E46 M3 Throttle position sensor failure

[Peter@AEW]

Pic of the clamps?

 

[Rotinaj]

Pic of the clamps?

 

[flyitlikearental]

Hahaha yeah, like Rotinaj said...

Those intake boot clamps are such dastardly devices they don't show up on photographs...

 

[Fordkoppie]

Also found that the hose on my ICV had a tear in it,

While everything else you stumbled across definitely contributed to the smooth running and better performance/response, I am convinced that the root cause for your cluster lighting up and car going into limp mode was the tear in that pipe.

That is why it always happened only on small throttle openings. Because then vacuum is high, airspeed through the MAF is low, and the % of unmetered air is much greater.

I know the design is completely different, but my 330i had exactly the same symptoms, and it also turned out to be a tear in the ICV pipe.

Glad you got to the bottom of it, and a great future reference for S54 owners with similar symptoms:clapper:

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I also suspect that the slight variance in TPS' resistance might have masked the problem, and the reason why it was better for a short time after replacement (in both cases)

 

[flyitlikearental]

Dude, in hindsight that makes perfect sense. The TPS's that came out, well, even with the trusty old fluke77, i cant see anything out of spec with them. During light throttle obviously with that tear bypassing the MAF, and letting more air into the motor wanted to increase the engine speed uncommandedly, so therefore the ECU could have seen it as uncommanded throttle plate opening, which immediately causes limp mode, in case of a stuck throttle.

Well, after everything, she is smooth as silk and strong like Mother Russia now.

 

[Clint@MMS AUTO]

Nicely done sir!