ok soo, today as i was going to school, i reached the interesction about a block awa, and i feel something weird happen to my gas pedal, so i make it through the intersection barley, because the pedal is barley giving anygas to the engine, then slowly roll into the parking lot and make it into a space.

when i was just idling there i tried pushing the pedal in further.... the result, a snapping noise and the pedal going loose. "great" i thought "another problem..." so i got my dad to drive me home, and now were contomplating what to do.

the throttle is working from the engine bay and looks like it, but there is no action from the pedal, im guessing i need a new cable? am i right? how much does this cost? time?
help me out again guys.
im afraid i bought another P.O.S. old ratty german auto mobile, i dont want to think that but im afraid its true.

Sounds to me like the throtte cable snapped. It's a really simple fix and the part costs $40 or so from the dealership (right? last time I bought one was 1998 or so). you can do it yourself. took me twenty minutes last time and I had no idea what I was doing. Might take some adjustement time after the R&R.

You're in portland, right? Got to pnwbb.com if you havent already. e21 group. The guys on there are all portlanders (portlandites? portlaniards?). there is a meetup every other thursday.

this happend to me a few years ago, in the midst of the summer none the less :(

you can make your own temporary accelerator cable w/ some skinny metal cable from home depot & 2 cable clamps. and just make loops in the cable for the throttle body linkage & the accelerator pedal linkage.
in the meantime, order an accelerator cable online, $23 over @ bmaautoparts.com

before you do any of this, i highly recommend pulling what's left of the old cable, both pieces. take that sucker down to your local bmw parts store and see what it matches. you are running aftermarket carbs and could quite possibly be using a different cable.

a broken accelerator cable doesn't make a car a POS and from the other stories here you can see it happens from time to time. i understand your dad's worry cause you just came off of VW, that experience can leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth. but BMW's are different, better quality everything all the way around.

before you do any of this, i highly recommend pulling what's left of the old cable, both pieces. take that sucker down to your local bmw parts store and see what it matches. you are running aftermarket carbs and could quite possibly be using a different cable.

a broken accelerator cable doesn't make a car a POS and from the other stories here you can see it happens from time to time. i understand your dad's worry cause you just came off of VW, that experience can leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth. but BMW's are different, better quality everything all the way around.
Amen.

alright, well i have a place that works on my car, i dont think they have the part, but i left a message for them, well see what happens,

hey thanks dj for the reasurance, i know bimmers are better! im just pissed that this stuff happens, cause i thought that i was going to buy a car that wasnt going to have problem for at least half a year, its just my freakin luck!

Ah it's happened to me too :)

It's shitty at the time, but once you fix it, it prob won't happen again.

Just make sure you get the correct cable and don't over tighten and make sure the cable isn't under load when the engine is idle.

sooo, here's the deal...

i talked to my machanic that works on my car, he ordered to part tonight,
he'll either install it friday or let me take it home that day and put it in with my dad on sunday.

if he does install it he will do it free of charge and also tune up my carbs (not for free), if i do it that way i have to get it towed about 15 miles, the thing about towing is.... they always grind my front spoiler or my tips on the back, and always bends my rear license plate

soo well see

thanks abunch guys!!
-Elliot

Yup happened to me as well. So when you push the pedel down do you see the throttle cable moving at all? Should be pretty obvious which part is broken.
I say do it yourself, this is like having the techs replace your air freshner its that easy. Do it just to get familiar with the car. This will take you no more than 15min to do even if you dont know what your doing. I knew what I was doing and took the old cable out and replaced it within 10min.

watch him tune the carbs and listen. you can do it by ear with enough practice. the carb sync is nice for setting up the idle, but not necessary if you have enough experience with carbs. you can also get an Air Fuel meter to assist you with tuning. most of them use an O2 sensor type thing for a sender. and another benefit of the air fuel meter is that you can see when your carbs are going out of sync or need to be adjusted

hey thanks dj for the reasurance, i know bimmers are better! im just pissed that this stuff happens, cause i thought that i was going to buy a car that wasnt going to have problem for at least half a year, its just my freakin luck!

One mans car problem is another man's excuse to go out and do something on the car! I hear honda's are pretty trouble free...the camery is also a fine auto:devillook Cars can be fun to work on, especially when you yourself fix the problem! Thats what drives us all. :)