My E39 Tds suffers very poor torque below 2000 rpm compared with my old 2.1 four cylinder XM. Is it designed this way so it feels like a petrol engine or can it be improved? It becomes very erratic below 1000 rpm where as my old car will pull smoothly from tickover. Are there any mods or adjustments that can be done to improve it?

Thanks

Peter

I could be on to the wrong end of the stick (again) but as the op described it as a "tds" isn't that one of the older style oil burning engines which has more limited power band than the more modern diesels?  The older turbo diesels that I have driven really didn't do much at all except smoke and make a lot of noise until the turbo kicked in at 2,000 rpm. Less that 2,000 rpm and you get left red faced at the lights.  Wrong gear at the wrong road speed could be embarrasing until you learn the right rpms....

Hi Andrew

Yes you are quite correct it is an old type IDI engine but so is the Citroen and that pulls  from well below max turbo boost, it produces enough power to accelerate smoothly from tickover and by 1400 rpm is pulling well, the BMW engine is practically flat below 1500 and below 1000 'kangaroos', the only difference is that the citroen has three valves per cylinder.

There is a tuning chip available that is supposed to increase the torque substantially, has anybody tried one? I am not interested in improving the performance, just the flexibility, the Beemer is hard work to drive compared with the Citroen.

Peter