Hi all,
So, my wife was driving my '03 S yesterday. She left the house with no issues. Car started just fine. She got to the park, took a walk with my son, came back to the car, put the key in and... nothing. All the lights came on on the dash/gauges. But no click, no start, no nothing. She called me, I rode up to meet her (on my motorcycle) and sure enough, nothing. Luckily she was parked up hill, I turned the key on, put it in reverse and pop started it. It started with no issues. I drove back into the parking spot, turned off the engine, tried again and nothing. Pop started it again and she drove home safely.

I had a look though my Bentley manual last night but couldn't find anything obvious. Hoping for some leads to fix this issue easily, without replacing component after component, and trying to avoid a costly garage bill. Please share your expertise. BTW, I've had the car for about 8 months and still really love it!!

Thanks.

Tom

 

I dont have an R53, but these symptoms point to a weak battery or loose ground connection. Did you try to give it a jump?

 

Battery would be the first thing to look at

 

+1 battery, then the cables.

 

also check the clutch pedal release sensor--it can fall off preventing the car from starting

 

Try looking at the starter. Same thing happened to me this week and a wire was corroded on the starter. It is under the headers. I replaced mine and started up beautiful. Now im dealing with smoke coming from headers and have no idea why

 

Did you figure this out yet. I recommend what minhi said. Mine did the same thing. Good Luck.

 

Yes, it was the starter motor, finally went bad. The car has 173k miles, and I suspect, like many other things on the car, that it was the original one. Now it starts up just like it's supposed to.

In the process of elimination I replaced the battery (replacing what seemed to be the original (BMW)) and following the procedure in the service manual I disconnected the header from the head and found that the union between the cat and pipe had corroded bolts. So I cut the flange bolts and found that the (probably original) exhaust system was shot.
It's a wonder that any exhaust gases ever made it to the twin tips. While it was out I managed to replace the handbrake cables (that were probably original) and had to remove the outer hanger studs as I sheared off the nuts when removing the hangers. Which in turn required the removal of the interior panels, rear seats and rear carpet.

The heat shield washer/nuts were mostly shot, simply falling off for the most part. Then came time to price out a replacement exhaust. Holy crap! $600 for stock replacement?!?!! No thank you. $220 for ebay crap will do me fine. Until it came time to install. You'd think that when welds are made a company would at least use some sort of jig to get the "Y" pipe, flange, and hanger rods in the right place, angle and spacing. But, one must consider the price point and expect less than perfect fitup and alignment. I made it work and now the exhaust is much quieter, though a little raspy.

So now it's all back together again, without too many left over parts, and back on the road, which is good as the weather is turning cooler and wetter which makes getting on the motorcycle in the mornings a little unbearable.

Thanks for all the input.

Cheers.

 

Thanks for the update.

 

Sounds great, glad everything finally worked out. How about some pictures!

Drive Hard. Drive Safe. Keep Grinning.