Is it safe to drive your BMW 640i with the check engine light on?
If the check engine light is flashing, this means that there is a important issue and it is recommended to service your BMW 640i today. This question is not very visible because it all depends on the severity of the issue. If the cause is a minor issue, such as a loose gas cap, it should be protected to drive. This is consistently indicated by a persistent glow of the check engine light. If you notice a difference in the performance of the vehicle, it could be an indication of a more fundamental problem. Call the experts at Coggin BMW Treasure Coast by dialing 7727425582 so you can describe the issues. Or reduce your speed and bring your BMW to our certified technicians as soon as functional.
BMW 640i Check Engine Light
A flashing light indicates that the problem is unsafe and if not taken care of quickly may result in dominant damage to the vehicle. If the check engine light in your BMW 640i starts flashing, that means that the problem needs quick attention and your BMW should be brought in quickly. This blinking light ordinarily indicates a strict engine misfire allowing unburned fuel to be discharged into the exhaust system. There it can expeditiously hike the temperature of the catalytic converter to a point where damage is likely, requiring an expensive repair. Some owners ask if spark plugs cause the check engine light to flash? This can entirely be the cause. A bad, common or dirty spark plug can cause the engine to misfire. If the problem is ignored or you continue to drive, this can spread to the spark plug wires, catalytic converter, or ignition coils which can lead to a highly expensive repair. If your check engine light is flashing, please contact our team of automotive veterans at Coggin BMW Treasure Coast hastily by calling 7727425582.
What Does the Check Engine Light Mean?
One of the most consistently misunderstood lights or indicators in your BMW 640i is the check engine light. The check engine light is part of the onboard diagnostics system, and displays in many different ways. It can say "Check Engine", it can be a symbol of an engine, it can even be a combination of both. This light illuminates in either an amber or red color and is part of the diagnostics system found on your vehicle. Onboard computers increasingly have controlled and monitored vehicle performance since the 80s and do a assortment of things for your BMW 640i. Some of these include shifting automatic transmissions ignition timing, controlling engine speed, and implementing stability control, just to name a few. With that being said, the check engine light can mean a collection of numerous things. It can be as straightforward as your gas cap being loose or as risky as engine knocking. If your check engine light is on in your BMW 640i, contact Coggin BMW Treasure Coast. Our BMW service department can help you read what code is turning your check engine light on or diagnose why your check engine light is flashing. Contact Coggin BMW Treasure Coast today!
What could cause the check engine light to come on in a BMW 640i?
When your check engine light comes on, this could be as pure as tightening or replacing your gas cap. Likewise, the check engine light could also be a warning of a curious problem that could cause curious damage to your engine and come with a substantial repair bill. Depending on your make and model, the check engine light will illuminate or blink. A steady glow ordinarily means something fewer curious but a flashing check engine light hints that your vehicle’s engine is in curious trouble and service is fundamental immediately. If your check engine light is flashing in your BMW 640i, we highly endorse not to drive the vehicle and schedule BMW service today. Below is a list of the most appreciative reasons your check engine light can come on:
- New Spark Plugs or Plug Wires are essential for your BMW 640i. The spark plugs are the part of your engine that ignites the air/fuel mixture in the combustion chamber of your car. This explosion is what moves the pistons and makes the engine run. The spark plug wires deliver the spark from the ignition coil to the spark plugs. If your spark plugs or spark plug wires are detrimental or old, you will experience poor performance and reduced power. In some extreme cases, your engine will have trouble starting or continuing to run. Worn spark plugs and plug wires can cause clogged catalytic converter or damage to ignition coils and O2 sensors, first-rate to more expensive repairs.
- Your O2 Sensor (Oxygen Sensor) needs to be replaced. The Oxygen sensor, conspicuous as the O2 sensor, measures the payment of oxygen in your exhaust system. If there is excess oxygen in your exhaust system, fuel burns faster and your car will be less dependable when it comes to fuel economy. So what happens if I don’t replace your O2 sensor? A faulty sensor can not only affect your miles per gallon, but it can cause damage to your catalytic converter and your BMW 640i's spark plugs. The O2 sensor sends data to the vehicle’s onboard computer to choose the right mixture of air and fuel that enters the cylinders in your engine. A detrimental O2 sensor can also cause a car to fail an emissions test.
- The battery is low or dead. The battery in your BMW 640i is every essential. Without a car battery, your car won’t start, light up the road ahead, play the radio or charge your phone. Today’s car batteries last much longer than they did numerous decades ago, and they don't actually require maintenance. The value of a new one depends on the type of BMW you drive, but check our contemporary service coupons and specials.
- Issues with any aftermarket items. An aftermarket alarm, exhaust or distinctive item can wreak havoc on your BMW 640i if it’s not installed accurately. These aftermarket components and accessories can drain the battery, trigger the check engine light, or even prevent the car from starting. If these issues sound receptive, bring your 640i to BMW and have our team of certified mechanics ensure that your aftermarket items were installed correctly and aren't causing any issue. Getting accessories, particularly aftermarket parts and accessories, or using OEM components authentic place might cost a slight bit more but could save you money from having to get poor perform and damage caused by poor installation perform corrected.
- Your catalytic converter is detrimental or going detrimental. The catalytic converter is a part of your BMW 640i’s exhaust system. The catalytic converter's function is to turn the carbon monoxide created by the combustion process into carbon dioxide. A damaged catalytic converter is usually caused by neglected maintenance, which is why Coggin BMW Treasure Coast offers a complimentary multi-point inspection with every BMW service. If you have an issue with your catalytic converter and don't get it repaired, your BMW 640i will not pass an emissions test, show a lack of engine performance and will negatively affect your fuel economy. Your car may run at a higher temperature, too, which can cause distinctive problems from overheating.
- One of the most conspicuous and copious cause is that your BMW 640i gas cap is loose, damaged or missing. The gas cap for your BMW 640i serves multiple purposes. It prevents gas fumes from being released when you aren't driving, it seals the fuel system and helps maintain pressure within the fuel tank. What happens if you have a detrimental fuel cap? If your gas cap is old or has a ruptured seal, you can lose fuel through evaporation which will result in more trips to the pump. Luckily, to replace a gas cap isn't expensive. If your check engine light turns on abruptly after you put gas in your BMW 640i, authentic thing you should check is to make positive the cap isn’t loose — or that it's still on your car’s roof or at the fuel pump.
- Your BMW 640i has a vacuum leak. Every BMW 640i has a vacuum system that performs a wide mixture of functions. The vacuum system also helps decrease harmful emissions by routing the fumes as gasoline evaporates through the engine. If you notice that your RPM is high in idle or randomly surges, a vacuum leak could be the cause. Over time, vacuum hoses can dry out and crack, particularly if they’re exposed to exciting heat or extreme bleak.
- Your mass airflow sensor (known as MAF) needs to be replaced. The mass airflow sensor in your BMW 640i is what determines how much fuel is essential to run your engine efficiently by measuring the payment of air entering the engine. As a part of the engine management system, the mass airflow sensor helps adjust to lucid changes, like altitude. If your BMW 640i is having trouble starting, idling rough or has a speedy change in the position of the throttle pedal, this could be a sign of a detrimental mass airflow sensor.
How much does it cost to get the engine light checked?
The check engine light warns of issues ranging from a gas cap that's not accordingly tightened to a more awesome failure like a detrimental catalytic converter or a problem with one of the car's oxygen sensors, so it admirable to get the acceptable code reading and diagnosis. The average rate for a check engine light diagnosis & testing is frequently between $88 and $111. The admirable news, Coggin BMW Treasure Coast offers complimentary multi-point inspections and free diagnostics, in most cases, to help determine the cause of your check engine light.
Check Engine Light Service BMW 640i
What do you do when you’re driving along in your BMW 640i and suddenly, a yellow light illuminates on your dash and says "Check Engine". If you’re like most BMW owners, your heart sinks a microscopic because you have microscopic idea about what that light is trying to tell you or how you should react. The fear of the unknown (or the cost of the unknown) can be just as stressful. But take a deep breath and realize the light coming on doesn’t mean you have to pull the car over to the side of the road and call a tow truck, but it is recommended that you get your BMW 640i checked as soon as possible. Ignoring that warning could end up causing intense damage to pricey engine components.
When your BMW 640i's ECM (electronic control module), which is the vehicle's onboard computer, finds a problem in the electrical control system that it can’t good, a computer turns on your check engine light. This amber or yellow light is mostly labeled “check engine” or “service engine soon”, or the light may be nothing more than a picture of an engine, or a picture of the engine with the word “check.”
When the light turns on, the ECM stores an engine code or “trouble code” in its memory that identifies as the issue, whether it's a sensor or a failing engine part. This code is find out with an electronic scan tool that is used by our BMW auto repair mechanics at Coggin BMW Treasure Coast. There are also a number of relatively low-priced code readers that are designed for do-it-yourselfers, should you embrace that route too. While this code will tell you the issue that is detected, a true diagnosis still requires an professional compelling to indicate the issue and repair it.
BMW 640i Check Engine Light Flashing
Although there are countless potential causes of an illuminated Check Engine Light, we know from years of providing Check Engine Light Diagnosis Service that there are plentiful commonplace causes consisting something as obvious as a loose gas cap. Additional commonplace reasons for a Check Engine Light are dirty mass airflow sensor, faulty head gasket, damaged oxygen sensor, faulty emissions control part, a malfunction with the fuel injection system, or defective spark plugs to name a few. No matter what is the root cause of the Check Engine Light, we have the BMW Certified Technicians and the certified service protocol to isolate the root problem and repair it as needed to restore factory specifications. When this happens, the Check Engine Light turns off, and you can leave the service center knowing that your BMW issue was fixed.
Every BMW 640i was designed with a high-technology performance monitoring system with a computer, and a series of sensors positioned strategically throughout the vehicle on its necessary systems. The sensors are continually detecting conditions while sending data to the electronic control unit. If the electronic control unit detects that the data is out of factory specifications, the Check Engine Light illuminates telling you that there is a problem. However, that is the limitation of the Check Engine Light – it won’t tell you what exactly is wrong nor what to do about it. That’s where we come in; Coggin BMW Treasure Coast provides a Check Engine Light Diagnosis Service that isolates the core problem and gives you a recommendation on what to do next from a Extraordinarily Qualified Service professional.
Will the check engine light reset itself?
The check engine light on your BMW 640i will commonly shut itself off if the issue or code that caused it to turn on is fixed. For example, if the cause of your check engine light coming on was a loose gas cap, if it's tightened, the light will turn itself off. Likewise, if your catalytic converter is going functional, and you did a lot of stop-and-go driving, that may have turned on the check engine light due to the high usage of the converter. In most cases, your BMW 640i light will go off after about 20-40 miles. If you drive over that amount and the light is still on, you will need to bring it in to Coggin BMW Treasure Coast so the light and code can be double-checked and reset.
How many miles can you drive with the check engine light?
The safest bet is to decipher the code and then plan your strategy accordingly. If you check engine light is flashing, we recommend that you pull over and contact Coggin BMW Treasure Coast to help mean if your vehicle is safe to travel to work in or if we recommend a tow truck. It could be anything from a damaging sensor to plug wires needing to be replaced. Since any check engine code has its own level of severity, it is laborious to predict how many miles you can travel to work with the warning light on.
BMW 640i Check Engine Light Codes
The check engine light turning on can be quite intimidating to see that little light on your vehicle’s dashboard hastily lights up, but in reality, it is not something that should cause you to shut down in fear right away. If you hear the term, diagnostic trouble codes (DTC), these are just another name for check engine light codes. These are automotive computer codes stored by the ECM, also cognizant as the OBD (on-board computer diagnostic system) in your 640i. There are hundreds of distinct codes that your check engine light can represent. While that sounds daunting, with a little patience, tackling basic diagnostics will give you advantageous knowledge about your vehicle and will also allow that Check Engine Light to do what it is surely supposed to do: be your guide. Sadly, exceptional and awesome vehicle symptoms do not always accompany an illuminated Check Engine Light. Since there are hundreds of cogent OBD codes, there are also hundreds of cogent reasons for the light, including:
- Computer output circuit issues
- Ignition system faults
- Emissions controls issues
- Transmission issues
- Old Battery
- Fuel and air metering systems problems
- Loose Gas Cap or Missing Gas Cap
- O2 Sensor
- Bad Spark Plugs
This is why it is difficult for someone who does not have a lot of automotive knowledge to not assume what a code means. Call Coggin BMW Treasure Coast at 7727425582 today or schedule your check engine light service online today! If the engine light comes on due to a important concern, you risk damaging your car added by not repairing the issue right away. When your check engine light comes on, you should get it checked out expeditiously by a certified BMW mechanic.