I was wondering if someone can give me some technical advice on my 96 740il. The car runs great, it has 86000 miles but has a nagging noise. When I step on the accelerator slightly hard at stop or going up a slight hill, or just passing someone, I hear a rattle or groan noise it sounds like marbles or something grinding. I never notice any slippage or shifting problems in the transmission. The dealer said they need approval to spend about 5 hours trying the diagnose the problem. Their initial thought is it may be the torque converter. The dealer ruled out the cat convertors. The car has a 100k CPO warrenty that expires in April 2002. Should I ignore this noise, try to get it diagnosed now or wait. If I authorize the 5 hours will the dealer be able to tell if the transmission is going? How could they do this? My fear is that the transmission will fail as soon as the car is out of warranty, or something even worse. Please let me know your thoughts. Have you heard of similar problems? The dealer said this is very unusual for this car.