Expert: John Kingery - 1/14/2008

Question
Hello my husband and I had aught my daughter this car for Christmas we knew it was not running all that great but it was a good deal. So we took it to the shop for them to do a diagnostic on it and code 41,201 came up. They also told us that valve cover gasket and upper air boot is cracked . Are the 2 codes related to those to problems or are they separate? because after replacing those 2 things and spark plugs and wires it still idles a little rough

Answer
Sorry, I don't work with the codes enough to know much.  The valve cover gasket would have nothing to do with how it runs.  Air boot could.  plugs and wires could.

I recommend going to www.roadfly.com and looking up this car (it's an e36), and searching for rough idle.

Not sure if you're familiar with BMW's or not....great cars, but maintenance heavy.   The 318i is a really great car......I bought a 325i years ago and still wish I'd bought he 318 instead.  Point being, you should take it to a good independant BMW mechanic, or a dealer, for things other than normal maintenance.