Car sporadically dies and check engine light will come on randomly.

I sold my parents my e90 m3 about 2 years ago- the car ran great for me for the majority of the four years I owned it.

My parents don't use it as a daily driver but more of the occasional cruiser. Recently they have taken it to get washed and filled with gas (each time at shell stations) and after they start the car and begin to drive the car will die and at time will trigger the check engine light as well.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar to this?

The car is located in Colorado and temps are cool right now.

The dealership there said they can't get them in until the 29th so they are trying to get a bit of assistance from us online. Thanks.

If the car stalls after a fill up they need to replace the fuel tank breather valve. Common issue. $80 part but it is probably a couple hours of labor at least

Msan is right, the fuel tank breather valve is the most likely cause. Check out this thread here where GPitts identified the problem. And check out this very good DIY by Rat3d ///M here to see what work is involved.

Does the idle bounce and the car eventually stalls? if so and it's immediately after getting gas I'd bet it's the breather valve. the CEL worries me though. I dont recall ever getting a CEL when this happened to me.

Also fwiw I've never had this issue again after replacing my breather valve

dibxna wrote

I sold my parents my e90 m3 about 2 years ago- the car ran great for me for the majority of the four years I owned it.

My parents don't use it as a daily driver but more of the occasional cruiser. Recently they have taken it to get washed and filled with gas (each time at shell stations) and after they start the car and begin to drive the car will die and at time will trigger the check engine light as well.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar to this?

The car is located in Colorado and temps are cool right now.

The dealership there said they can't get them in until the 29th so they are trying to get a bit of assistance from us online. Thanks.

I'd check O2 sensors. The pre-cat sensors if they haven't been changed in a while can cause a crazy rough idle and the engine to die. I had a pair go bad in a year in a car I drive 5k per year.

Evap Purge valve. It's located under the intake manifold, and isn't hard to change. My 09 did the exact same thing.

As others have indicated fuel tank breather valve is likely the culprit but when mine acted up I had the rough idle and the occasional stall but never the CEL. The CEL leads me to believe there could be another culprit like the O2 sensor. If you're getting the CEL, pull the codes and see what they show. FYI, when my breather valve was a problem, the car did not throw any codes...