Hi does anyone have a copy of this that I could borrow, please?
I am not completely sure of the problem at the moment, as its my father in-law's car.
Thanks Peter

Right, I just rang him. He was driving on the motorway when it sudenly "started feeling sluggish" (his words). When he used it later "it would not accelerate properly" it would get up 2000rpm and then start to cut out, he changed up and the same happend in 2nd and the other gears. He thought it was being starved of petrol, but has later found this is not the case.

Any help would be grately apreciated.
Thanks Peter

is he getting a spark on all 4 cylinders?

yes

I had a similar problem with my 316i, turned out to be the mass air flow sensor.

or the crankshaft sensor!

does it rev when stationary? could be a collapsed cat or blocked exhaust. is the engine management light on if so it will need a code reader to sort it properely. crank sensor normally wont start when they go faulty so best bet is to find somebody who has a code reader and get codes read and then fix prob and wipe code from ecu memory

There are numerous issues that can cause this, but it sounds like a fault has developed, the ECU has registered it and put the car into limp home mode. My car did similar and it turned out to be the crank sensor. £20 to replace. A BMW will start no prob with a faulty crank sensor.

If you took it to Haliwell they would charge you £65 for the diagnostic, Trenics in QFerry would be a bit cheaper.

I wouldn't waste any time trying to guess the fault or replacing parts on the off chance. Just pay for the diagnosis it will save you money in the long run. The MAF, 02 Sensor, crank, cam, ecu and fuel pump can all cause this and I'm sure you wouldn't want to replace them all.

Many BMW's don't throw ECU lights. The readout is quite good as your ECU will say how often the fault has occured too.

I guess it depends how competent you are as a mechanic, and if you can go through all the possible causes, and eliminate them until you find where the problem is.

If you dont feel confident in doing that, then it may be cheaper to pay BMW to diagnose the problem

Thanks for all the help guys, looks like the problem is on the air intake, getting too much petrol. That is the next thing to check. Will get back if this is not the case.

...what year is the car?

1996

Try giving this a go...

Say it only works up to 1995, but should only take 30 secs to try, and is worth a go.

Other than that its plug it in and read if there are any fault codes. As its an older E36, code readers should be had by most garages - Id suggest "Advanced" in Rock Ferry as they have a lot of diagnostics eqpt and will be able to read the codes

Such a miserable, pain in the ass these ECU management engines.
It would help if the sensors weren't built to break with microguage wiring and components.