91 535i Won't Start

Hello all! I am in desperate need of some help. I just 2 weeks ago bought a 91 535i with 130,000 miles on it. I'm used to working with and on Hondas so troubleshooting this schnitzel power ride is all new to me. I drove a couple people to the airport this morning and on the way back decided to open it up on the autobahn :) I hit 240kph with it and decided to back off. With no longer wondering if it would do the 260 it says it will, I calmly drove the rest of the way home. I parked the car for a couple hours then went back out to go somewhere. It turned over like crazy and acted like it didn't want to start. Then finally it fired up and away I went. I got about 2 miles down the road when all of a sudden it stopped running. This time my feeble attempts to start her up failed miserably. I got a friend of mine to tow me home, and while being towed, I decided to pop the clutch to see if maybe it would start. It did, but only ran for a few minutes before dying again. I called up another friend of mine who does a lot of work on BMW's and he told me to check out the distributor cap and rotor. I check these and they were fine. Just to be sure, though, I filed the points on the cap down to where they were shiny and still, not dice. If anyone could give me some sort of insight on what is going on here I'd really appreciate it. Thanks so much in advance for all your help.

You need to find out if it is fuel or ignition.

My WAG is fuel pump or the electrical control of the pump.

Later,

Hey, Bailey-
I like Ron's Wild Ass Guess. If it was an ignition problem, you would probably have found something when you examined the cap and rotor. You should do the ol' spark test just to make sure you've got spark... you know, take a spark plug wire off, stick a screw driver in it, and hold it close to a part of the motor that it grounded, have someone twist the key, and look for a fat, blue spark to jump from the screwdriver blade to anything grounded.
Once you are sure, you can move on to fuel experiments. I've also got tons of Honda experience, but very little BMW experience (I've had mine about 6 weeks). On a Honda, I'd turn the key on and loosen the banjo bolt that goes into the fuel filter. Fuel should squirt out.
That's assuming these cars have an electric fuel pump. If it's a mechanical fuel pump, you'll have to take a fuel line loose somewhere and have someone twist the key.
But yeah, sounds like a fuel delivery problem. Good luck. At least you have solid mechanical experience to aid you. Many here lack that.
Flunky
PS-My Bentley manual is on its way. Great wisdom will be mine...and then I won't have to guess what kind of fuel pump we have.

Well, I greatly appreciate all of your efforts to help me. There's a cool lemon law in Germany that makes a dealer liable for their cars for 3 months after the date of purchase. :) I took it back to the dealer and they screwed around with it for a few days then finally sent it in to BMW. They came back with a sensor problem that was located under the dash between the onboard computer and the main computer? It was cool because it was a 90 something EURO sensor which would have made it around $120 with the crappy exchange rate. Only the diagonostic computer was able to diagonse the problem as well.

Now... for the rest of the story. A week and around $300I took off to France to check out over there. On the way in (about 2 miles out) I stopped and took a look under the hood. To my surprise, all of my fan blades were somehow sheared off. I'm thinking it's the fan clutch and I'll just replace it when I get back. I'll keep it at a good rate of speed on the autobahn and the air will keep the engine cool enough to not do any damage. I made my trip and on the way back things were looking fine until I noticed my temp began to climb. I immediately pulled off the side of the road and checked under the hood to see what was going on. I found that the water pump was intact, meaning still bolted on the engine block, but the shaft to it was broken off.

I'm now totally ruined on buying another BMW. The stupid thing has been broken 2 weeks of the month that I've owned the car. With the lemon law still in effect, I'm getting my money back on Monday and I'll be looking for another Honda. Once again, thanks to all who tried to help me in my time of desperation. I hope you're all very happy with your BMW's, but I'm forever in the mind set that they're total garbage.

Hey did you get the non running 535i problem fixed? Most times the simplest solution is the most obvious. Or the simplest solution is the best one. Replace your fuel filter, the one back there by the gas tank.