[blacksail337]

yea i couldn't believe it takes that long! as far as i know they have to be a certified bmw service place or something cause the programmer actually gets online and is downloading your updates from bmw north america

thanks for the info on the speed sensors i'll def have to try that and see if mine are the problem

[orangedawg]

Okay, I've got an update on my issue. Please see above posts for my problem, but basically the car was telling me the VTG (transfer case) was not coded. I got ahold of the SSS progman (see http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...play.php?f=233 for more info on this). What this will allow you to do, if you are bold, is to code/program your car with updates just as the dealer would do.

So, I decided to take the risk to do it myself. And it worked!! My car has been re-coded and coding was added to the VTG. Now, all functions work (4x4, DSC, ABS) and no errors!! The procedure was really simple. After installing SSS on your computer, hook up a power supply to your car, hook up OBD cable, start SSS. SSS will read you car, tell you what your options installed on your car are and what the current software on your car is. It them shows you what it plans to do (called a measures plan) and then you execute it. It took over 2 hours to update my car, but now it works just fine!! So happy!!

Now, why didn't I just go to a dealer to do this? My car is out of warranty and I heard it could take up to 12 hours to update car so not sure how much it would be. I didn't want to spend that money, plus I live in a rural area where there is no dealer within 150 miles. So, I took the chance and it worked.

Just thought I'd post this in case someone else has a similar issue and it could be as simple as getting it coded by yourself or dealer.

[blacksail337]

WOW thats amazing man!

can't thank ya enough for posting this, def gonna try it

i still havn't gotten around to testing my speed sensor yet to see if it's failed but i'm your exact same boat symptom wise and i'm over an hour from a dealership too, AND out of warranty

certified indy shop told me 6 hours and $450 for the update

hope this works! thanks again

[orangedawg]

If you decide to go the coding route, make sure you follow all the steps in the link I provided. It does take some effort to get it all set up, but once you do, then you have the full coding options. You can also retrofit options (like Sirius, etc.) just as the dealer would do. And when you do code, make sure you get a stable power supply, not just a battery charger. There is a thread on the forum I posted about that as well. But once you have the pieces together, you can code and program to your hearts desire!

[JaysBlueE92]

Originally Posted by orangedawg

If you decide to go the coding route, make sure you follow all the steps in the link I provided. It does take some effort to get it all set up, but once you do, then you have the full coding options. You can also retrofit options (like Sirius, etc.) just as the dealer would do. And when you do code, make sure you get a stable power supply, not just a battery charger. There is a thread on the forum I posted about that as well. But once you have the pieces together, you can code and program to your hearts desire!

The link just goes to the "Software" section of the board..can you re-post the right link?? May come in useful down the road

[orangedawg]

This is the general thread about SSS and installation. Make sure you have VMWare installed on your computer (you can search that forum to find it, or there are other methods out there to get it):

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum....php?t=1401774

The complete "package" except VMWare (see post #316):
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...401774&page=13

If you have any questions, I can try to answer them, but I'm still a bit of a noob. Dracon on that forum is who put this together and is an absolute wealth of info and really friendly and helpful too. Without him, I'm not sure I would have figured this out.

[blacksail337]

WOW just read through the post. . . .

i'm pretty comp savvy but not sure i can pull that off looks intimidating

and my old laptops only a single core 1.7 with 2 gigs of ram and a 30 gig hd, dont even know if it can handle all that software

i'm never buying another bmw ever

love working on my own cars but seems like you either need masters degrees in computer sciences AND electrical engineering to fix the simplest problem on these freaking things OR make 6 figures a year so you can afford the dealers or indy shops insane labor rates /enrant

[orangedawg]

I know what you mean, but really, it's not that hard. I'm not sure how big your hard drive needs to be (mine's 250gb), I know that setting it to 80 gb is daunting, but I'm not sure it actually takes that amount of space. But once you have VMware on your computer, you just download those programs on the link I sent you and you are pretty much good ot go. You do have to buy the cable, but all the other software is free, just set aside a weekend to install it. And the benefit is once it's done, you can code in all sorts of stuff on yyour car. See the coding section on this forum. I coded in sirius, about to code in oem xenons, and have coded other fun features.

[kuruca]

what happens if you remove the shaft it goes to front wheels?
It will be a rear wheel drive right?
Will that cause any problems?

[orangedawg]

Hmm, I don't know what happens if you remove the front shaft, but I guess it would be 2wd. However, if you xi is working right now, it might throw an error as it will be trying to divert power to front wheels but not be able to do so. I don't know what will happen then.

[blacksail337]

i was looking back over my bav tech logs and realized none of my errors actually say anything about uncoded or faulty coding, so i imagine thats not my problem.

i think i'm going to try testing or replacing the speed sensors since they're pretty cheap, tischer has em listed for $80 for the front one and like $95 for the rear

i just can't find them on realoem to see where they actually are on the car, gonna poke through the bentley today and see if it shows em

[blacksail337]

only thing bentley shows is wheel speed sensors, which i'm assuming is what i'm looking at on tischer

and a single speed sensor thats under the drivers seat, that i'm assuming is another one tischer shows for $445

it all just gets more and more confusing

[orangedawg]

I did not have any "not coded" errors using BavTEch. BT just said (off the top of my head, so might not be exact) 5d39: transfer case, clutch position unknown. It was only using DIS that I found out that my transfer case was not coded. Coded/programmed it using SSS and error was gone. So, in short BT did NOT say coding needed, although that was what was needed.

Speed sensors (at least on my 328xi, 02/07 build) are located in the axle. They read the "splines" in the axle near brake rotor. It's held on my a hex screw I think.

[NM_BMW]

Blacksail, what did you end up doing??

I'm running into this problem now, unfortunately my warranty went out 3 months ago. Funny how this shit happens like that. It happened when I was at very low speeds 5-10mph and was actually coming to a stop.

I've checked fuses, reset using BT, and after a little driving 5F3A pops using my BT. No grinding noises, I feel more of a skip/hesitation and then the code pops/dash lights up (AWD,DSC,ABS) and the hesitation/skip goes away.

I'm hoping it is just the motor which looks like an easy replacement from this DIY. http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=633200

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I'm wondering if we'll see more XI's with this issue. I hate to take it in for diag and them tell me what I already know.

[blacksail337]

short version? i traded in the miserable high maint heap of shit money pit and swore off poorly made over priced german cars, bmw's in particular for life unfortunately! haha

not that im bitter or anything...sorry my personal experience happened to be an absolute nightmare, and an EXTREMELY expensive mistake, i'll stop venting now

ended up being both the motor AND the footwell module that were shot on mine, indy shop suspected the motor went first, caused a short and since bmw didn't bother to put any kind of a fuse in between them, the short eventually fried the module too, which is also like 600 to 800 if i remember right.

it was throwing several codes and the footwell module wouldn't respond at all when i tried to communicate with it directly

so if you hurry up and replace the motor you should be good to go, wish that DIY had come up a long time ago! haha, no prob bringing the thread back, hopefully it saves many xi owners the hell i went through, good luck man!

[NM_BMW]

Originally Posted by blacksail337

short version? i traded in the miserable high maint heap of shit money pit and swore off poorly made over priced german cars, bmw's in particular for life unfortunately! haha

not that im bitter or anything...sorry my personal experience happened to be an absolute nightmare, and an EXTREMELY expensive mistake, i'll stop venting now

ended up being both the motor AND the footwell module that were shot on mine, indy shop suspected the motor went first, caused a short and since bmw didn't bother to put any kind of a fuse in between them, the short eventually fried the module too, which is also like 600 to 800 if i remember right.

it was throwing several codes and the footwell module wouldn't respond at all when i tried to communicate with it directly

so if you hurry up and replace the motor you should be good to go, wish that DIY had come up a long time ago! haha, no prob bringing the thread back, hopefully it saves many xi owners the hell i went through, good luck man!

So would you suspect running 6months with the problem caused the short? I'm on the fence to trade the car in as well for something different. I hate to do it, but I'm worried this is the start for a list of problems. Although, this is the first issue I've had with the car and to boot I only have 45,000mi on a 5 year old car.

[blacksail337]

yea me driving with it for so long was ultimately what fried the module as far as i know and so was my fault in the end, but no ammount of scanning or troubleshooting coukd give me a definate answer as to what exactly was wrong, and every "first step" i had avail was pretty damn expensive so i was just leary and trying to confirm it or fix it myself.

in the end i got into a car i could afford, but couldnt afford to own. i assumed with the premium prices they charged that it would be pretty dependable for the most part but coming from a past of japanese cars, and a few vw/audis i ended up with a long long list of problems in the 2 years i owned mine, bought it used with 26k on the clock and had around 80 on it in the end.

if $600 can fix this and thats the only problem you've had im hesitant to tell ya jump ship now, i think my car was a particularly bad example but if it starts going downhill after this? run away....haha

[BES335xi]

Originally Posted by blacksail337

yea me driving with it for so long was ultimately what fried the module as far as i know and so was my fault in the end, but no ammount of scanning or troubleshooting coukd give me a definate answer as to what exactly was wrong, and every "first step" i had avail was pretty damn expensive so i was just leary and trying to confirm it or fix it myself.

in the end i got into a car i could afford, but couldnt afford to own. i assumed with the premium prices they charged that it would be pretty dependable for the most part but coming from a past of japanese cars, and a few vw/audis i ended up with a long long list of problems in the 2 years i owned mine, bought it used with 26k on the clock and had around 80 on it in the end.

if $600 can fix this and thats the only problem you've had im hesitant to tell ya jump ship now, i think my car was a particularly bad example but if it starts going downhill after this? run away....haha

I'm in the same boat as you right now lol' and similar problem, it's just been headache after headache, and mind you i dont drive my car hard much, never been to a track barely ever have i even raced on the street/highway, i'm going to replace my servo motor and start looking for a 335i rwd MT, and also a very cheap beater car! for work and winters!

[NM_BMW]

Originally Posted by BES335xi

I'm in the same boat as you right now lol' and similar problem, it's just been headache after headache, and mind you i dont drive my car hard much, never been to a track barely ever have i even raced on the street/highway, i'm going to replace my servo motor and start looking for a 335i rwd MT, and also a very cheap beater car! for work and winters!

I changed mine a couple of weeks ago. Simple task, took me about 2hrs from start to finish. If you have an after market exhaust you will need to remove one of the center sections to remove the transfer case support. It was actually a lot easier than what the DIY guy makes it seem. The support bolt slid right out compared to his experience of hitting it with a hammer....

[BES335xi]

Originally Posted by Humtek

I changed mine a couple of weeks ago. Simple task, took me about 2hrs from start to finish. If you have an after market exhaust you will need to remove one of the center sections to remove the transfer case support. It was actually a lot easier than what the DIY guy makes it seem. The support bolt slid right out compared to his experience of hitting it with a hammer....

Thank's for the info, Did you have to Code your car after you changed the Servo Motor or did it adapt by itself, i read somewhere that you have to finish up the install with a gt1 or something similar...

And...Did you use a lift or just on normal jack's?

[NM_BMW]

Originally Posted by BES335xi

Thank's for the info, Did you have to Code your car after you changed the Servo Motor or did it adapt by itself, i read somewhere that you have to finish up the install with a gt1 or something similar...

And...Did you use a lift or just on normal jack's?

Just normal jack stands. No coding, I cleared the codes with my BT tool, and reset all the adaptions on the DSC module. I think the steering sensor something or other is under the DSC module, I reset that one too, because this little bastard motor fucks with your adaptive headlights. If you notice at night, at least with my XI, when I had my lights on adaptive, they would go all the way to the right and sometimes center and then go back to the right and stay there. Before I replaced the servo, I just manually turned them on, which doesn't utilize the adaptive feature. This was fixed after I replaced the motor.

BTW, I got the motor and transfer case fluid from Tischer. It totaled in around at $530. The motor comes complete with new bolts and the o-ring.

[BES335xi]

Originally Posted by Humtek

Just normal jack stands. No coding, I cleared the codes with my BT tool, and reset all the adaptions on the DSC module. I think the steering sensor something or other is under the DSC module, I reset that one too, because this little bastard motor fucks with your adaptive headlights. If you notice at night, at least with my XI, when I had my lights on adaptive, they would go all the way to the right and sometimes center and then go back to the right and stay there. Before I replaced the servo, I just manually turned them on, which doesn't utilize the adaptive feature. This was fixed after I replaced the motor.

BTW, I got the motor and transfer case fluid from Tischer. It totaled in around at $530. The motor comes complete with new bolts and the o-ring.

Yeah i ordered the parts/servo motor from Tischer as well and also ordered "Set classification resistor Part# 27 10 7 557 345" I watched a youtube video about the Servo Motor posted on my thread on the XI section and it said whenever you replace you're servo motor be sure to replace the resistor as well.

My adaptive headlights are messed up too, but i think i messed 'em up my self when i installed my LED AE's, i broke the clips on the cover and i was getting condensation inside my headlights whenever it rained, i just ordered a new cover and will try and reset 'em all as you did via BT Tool and well see if that clears them away.

Thank you for the info bro! much appreciated.