e46 330ci SMG locking up

My SMG pump doesn't prime occasionally when firing up my 330ci, and I can't change gear. The clutch was replaced about 6 months ago, and the car has driven fine since then only developing this fault in the last month or so. Clearing faults with INPA resolves every time. As this is a 330, and not an M3, the SMG setup is a little diff to normal SMG - it doesn't have an SMG reservoir, and doesn't have the usual suspect salmon coloured relay.

I've replaced the ASC/Secondary Air Pump relay which is light orange in colour, and from forums/what dealerships have done to other 330's with SMG this relay is a component in priming the pump - it's in the same position as the salmon colour on an M3. The problem persists.

My gut is telling me it's the SMG pump itself, but once it primes it's absolutely perfectly fine - so perhaps some other gremlin? INPA isn't full of information, it states "A fault is no longer present, but stored in memory" - once I clear the fault, she starts fine. The bonnet is fully closed too - I know if the bonnet is open it'll refuse to start. Perhaps a hydraulic bleed of the gearbox would help?

Again - I'm looking for help with a non M3 SMG if anyone has experience of this box. When it came off for the clutch, it all came in one piece, there was no hydraulic lines to be disconnected, or much in terms of a wiring loom. It's very different to a normal SMG setup. And if anyone says the car has SSG, and not SMG, it is genuinely SMG - the BMW original IVS order screen shows it as SMG in the options list :)

You need to put the Gt1 or newer diagnostics on it so you can do a test plan but if you've already done the relay it's more than likely the pump.


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I'll put Rheingold on it Friday, I'll pop out to a mate's garage who has it. Cheers!

I have the exact same gearbox in the 630i Owen. Around Christmas time the same symptoms were observed. It was the pump in the end, exact same part number for 630i SMG pump as the 330i.

The labour is a hell of a lot easier than it is on the ///M cars too.

Part number: 23 42 7 571 297


http://bmwfans.info/parts-catalog/23427571297/

As I mentioned I would buy it on CarPart-Pros.com

Price: € 294.80, plus €17 delivery, plus €10 PayPal fee (€380 plus VAT in the dealers)

You need the fluid as well. I would leave it to Mick C if you can get him to do it.

BTW: I have Rheingold too.

So I think I know what happened to it, after sleeping on it ...

Back when the clutch was done, she was very very slow to change gear. Did a re-teach, and a hydraulic bleed but never topped it back up again as I didn't know there was a reservoir up next to the transmission. I guess the pump has been working harder with less fluid. Do you think topping it back up would resolve it not priming? It seems to only not prime after a drive and being parked in gear - I'm wondering does it register it's working harder, store a fault and then not prime until the fault is cleared, and maybe topping it up would solve it.

I can get the pump with my old staff discount at the main Dealers using the above part number for about €330, so that's not too bad I guess if the worst comes to the worst.

Funnily enough that is the next step that you take in the troubleshooting process is to top off the fluid.

I would top off the fluid but I still have my suspicions in the pump.

Cheers RR, Carly adapter arrived this morning too, doesn't seem to like talking with the Transmission ECU sadly.

Threw it up on the lift this morning and put in over half a litre of CHF115S into it, didn't realise it was so low. Will keep an eye on it for the coming weeks and see if it locks up again.

The part that RR listed above is a pump but the matching clutch actuator would be separate part and is a multiple of the price.

Have you checked the condition of the clutch actuator on your one (equivalent of standard clutch slave cylinder with an electronic sensor bolted on)? A few years ago I had one of these and the seal that surrounds the rod perished and gradually leaked the hydraulic fluid out and the reservoir ran low (there is a reservoir but it's not at the top on the bay like an M SMG, you have to get to it from underneath).

At the time there were no replacement parts so the whole actuator unit had to be replaced - once it was fixed it had lightning fast gear changes in comparison.

Since then I found that there is now a standard oem slave cylinder repair kit that's around €30 that can be used to fix it. For a standard e46 you'd probably never go this approach as the stnardard e46 manual slave cylinder is cheap as chips. However it makes perfect sense to fix when the electronic version nearly costs a grand.

Sounds good Skippy - I haven't looked at that yet, as it's just the lack of priming of the pump is causing it not to shift, but great to know if head down the preventative maintenance road or have problems with the slave cylinder!

I should have mentioned that a pump failing will throw an error code for sure. The actuator failing may not throw an error code. That might help in determining the culprit.

The symptoms of a failed pump are that you don't get the "whizz" noise when you unlock the car when you would expect to (SMG owners will know what I mean).

Hopefully the fluid top off solved the issue.

I was about to write an update tomorrow to say 2 weeks on and everything was great - gearbox changes were smoother, car was priming for less time in the mornings, but it spectacularly shit itself this morning. Stuck in Mahon Point not able to select any gear at all and it defaulted to Neutral. Carly couldn't detect any codes, but INPA did. Looks like it's pump territory now. Badly taken photo of INPA attached. Towed home in shame :(

That's the same code I got at the time. :(

Oh well, nobody died, it can be fixed relatively easy (even though not cheaply).

So she's in Kearys at the moment getting the new pump fitted, expect to get it back mid week. I've asked them to double check if there's a Technical Service Bulletin open for it as some of the early SMG boxes in the e46 had a problematic loom that should be replaced.

And got her back today. So much quieter when priming on unlocking, and gear changes are a lot snappier. Whoop!