just to be clear, i am not blaming the cowl filters.
had my cowl filters on in the last year, while driving, washing, raining and whatever
car ran fine, atleast i thought so
one day my car wouldnt start, no matter what i did, the starter would turn forever but car will not start, all elertronics were working fine
hooked up a code reader - 25 or so "short to ground malfunctions"
i am like, what the heck? how did EVERY component fail??
opened up the hood
took out the coils just to find this out
apparently water went in the through the coils straight through to the plugs, and i guess that after a year of heat\cold cycles, the water finally shorted out the sparks straight to the engine and it fried my ECU
i mean totally fried!
anyway, 6 new plugs, 6 new coils and a new ECU from BMW later the car runs great, smoother than ever [no fluctuating RPM at idle too!]
so the first thing i did was to install the cowl back, and i left the cowl filters on
so its just a friendly heads up to all
i have to mention though - i have removed BOTH engine covers, front and rear, leaving the entire engine head exposed
i hope that everyone will learn from my mistakes