Electrical Problem or Independent Switch Problems-04 Z4 3.0

H

haza19

Member
Hello all,

Been a while since I've posted on here, but I've run into a number of problems recently and I am trying to figure out the best way to pursue a possible solution(s). Here is a quick summary of the issues I have been experiencing recently.

1) Hazard switch in center council does not turn on hazard lights. The light is still lit up, but it doesn't do anything when I press down.
2) My passenger side mirror switch, operated on the driver's side, only works in one direction (I believe up and down, but not left and right) electrically, and only moves from side to side. Also, now when I try to control the passenger side window from the driver's side, no matter if i press up or down, the passenger side windows goes down. The only way to rise it is from the passenger side switch.
3) The radio, when switching stations quickly, freezes up. So, does the navigation. Also, sometimes jumps out of aux mode to the radio and then you can't get into auxiliary mode.
4) Finally, the straw that broke the camels back, the dreaded convertible top won't go down. No matter how long I hold the button, nothing happens. Out of the blue it failed and I never take the top down. The BMW mechanic i took it too, said it was in great shape last time i took it in.

All of these seem to be electrical problems and I was wondering if there is any way to get the electrical system "reset", to see if I continue to have these problems or if it is something else that is causing these problems. When I took the car in to my trusted bmw mechanic, he told me the hazard switch and mirror switch both need to be replaced. Given that I am having all of these electrical problems, I am starting to doubt if he tested to see if the switches were the true problem or not. I bought a top of the line battery and had it installed by Sears a little over a year ago and wonder if the battery is causing the issue? I've also read it could be that my alternator is going bad, but I'm surprised he wouldn't have found that and suggested it. I do not have any idiot lights that have popped up to date.

Any advice would be appreciated and I sincerely thank you for taking the time to answer my post.

Best Regards,

Haza
 
...been a while since I posted on here..... IT'S YOUR FIRST POST! :lol:

Bad battery causes a number of issues as you describe. Worth checking the voltage across the battery when running to see if the alternator is working. Suggest check this first before moving on to other diagnostics - the raft of electrical issues suggest a purely electrical problem BUT the roof motor might be a different matter looking at the age of your Zed.
 
First, thank you very much for the reply.

Second, hahahaha.... I copied and pasted this post, cause it didn't get a lot of transaction on another bmw forum. I forgot I started the post that way.... my mistake. I suppose my credibility is shot after my 1st post haha.

I will definitely start there. I bought the most expensive battery I could about 2 years ago and live in Florida, in a warm climate. But, are you saying that my battery could be perfectly fine, but if the alternator is not working properly, it is not charging my battery properly and it could be causing the misc. electrical problems?

I will report back with what I find. I would also appreciate any tips in regards to small things I can do/check before taking it in, so I don't get taken advantage of. My Z4, still is under 75,000 miles and I got the entire transmission replaced at around 50,000, as it was covered in the secondary insurance I purchased. My biggest fear is the charge me for new switches or a new motor for the convertible top, when it is a much simpler electrical problem.

Thanks!
 
Worth checking the simple things first to eliminate the less costly issues. If the battery is not charging then it will inevitable loose current as you drive and the electrical system draws on the battery so worth a check that the alternator is working. Warm climates can be as bad as cold climates for batteries. I Spent a few years in the UAE and the best I could get out of a better with fairly regular vehicle use was 2 years. Roof motor is a different issues as motor failures are common in older vehicles due to water ingress with blocked drain holes. Try the battery first. :)
 
AlanJ said:
Worth checking the simple things first to eliminate the less costly issues. If the battery is not charging then it will inevitable loose current as you drive and the electrical system draws on the battery so worth a check that the alternator is working. Warm climates can be as bad as cold climates for batteries. I Spent a few years in the UAE and the best I could get out of a better with fairly regular vehicle use was 2 years. Roof motor is a different issues as motor failures are common in older vehicles due to water ingress with blocked drain holes. Try the battery first. :)
Click to expand...
UPDATE: Overall all pretty good news. My electrical engineer father came into town for thanksgiving and we've been working on it.

Power Covetable Soft Top: I am thanking my lucky stars on this one. Basically, when I took it in to get fixed / for normal maintenance, a while back, they turned two knobs in my trunk, which locked down my convertible top. Turning these two knobs fixed the issue. No motor problem, microswitch or drain hole issues, like I've been reading About. However, I'm now thinking that it might now be a good time to unblock the drain holes, I've read about, if it isn't too much trouble. I found a post on how to do it, but I think the pictures were no longer available. Do anyone have another link?

Battery: We used a multimeter on the battery. It was registering a 12.1 with the car not on and then when we turned on the car I believe it started at about a 13.1 and increased to 13.8. I believe this is in the normal range and that the alternator is properly charging the car. Do you agree? We also disconnected the battery for 15 minutes, to see if it reset any of the other issues we were having. That did not seem to help anything. Have you heard of any way a dealer could to a hard reset of the computers and/or electrical systems? Tomorrow we are going to test the selective fuses having electrical issues (central locking system, hazard lights, power side mirrors and window issues and radio). I had an american car that was experiencing issues like the mirrors not working correctly and a trip to the dealer and a reset did the trick. In my case, I think I may have two switches (window and hazard switches that went bad at the same time). I have no idea how often the radio and navigation systems fail.

Remaining issues:
(1) Hazard light / central locking system not working. Bad switch / fuse or bigger electrical problem.
(2) Window and side view mirrors driver side switch. Bad switch / fuse or bigger electrical problems.
(3) Radio - Fuse or the radio has gone bad for some reason.

Any thoughts, links or items you would recommend checking next would be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,

Haza
 
Good news on the roof! :)

Battery sounds OK and charging well from the alternator so no apparent problem there. :thumbsup:

Drain holes - recent post on here showed some good pictures to clear these - search should find it :|

Electrical problems - certainly not an expert on this but others have had their Zed go into 'transport mode' when the battery has been disconnected for some time.
Apparently this is the way all BMWEs are transported from the factory and then at the dealers the systems are activated. Dealer visit to get this 'reactivated' I think.
 
fixit man said:
haza19 said:
Alan, can you confirm or dispute fixit man's post?
Click to expand...

A simple Google search or ask your dad should confirm it, who's going to confirm or dispute Alans post ? :D
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip?! :thumbsdown:

I reported an update and was led to believe that my alternator and battery are fine and then you disagreed, which made me question the previous post, given I am not a car mechanic or electrical engineer. I needed to know who's correct, so I could further investigate or eliminate those parts as the potential issue. I don't that that was an unreasonable post... oh well.

Final Update:

For the benefit of anyone following this thread or who searched this thread... here are the solutions we found.

Hazard Light / Central Braking System: We were able to remove the switch with 2 paper clips, as shown in another thread I found. We found that the switch suffered from the common known problem of some of the perimeter plastic pieces coming off, which results in a space where the electrical contact is not touching, hence why the switch didn't work. A little bit of hidden duct tape and electrical tape and she's as good as new.

Power Window / Power side view mirrors switch. We were able to easily pry this out with a screw driver type tool and once we took it completely apart we found a brown sticky substance on the circuit board. I'm guessing that given the location of the driver's side cup holder, either my girlfriend or I had either a can of coke or a cup of coffee that splashed onto the switch and good onto the circuit board, causing the random issues. As a result, we went to Radio Shack and bought some electronics cleaner, in case we got lucky and the circuit board was not permanently damaged. Well..... we lucked out and I am able to save $150 dollars for the part + labor, since we were able to fix this ourselves.

Radio / Navigation System: I'm not sure this is fixed, but I'm hoping so. I think the issue is that I bought updated navigation maps and firmware updates that I paid a lot for and that I thought were factory, but they may have been high quality duplicates, which was making the laser have to work extra hard and which would cause read errors on the navigation. As a result, I have updated the firmware, to a new firmware and put in the previous factory maps disk that I have. Hopefully, this will fix, or at least improve my freezing problem.

Thank you everyone for all your help and suggestions,

Best Regards,

Haza
 
This is a brilliant site and I never tire of reading the posts. Mind, it ends up costing a small fortune when folk recommend a part/accessory and I haven't yet learnt to resist. Whatever it gives great fun.
 
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