I have a 2013 R56 S with 149k miles. I drove it for about a week without issue and then one day seemingly out of the blue, I couldn't. It starts up normally and easily, idle's normally (not rough) and then just shuts down after about 5 seconds. 4 out of 5 times it shuts down cleanly, but 1 of those times it tries to fight to keep running longer than those 5 seconds and will idle rough for 2-3 seconds (after the initial clean idling) before reluctantly shutting down. No misfires, etc. HPFP is in good working order and even at shutdown, pressure is within spec. Now a previous owner at some point must have had an issue with the JBE as the LPFP has a second power line coming straight from the JBE (runs along the interior trim of the passenger side) and then a second, DIY ground as well coming from the ground wire and connecting to the frame (paint removed) nearby. I can hear the pump running without issue when the ignition is on and I can still hear it running when the engine shuts down. It reads about 11.55 volts at the wire right before it enters the pump harness and after the initial dip during startup, it remains around 11.55 volts at idle along with during and after shutdown. (could that be the problem? that my JBE is only getting 11.55 volts instead of the full volts of the battery?)

All my fuses appears to be good and not blown. I do have a few random engine codes related to heating and air (though they work fine) that always come back after clearing, along with a C913 error code which says JBE: No message LIN (RLS). But that just seems to be relevant to the rain sensor. I am assuming an issue with the JBE, but I am a novice at electrical issues and at this point I really have no idea what the issue might be.

 

Obviously checking Carfax will not fix your problem. However, it may let you know if a dealer/reputable repair shop installed a new JBE. I ran a Carfax on my car and found out that not too terribly long ago, it is likely that a BMW dealer installed a new JBE in my car. Not to say that a new one can’t go bad. However, it might help looking at other issues first.

 

Post all engine fault codes stored in the DME.

Have you checked for a loose or poor valve cover ground wire connection?

AI-generated info on C913

 

Sorry for the delay. All of the faults I have:

• 9C90
• E735
• 5F23
• A559
• A0B0
• C913

 

While all of the codes seem electrical in nature (voltage & CAN-bus related), I don't see any obvious direct connection with the engine shut-off issue.

Questions: When engine shuts off, does the engine always immediately restart with the key or does it sometimes or often just crank and not restart?

Did you have a chance to inspect the valve cover ground wire connection?

 

Sorry! I forgot to mention that I have inspected that ground and tested it and all is well. Same thing with the primary ground that connects to the engine mounts. As for starting, yes. Even after it shuts down, it will immediately have no issue turning over again. Since this issue began I have never had an issue getting the car to start back up - all startups are still completely normal. Thats what baffles me so much, because everything seems to be operating completely normally, except the fact it shuts down lol.

Edit: To be clear, I have tested and inspected the grounds while the car was off. Should I test them under load (as in during startup and while its running for those 5 seconds?)

 

Describe how you are testing the two mentioned critical engine ground wires.

How frequently and how soon after starting the engine does the stall occur?

Does the engine stall while idling or driving or both?

When the engine stalls, do all of the expected dash warning lights turn on or are some missing?

You may want to set up some test wires to the fuel injectors, coils, and DME to determine whether these important components lose voltage at the moment when the engine stalls.

 

Per my original post, the engine cleanly ***** down (wouldn't even consider it a stall) after about 5 seconds of idling. There is no point in which you can drive, and prior to this issue, there was never a stalling problem in the weeks previous. There are no unexpected dash lights coming up. As for testing the grounds, I used a multimeter to confirm continuity between the ground and the negative battery cable. I also check battery voltage by putting the negative probe on the relevant grounds and the positive on the battery + . In both tests, I checked the grounds at the wire, the screw, the bolt, and surrounding metal as relevant (such as the engine mount itself). I also checked that the connections were secure and that there were no signs of corrosion, damage, etc etc. Both grounds passed continuity in all areas and also showed proper battery voltage at all areas as well.

 

Thanks for the clarifications.

Have you measured the fuel pressure from LPFP?

Does spraying starting fluid into the air intake keep the engine running for longer than 5 seconds?

Doing the tests above should reveal whether the issue is or isn't related to fuel delivery.

 

Not directly - but fuel delivery isn't the issue. If it was, I would have misfires and/or rough idling/stalling instead of clean startups and shutdowns. The HPFP rail pressure would also be lower than spec if the LPFP wasn't pumping enough fuel to the lines. It sounds like you don't think the JBE is a likely culprit though?

 

Despite the JBE wire modifications, I don't favor a JBE issue because your information shows that the fuel pump (LPFP) continues to run and to receive battery voltage when the engine stalls.

In addition to a functional LPFP and HPFP, proper fuel delivery also depends on functional fuel injectors. Spraying starting fluid into the intake will allow you to determine whether ANY TYPE of fuel delivery fault causes your engine stall. If the latter test rules out a fuel delivery problem, the next step would be to look for an ignition issue (spark).

 

The JBE controls a lot of electrical components though and just because its not causing a fuel issue doesn't mean it couldn't be causing something else? Thats what I really came here to determine. I have already checked all of the normal culprits like air, fuel, spark. I've hunted down many a fuel delivery issue in my day and not a single one had symptoms like this. Im not sure why it would be doing this, but what it feels like is happening is the cars computer is detecting something critically wrong somewhere and shutting down the engine as a fail safe. I suspected the JBE because of the other erroneous electrical codes and the absence of any others. I've also checked less-common things like the timing and cam position sensors and thats why I am at a loss. I cannot find a single issue with anything anywhere, but electrical issues are where I am less familiar and so that became my suspicion.

 

My recommendations have been to help you identify the "something else". Where we differ is that you believe that the "something else" must be JBE related, whereas I believe the "something else" could be either JBE related or JBE unrelated. But in the end, our differences don't really matter because the path to solving this issue is to perform logical diagnostic tests rather than to randomly guess what it might be.

To keep running, the engine requires fuel, air, spark, cylinder compression, and proper mechanical timing. Given that fault codes have not provided obvious insights into possible causes for the engine stalling, a logical approach moving forward is to conduct initial diagnostic tests to determine whether the stalling problem may be related to fuel delivery or spark.

 

I understand and completely agree. I was just looking to clarify and maybe save some time by confirming that I already previously checked all of those things. Apologies if I came off rude or anything, that is not my intention and I definitely appreciate your willingness to help! I have also already troubleshot with a few people who - in the end - really had no idea what they were talking about and it has not been enjoyable to waste all that time lol.

 

Absolutely no apology required. I reply to forum threads because i'm interested in helping where I can and ultimately in learning more about 2nd generation MINIs.

This^ is where more details would really help. For example, what troubleshooting has been done to demonstrate that the engine stalling is NOT caused by loss of fuel or spark after 5 seconds of engine idling? The engine starts and idles for 5 seconds and, during this brief period of time, the engine clearly has fuel and spark. But at the 5 second point, is fuel, spark, or both lost? This is a key question, in my opinion.

 

In that case, a question I have - is that without there being any stalling, misfires, etc - how would I accurately check if spark or fuel is being lost when it shuts down? Obviously when the engine shuts down, it would also stop doing those things - so how would I accurately check if its shutting down because of a lack of spark/fuel or if there ends up being a lack of fuel/spark because its shutting down?

I would also be curious how, if one of those two things is the issue, the engine would produce spark and fuel normally for those first 5 seconds, and then suddenly not. Like what mechanism would make those things work normally at first but not 5 seconds later?

 

Great questions!

But first some relevant definitions:
Stalling is when a running engine unexpectedly stops running, which perfectly fits with your description of the issue. Nevertheless, you instead prefer to describe the issue as an engine shut down or shut off, which are terms more commonly used when a running engine is intentionally stopped by turning off the ignition key. I now assume that you prefer to refer to the issue as a shut down because it's like you are turning off the ignition key.

Interestingly, a bad ignition switch, loose battery connector, or loose/bad engine ground wire connection (discussed earlier in your thread) in a car can cause a problem like you are having. In this case, post a video of the dash lights through the sequence of (1) starting the engine, (2) the engine running for 5 seconds, and (3) the engine shutting off. If ignition power is lost while the engine is running, the dash warning lights may not turn on immediately.

--> A bad ignition switch, loose battery connector, or loose/bad engine ground wire connection, a loose DME connector or power/ground connection, and many more possibilities!

 

This^ is the strongest diagnostic test for the ground wires, though a better way is to test the circuit under load using the battery ground terminal as the reference point. Nonetheless, what was the voltage measurement across your battery terminals and the magnitude of the voltage drops at the various ground points?

 

Hey there, sorry for the incredibly delayed response. I have been busy and haven't really messed with the car these past two months. In any case, I recently rechecked these grounds just to have accurate data. With my battery reading at 12.5volts, all of my grounds (engine strap, ignition coil, DME ground, and various random parts of exposed metal (engine mounts, brackets, screws, engine block, etc) all read somewhere between 12.45 and 12.5 volts. So it seems like there is no loss.

A couple other things of note:

• My Foxwell NT530 Elite fails to clear adaptations (a normal procedure to do after a timing chain job) - this process works fine on other MINIs
• Any attempts to relearn the Valvetronic Actuator/Servomotor position limits fails due to "an interruption in voltage"
  • I tried this with a known-working Valvetronic motor as well, and got the same result.
  • I verified continuity and voltage across all 10 wires from the Valvetronic motor to the DME, so the wiring from the DME to the motor is all sound.
• In the 5-10 seconds that my engine is running, battery voltage never increases to the regular 13-14+ volts, indicating charging from the Alternator
  • I believe this to be a symptom rather than a cause though (or at the very least, unrelated to my issues), because even when I charge the battery to full with an external charger, these other issues persist when just enabling the ignition (not starting the engine)

At this point I feel like I am starting to chase random things that might not even be relevant. And as you can imagine, it just feels so frustrating to have no idea where to actually start to resolve my issue lol. So unhelpful having no engine codes!

Please let me know your thoughts! Thankful to have someone else interested in helping.

 

On the note of all of this, I would be interested to know what you think of Chat GPTs response - https://chatgpt.com/share/69481551-b...6-fd3e6a1ba270

 

Chat GTP provided some good ideas; however, my first thought would be to load test your battery in order to rule in or out a faulty battery.

And can you provide more details on this^ voltage interruption comment?

Are all of these codes still present? Any new ones?

 

Additional questions:

What are the nominal and actual eccentric shaft angles read by your scan tool?

Have you measured/monitored the voltage received at the DME (pin 2 of X60004) from the valvetronic relay? Have you measured/monitored voltage received by pins 5 and 6 of valvetronic servomotor from the DME?

 

Is there any chance that the valvetronic servomotor was not installed correctly?

 

As always, apologies for the great delay in replying. I greatly appreciate your assistance! Just two days ago I finally resolved this problem. Turns out, in my hubris of having done many timing chain jobs and therefore being overconfident, I very simply, swapped the Intake and Exhaust Camshaft Sprockets. Thats it. It was that simple :|

Car runs great now, no codes or anything lol. Thank you again though!

 

Thanks for posting the solution!

ChatGPT was unable to solve your problem but was able to explain how your posted symptoms fit with your solution: