I Have the Shimmy Shakes rough idle problem
 

Hello, I have a 98 e36 318i the trouble I am having is the rough

idle (common in e36 I guess) when at a complete stop, few

seconds into the stop the car feels as if it is firing on 3 cylinders

or feels like it wants to stall out. Gassing the rpm to around 1000

smoothes it out only a little you can still feel the roughness, but

when the car is rolling or roughly above 7 mph it smoothes right

out and feel great. All cylinders are firing fine, no misses, no

knocking, basically runs great when not idling or on startup. No

lost in fuel efficiency or power, checked all vacuum looks good no

leak no faulty hoses. I recently changed out the idle control valve

to a new one, didn’t solve the problem. Feels a little better but

not by much it might just be me trying to justify spending 107.00

on the idle control for nothing. Any suggestions or other areas to

like at would be appreciated or anything you guys have tried

might work or might not work. I am game; I am on a mission to

resolve this. Or do I have to live with the shimmy shake? Thanks

guys.

Sounds like O2 sensor problem. Many times a faulty o2 sensor will cause a rough fuel mixture and idle problems.

How many miles do you have?

How is the gas milage?

Is your engine light on?

If you check codes (OBDII) this will probably give you the answers your looking for.

thanks Sho for the reply. No check enigine light, car does have 125,000 all serviced by dealer up until now, gas milage is still good varies between 27-32 mpg, i've used a Peake tool to pull codes and none were present. I will look at the service records to see if the O2 sensors have been replaced. Will the O2 sensor effect the morning starts to be rough?