rhymes with "flea-foam" gave me 3 trans programs today....

[ryan roopnarine]

before i start, let me just say that my carbon problem is too far along to wait anylonger. I couldn't go past 5k without hearing horrible noises. i tried to find a place that does the BG decarbonizing (as they are the only brand/method I trust for this sort of thing), but no one seems to, and i'd rather not pay a mechanic to stick a hose in a bottle when I could do such for free. I'm not encouraging anyone to do this, which is why I didnt even name the product in the title. i bought "flea foam" in an aerosol can, so that the product would be as close to an ideal gas as a liquid could be. sprayed it in the FPR vacuum line after cleaning the throttle body with it manually. after expending the can in the most gentle way (I didn't use it to kill/drown the motor to finish), I got back into the car to see that "trans program" was now illuminated on the dash. checked the hoses, restarted the car to see it eventually reappear. ate dinner, realised that i never plugged the FPR hose back in. I never reset the battery after the procedure, which might be why trans program came up. stomp test reveals a 1216, throttle position pot, which would be perfectly in line with the wacky idle one gets when performing a procedure such as this. started.....no message. drove about 1.5 miles, got the message as I was making a U-turn. pulled over, restarted, put the car into S3 instead of D to blow out carbon. ran it hard, touching and going between waypoints. no reoccurence. my ping/bad noises are almost gone. will probably wire-wheel spark plugs clean tomorrow, if i can't find somebody locally with some in stock. for the trans programs alone, would not recommend this procedure. would not recommend this procedure in general, YMMV.

[Alexlind123]

seafoam. I dont see how it could affect your transmission.

[winfred]

**** may of crept into the tps and that set off the trans program, guessing out of my ass. i've yet to see a modern bmw motor crap itself up with carbon so that it needed some snake oil to make it run right, id say theres some problem that's causing it to run bad or whatever it's doing, possibly a sensor far enough out of spec to **** with it but not so far out it trips a code on it's own

[joshua43214]

Drowning the engine when you decarbon is part of the proccess, idealy you want to pour in so much that at WOT the engine runs at about 800RPM. Other wise you dont get all the gunk out and have to do it a second time.

Don't use a wire wheel on spark plugs, use a torch or a sandblaster. The part you need to clean is the ceramic insulator, the electrodes will clean themselves uless you are burning oil.

I have used the BG system hundreds of times and never had a trans issue come from it. Not sure what could cause it unless the flea foam was not really sensor proof and it buggered the TPS. I have seen them get ruined in the past when people flood the throttle body with cleaners.

[tim]

The aerosol version is called Deep Creep, so I presume that's what you used. It's just aerosol Sea Foam. I go for the direct approach- take off the plugs and spray it directly onto the pistons from the top. Let soak, and then fire it up, let it smoke itself out. Basically, the stuff is Acetone- the purple tinge of it makes me think it may be MEK derived. I've never had a problem with it, but I've never shot it through the intake manifold either, so WTFDIK.

Sorry about the trans prog-I concur that it must be the TPS. Have you tried using electrical contact cleaner on it yet?

[ryan roopnarine]

ok, lemme clarify.

the flea-foam didn't kill my TPS, it is working fine. there is a TSB from bmw concerning a bad ICV causing trans programs. lemme clarify for those who maybe don't have 4l30e's. the TSB said that anything from a carpet under the gas pedal to a bad icv to a bad MAF to bad TPS can cause trans program on a 4l30e because the computer sees the car inhaling more/less air than it should, and when it can't reconcile the difference, it will consider either: (bad MAF, Bad TPS, Bad ICV) and report one as broken. i've had experience with this, when my TPS died, my car gave me a trans program combined with a bad MAF, though the TPS was the defective part. the idle was a lot higher after i finished the treatment. normally, when i did water treatments prior, i'd disconnect the battery afterwards, and the idle would be low. this time, my idle was about 1000, and after the trans program engaged, it would drop back to about 650 or 700, which was my normal idle prior. after normalizing the idle by driving it at moderate-high rpm, the trans program is gone, because the idle is back to normal. i don't "blame" seafoam for breaking anything. i don't think i did the treatment right, however, because i barely made any smoke. oh well, my results were good, though i as i said down below, i don't recommend this to anybody (who can't figure it out themselves).

[BillionPa]

clean your icv with carb cleaner.

run a few tanks of gas with BG chemtool and techron in it.

if you have a MAF, clean it with MAF cleaner.

do the seafoam thing one more time.