Been searching long and hard for a solution. Found a young lass on BimmerForums who has the exact same problem. so to quote her...

"If I start the car from overnight cold, and press the throttle to go anything above 2k rpm within the first 100 or so meters, it chugs a little, but if I move off in 1st gear and let it coast under engine power alone, without touch the gas pedal, and then give it gas after 100 meters, then it drives fine"

one of the guys on there mentions something about... "Hydraulic lifters sticking when cold or a head gasket seeping water in to a cylinder overnight"

does this sound about right to any of you guys on here?

any other ideas on how to fix the issue? it doesn't happen all the time but it starting to frustrate me a little :(

Harry

She appears to be American so can safely be ignored for the most part unless you have a large oil reserve in Bedford, if so i'd keep that quiet

Joking aside the 1.4mpi is a 45+ year old engine design, it lacks the refinement of more modern engines, it's got a lumpy idle and it's not that eager first thing from a cold start. My advice is start it up and let it idle for a minute while you put your belt on, tweak the fan/vents, adjust the radio and put your phone on charge etc. and generally treat it with a little mechanical sympathy. This gives it a chance to get the oil circulating and begin to warm up.

I used to have something similar on my own car at about 2k from cold going up a hill to join a dual carriage way, somewhere between two tanks of vpower (for the extra detergent properties, i'm not expecting performance) and switching to a 5w40 fully synthetic oil (still meets 502.00) it's not been obvious on the last few mornings.

She appears to be American so can safely be ignored for the most part unless you have a large oil reserve in Bedford, if so i'd keep that quiet

thanks for the advice mate! i normally treat her fairly well on cold mornings let her warm up nicely etc - she done over 120,000 so cant be expecting too much

will try the tanks of v-power or momentum etc see how that goes.