[TexSquirrel]

Woohoo.
I finally got my 135i running without SES and CE lights and then my DS and manual mode quit working.
Kinda hard to log in third gear with D downshifting on me.
This was such a simple fix!

[MahiC]

Thanks for the diy! It was my first time soldering and everything went perfectly. I would suggest watching ericthecarguy's tutorial on YouTube and solder those wires to get the best connection.

[torok]

Is it important to replace the cables going to the centre console display also? I have replace the four cables going to to the chassis wiring harness but there has been no change to DS mode not functioning.

I would also like clarification on how the DS mode behaves with connectivity issues due to this. Mine displays DS and will only display transmission gear when I move the shifter in either + or - values but the transmission will always work automatically, if in either DS or fully auto. So if I select DS mode and mode the shifter just once, I can see the transmission gears on the dash as the transmission changes gears automatically. Is this similar to everyones experience?

[Judge Dredd]

Originally Posted by torok

I would also like clarification on how the DS mode behaves with connectivity issues due to this. Mine displays DS and will only display transmission gear when I move the shifter in either + or - values but the transmission will always work automatically, if in either DS or fully auto. So if I select DS mode and mode the shifter just once, I can see the transmission gears on the dash as the transmission changes gears automatically. Is this similar to everyones experience?

If the wire has been damaged in this way, the dash will not display DS at all and will display "D" even if you are shifting up and down or are in DS.

[dbjb]

Awesome DIY my friend!

DS mode went out about 3 months ago for me. I haven't done anything with it for fear of a costly repair. I simply kept putting it off.

Then I decided to do a search this out weekend. What a delight to find this DIY. I opened her up and found the same issue. 30 minutes later, DS mode works again! So happy to have a zero repair cost with a BMW!

[loknar]

So glad this works for everyone.

Me I spent 30 minutes trying to pull out the wood trim of the console. Won't budge. I have idrive so it's hard to get a grip. Tried combining a suction cup at the rear to pulling on the driver side. No movement.

My question is can I get this done without removing the console?
1) cutting all the 8 wires then pulling them out of their plastic cover and fix them
2) remove t-30 nuts so gear assembly can be turned and the plastic cover nut t15 removed . And then reassemble back with no fault problems? Don't know what pin needs to be pushed back...

----edit----

I managed to pull the central console wood trim. Using plastic tool and a suction cup.

But after removing the plastic covering with 3 t10 screws it seems facultative to go through all this trouble. Cutting all wires is almost always necessary to pull them out from where they're tucked in. No need to pull the assembly out. Just cut the 8 wires and pull them from both ends.

Also note that as I starting putting back everything together, I wanted to test the system. As I turned the key I got the massive error: "gear can be engaged without depressing brake". A quick web search of this fault said this means you need to change your tranny for 3500$... however, once I firmly screwed the 3 t30 holding the assembly and restarted it was fixed. It may also have been caused by idrive plug being removed but unlikely.

Stay calm and keep bimmering

[1QuikWS6]

Thanx for the great vid OP

Just had to make this repair this morning on my 08 E92 with 58k

Got 2 blocks from my house, dash lit up like a Christmas tree with Check Engine, DSC 4x4, Brake warning lights & car would not go above 2mi/hr

Only warning I got was the shift indicator lights stopped working about 2 wks ago, didn't think much of it at the time as I have custom LED's installed in the module - thought they just went bad...

But after I dug into the shifter I found (4) wires totally cut & the rest near to being broken.

Spliced in some longer pieces of wire with solder/heatshrink, wrapped with elec tape, & left the wire free of the plastic cover (also cut back the offending edge of the plastic cover for good measure just in case the wires happen to ride up against that area)

All is good & errors cleared

Now if I could only have a few words with the engineer that designed that system, no need for workmanship like this on a fairly expensive brand

[AgeIsCritical]

As I was doing this yesterday I didn't find any wires that were completely broken, but I did find 5 frayed wires. I touched them all up to ensure they don't break. I noticed that the round yellow thing that's under the 3 small hex screws was really hot to the touch during the whole time I was working on the wires. Is this normal?

[ArfMeow]

Excellent write up, thank you very much.
I will add, the second batch of screws that require removal is quite difficult with big hands so wiggle the shifter assembly and lean it hard to your left.
I also didn't solder but spliced, reconnected and ran electrical tape over each seperate wire.
Cheers mate.

[e90poster]

"ANYBODY" with this year range BMW, as stated in the above posts, you will be running into this issue sooner or later if you use the manual shifter. I took everything apart this weekend and the way the cables are pulling, its horrible. When creating the slack in the line, like the video shows, almost every cable broke, as there 95% already all broken. Pulling any amount of the cables to move them ... they all snapped easily.

What lead me to this post was that my downshift stopped working on the shifter. Everything else worked on my steering wheel and on the shifter. It really all comes down to which wire breaks first. Some of them light up the Park/Neutral/etc lights, and some control the gear shifts. My suggestion is to automatically consider this the issue if any of the lights or shifting stops working. Good luck as it takes patience to sit there and strip each wire, tin, solder, and shrink tube each one. I had so many broken wires (as they broke when trying to wiggler the cables out ... if you don't know what I mean, watch the video) break, that I think two of them were barely together so I cut them also, took 1/3rd inch total out of the cable, and soldered them.

Let me say this again ...if you use you manual shifter a lot, this is going to happen to you so its best to fix the issue before it inevitably happens. Every time you push the shifter left, to put it into manual, there is almost no slack. Thanks for this forum post and the great feedback and video. I am going to be using the manual shifter a lot less, before trading in my car, as I really think I did a good job with the fix but its so shotty that I cut some of the plastic out of where the bundle of cables was rubbing after my fix. I put shrink tube on every wire, and taped them into a bundle, adding less room (hence me cutting any plastic in its way).

Hope this helps as there are many people in the future going to be reading this post.

[silverseal99]

Same issue in my 2011 335d. Noticed that the "R" light remained lit even when the car was powered off. Next, none of the shift selector lights worked and I noticed that Sport mode would not engage. Dealer wanted $172 to troubleshoot--said a micro switch had failed in open position, wanted $1,500 to replace the shift mechanism. Not. I came across above video and discovered 3 of 8 wires severed on initial inspection, and found remaining 4 either severed or about to sever when I pulled the "loop" from its hidey hole and removed the electrical tape. Wires are 22 gauge (small). Used Striker brand #3 fishing crimps as butt connectors and stripped, crimped and heat-shrink tubed all 8 wires. I re-routed wiring harnesses to ensure no binding when selecting Sport mode and closed her up. Took 2 hours (first time) and would only take 1 hour now that I've done it. Easy-cheesy repair if you're handy. Should have been the subject of either a recall or at least a good faith repair by the dealer (I noted 95,000 hits on one video of the repair). I guess that's why they call them "Stealers."

[cbergcberg]

Great thread! I took mine apart and 3 wires were broken exactly where the various pics/videos show. For me, my woes started with the little rectangular LED that indicates "Drive" was burned out... not a big deal. Then, a year later (today) I could no longer downshift in DS which I do on a regular basis when approaching a stop light. For me, I already had shrink wrap and soldering gear, so total cost was zero and about an hour of work.

Thanks everyone for contributing this great info!

Chris
2011 328i

[techwhiz]

Had the same issue today.
Wouldn't go into sport mode unless I played with the shifter.
I took it apart and had five broken wires.
Took about an hour to fix, start to finish.

[tboudre]

I used these connectors to reconnect the wires. You don't have to strip the wires, just make sure the wires are all the way in before you crimp.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ideal-Ye...-950/203734864

One of the clips on the console broke off, I can glue it back. And the neutral light still doesn't work, but I can live with that, everything else seems to work.

[SyCoREAPER]

Necropost.

This needs to be stickied.
Ideally someone who's been a BMW nut should make a thread listing all things owners should do first thing after buying, such as this.

This thread really pointed me in the right direction of fixing but didn't know it was a problem until there was a problem.
For me it was also the purple wire, also the dark orange/brown wire.

I'm not so lucky though because the second wire pintched down near where the second piece of tape is. So I can't get a wire stripper let alone a crimp tool. Soldering iron barely fits and I'm having a hard time with so little wire to work with to get them to bond. Fingers crossed the Melt-crimp connector works.

Such a stupid, pointless routing on BMWs part. As I've said before, love driving it, hate owning/repairing it. Between dumb stuff like this, over-engineering and $120 plastic clips it's a frustrating tradeoff. But thanks to posts like the OP and others here sharing detailed info like this makes things a bit more bearable.

Thanks all for sharing this.

[SyCoREAPER]

Frustration galore. As mentioned one of the two broken ones was so far down I couldn't get any tools down to it. Discovered as I was checking my work that all but two wires were damaged.

Since I couldn't get solder to bond nicely to those tiny wires, the ones that weren't cut, I popped the pins out and shrinktubed them followed by electrical tape, followed by another shrink tube. To make it rigid and the second one to the electrical tape so it won't turn into tar covered mess if I ever need to go in there again.

As mentioned I was having solder issues and didn't want to have to deal with more broken ones. Pretty ghetto but it works. I highly suggest, despite being a capable soldered (except today apparently, anyone doing this either crimp if there is enough wire or;

In the case of the really short one I used a Wago 221 connector and then electrical taped the tabs down so they dont lift accidentally. That's the expensive route but if you don't know how to or can't crimp, Wago's are as dead simple as it gets.

Put it back together, (shame on me) and naturally the purple one (downshift and the original issue still wasn't fixed). Panicked a bit that the shifter might be bad, took a break, sort of


Went to my parents house to fix my mom's BMW's harness. Naturally despite being pre-owned her wires were immaculate and hers took 10 minutes.

Renewed motivation, back to basics figured I test moving from the plug back with a multimeter. Nada. Relief actually, meant the solder job was bad. In no mood for more of that, another Wago, didn't put it together and tested. Tada, it worked.


TLDR: Don't solder, crimp or use Wago connectors. Oh and do this process even if you don't have issues. Only a matter of time.

Thats all from me on this, thanks again all.