.
I'm with CSC here. Sounds like the DME has a bad problem with the H2O. Go figure...
Simply put, your dme is fried. If you open up your hood, look for the area where the front windshield meets the engine compartment, you'll see the iplastic cowel between the windshield and the engine comp. between the washer arms. See if your's is torn or shredded.
Then check the rubber surround for the area around the air inlet opening for the heater/ac. If this is also shredded then what most likely happend is the pouring of heavy amounts of water onto the top/windshield of the car was too much for the water channels to handle and it started overpouring into the engine compartment and into the dme caprtment (located on the passenger side of the eng. com.)
One other thing to check is to see if you need to replace these rubbers or if there are debris or leaves betweent he rubber that runs on the sides of the engine compartment down to the corner lights, if they are filled clogged then water will just pour into the eng. comp.
Some people have had luck by just removing the dme, blow drying it, and blow drying the dme compartment, reinstalling and giving it a try. You might want to take the dme apart if you do not have a warranty that may be void and see if there is short on the unit, if not just dry it as much as possible and reinstall it. Worth a damn try to save 1000 bucks.
What happened on my car after I forked over a 1k bucks to fix it was the dme got filled with water and somehow fried the tps throttle positioning sensor, just replacing a 200 dollar part would have probably solved my problem.
Good luck
well i took the computer out to find its filled with enuf water to build a lake ,so that was the most expensive car wash i ever went to, and heres the part were eveyone gets to laugh it started raining as i was pushing the car aside after the wash
dont be quick to judge that the DME is fried. Do a search on 'car wash' and you will find a recent post with a member that went through the exact same situation. He ended spending over 1G for a problem that could have only cost a few hundred $$.
Agreed - read this article on DME repair:
http://www.pelicanparts.com/bmw/techarticles/E36-DME-Repair/E36-DME-Repair.htm
and you may save yourself some $$$...
-Wayne
