Stalling?

[svann]

My son's 2002 325Ci has developed a bad habit of cutting out (going to idle) as he travels down the highway. It will not respond to the throttle. He has to pull off on the shoulder and shut it off for about 15 min. before he can get it to run normally. This seems to happen after it has been driven an hour or more. I believe this car has a "drive by wire" setup (God knows why) so I guess it is an electrical problem. I'm not sure if the "check engine light" has come on. Anyone seen this one before?
Thanks,
Stan

[Jeron]

It is drive by wire. It could be the pedal or the throttle motor/servo.

[chrislee]

I have similar engine stalling problem on my 2002 325i. The engine sometimes stalls while idling. I brought my car to BMW dealer and they updated my DME program. the problem went away after that. the service dealer chaged about $330 for update(ripped off). are they suppsed to fixed their DME program error free since they wrote the program in first place? some 2002 325i also had sticky(unresponsive) accelerator pedal which is manufacturer defects according to bulletin from Transportation safety board. I brought sticky pedal issue to dealer and the dealer agree with the problem. They still want me to pay for replacing defected padel. good luck with dealing with BMW dealer for DME issue!

[erik16]

hey, i had the same problem and it was my icv (idle control valve). it was "sticky". just pull your intake tube off your air filter box and look inside, you will see a hole/line branch off, that leads to the icv. spray a good amout of carb cleaner in there and it should cure your problem. i did it while it was running and shut off and again that night so it would work over night. the red straw that comes with the can will not reach the hole, i taped a regular straw to it and it reached fine.