Help! Abs/dsc sensor problem!
- Thread starter Nazy06
- Start date
The DSC and ABS share a common hydraulic/hydro unit, yes. I posted in your other thread (and asked the mods to merge them 
), but it's worth trying to get a goodwill contribution out of BMW via the dealer as it's a low mileage car (not sure about the service history on yours), though as Chris said above, list price for the job is £2200 so maybe your quote of £1300 includes some of that.
My speedo was fine with a dead ABS/DSC unit - possibly too much of a coincidence that it happened at the same time in your case though.
), but it's worth trying to get a goodwill contribution out of BMW via the dealer as it's a low mileage car (not sure about the service history on yours), though as Chris said above, list price for the job is £2200 so maybe your quote of £1300 includes some of that.My speedo was fine with a dead ABS/DSC unit - possibly too much of a coincidence that it happened at the same time in your case though.
Ah thanks for asked for the threads to be merged and confirming the ABS/DSC. I will try and find out about a goodwill from BMW and see what they say as you're right it's low mileage and shouldn't be happening but from the posts I've read it seems to be a problem with low mileage cars but that may just be a coincidence.
If I can't get the goodwill from BMW do u know if it's possible to take the control unit out and send it to be rebuilt? As I've heard this can be done but not sure if it's the pump they rebuild or the CU itself.
and confirming the ABS/DSC. I will try and find out about a goodwill from BMW and see what they say as you're right it's low mileage and shouldn't be happening but from the posts I've read it seems to be a problem with low mileage cars but that may just be a coincidence.If I can't get the goodwill from BMW do u know if it's possible to take the control unit out and send it to be rebuilt? As I've heard this can be done but not sure if it's the pump they rebuild or the CU itself.
Hi,
I’m new to this forum. I’ve got an ‘05 E85 3.0 litre roadster, which I bought in march/april. Love the car. I’ve only ever run crap sensible repmobile family type stuff, getting my speed kicks from my bike, but this car is a lot of fun on four wheels for sure.
Anyhow, i’ve very recently suffered from the dreaded DSC lights, and did a lot of searching for information on the interweb. There’s a lot out there but some of it is confusing and contradictory, so I thought I’d share what I found out on here. BTW, I’m not saying that the following is correct, so please feel free to disagree.
Fortunately for me, my problem turned out to be a failed pressure sensor on the brake master cylinder. I took my car to a local performance car specialist for diagnosis and repair (replacement of sensor), and the total cost was about £230 all-in.
From my internet trawl, my understanding is that certain DSC units can be repaired and certain units cannot. I believe the one fitted to my car is a Continental Teves Mk. 60 DSC unit which almost everything I found says cannot be repaired. During the last couple of weeks I have been in touch with a company called sinspeed (e-mail: [email protected]). They also have a website. They reckon that they could supply a replacement hydraulic unit for my car for £240 + VAT with lifetime warranty. I quizzed them on this, bearing in ming everything I’ve read, but they assured me it was good for my particular model of Z4. The words they used in their last e-mail were “We are supplying the hydraulic valve block with a modified pressure sensor, it is uprated to withstand better pressure and will not over pressurise which is the design fault in your original unit. I can confirm it is the correct part for your vehicle”.
The preceding e-mail response to my initial enquiry said:
“This is a very common fault and we now carry these units in stock, on the shelf & ready for dispatch. These units now come with our full Lifetime warranty and are self-calibrating, making them fully plug & play. - This means no programming will be required. Literally just remove your unit from the vehicle, fit our modified unit which is a direct fit part and bleed the brakes, upon a test drive the lights will automatically go out as the unit self-calibrates back to the vehicle. You will still have full functionality of the ABS / ESP system as before”.
Obviously I have not tested these claims and cannot verify if they are true (maybe someone on here knows more about sinspeed?), but I guess it’s worth getting in touch with this outfit and seeing if they can supply what they say. It’s gotta be better than being screwed by BMW for a new DSC unit (if it all works as advertised of course).
Cheers,
Garry.
I’m new to this forum. I’ve got an ‘05 E85 3.0 litre roadster, which I bought in march/april. Love the car. I’ve only ever run crap sensible repmobile family type stuff, getting my speed kicks from my bike, but this car is a lot of fun on four wheels for sure.
Anyhow, i’ve very recently suffered from the dreaded DSC lights, and did a lot of searching for information on the interweb. There’s a lot out there but some of it is confusing and contradictory, so I thought I’d share what I found out on here. BTW, I’m not saying that the following is correct, so please feel free to disagree.
Fortunately for me, my problem turned out to be a failed pressure sensor on the brake master cylinder. I took my car to a local performance car specialist for diagnosis and repair (replacement of sensor), and the total cost was about £230 all-in.
From my internet trawl, my understanding is that certain DSC units can be repaired and certain units cannot. I believe the one fitted to my car is a Continental Teves Mk. 60 DSC unit which almost everything I found says cannot be repaired. During the last couple of weeks I have been in touch with a company called sinspeed (e-mail: [email protected]). They also have a website. They reckon that they could supply a replacement hydraulic unit for my car for £240 + VAT with lifetime warranty. I quizzed them on this, bearing in ming everything I’ve read, but they assured me it was good for my particular model of Z4. The words they used in their last e-mail were “We are supplying the hydraulic valve block with a modified pressure sensor, it is uprated to withstand better pressure and will not over pressurise which is the design fault in your original unit. I can confirm it is the correct part for your vehicle”.
The preceding e-mail response to my initial enquiry said:
“This is a very common fault and we now carry these units in stock, on the shelf & ready for dispatch. These units now come with our full Lifetime warranty and are self-calibrating, making them fully plug & play. - This means no programming will be required. Literally just remove your unit from the vehicle, fit our modified unit which is a direct fit part and bleed the brakes, upon a test drive the lights will automatically go out as the unit self-calibrates back to the vehicle. You will still have full functionality of the ABS / ESP system as before”.
Obviously I have not tested these claims and cannot verify if they are true (maybe someone on here knows more about sinspeed?), but I guess it’s worth getting in touch with this outfit and seeing if they can supply what they say. It’s gotta be better than being screwed by BMW for a new DSC unit (if it all works as advertised of course).
Cheers,
Garry.
Hi,
I also posted this on the problems forum in response to the DSC query on there:
I’m new to this forum. I’ve got an ‘05 E85 3.0 litre roadster, which I bought in march/april. Love the car. I’ve only ever run crap sensible repmobile family type stuff, getting my speed kicks from my bike, but this car is a lot of fun on four wheels for sure.
Anyhow, i’ve very recently suffered from the dreaded DSC lights, and did a lot of searching for information on the interweb. There’s a lot out there but some of it is confusing and contradictory, so I thought I’d share what I found out on here. BTW, I’m not saying that the following is correct, so please feel free to disagree.
Fortunately for me, my problem turned out to be a failed pressure sensor on the brake master cylinder. I took my car to a local performance car specialist for diagnosis and repair (replacement of sensor), and the total cost was about £230 all-in.
From my internet trawl, my understanding is that certain DSC units can be repaired and certain units cannot. I believe the one fitted to my car is a Continental Teves Mk. 60 DSC unit which almost everything I found says cannot be repaired. During the last couple of weeks I have been in touch with a company called sinspeed (e-mail: [email protected]). They also have a website. They reckon that they could supply a replacement hydraulic unit for my car for £240 + VAT with lifetime warranty. I quizzed them on this, bearing in mind everything I’ve read, but they assured me it was good for my particular model of Z4. The words they used in their last e-mail were:
“We are supplying the hydraulic valve block with a modified pressure sensor, it is uprated to withstand better pressure and will not over pressurise which is the design fault in your original unit. I can confirm it is the correct part for your vehicle”.
The preceding e-mail response to my initial enquiry said:
“This is a very common fault and we now carry these units in stock, on the shelf & ready for dispatch. These units now come with our full Lifetime warranty and are self-calibrating, making them fully plug & play. - This means no programming will be required. Literally just remove your unit from the vehicle, fit our modified unit which is a direct fit part and bleed the brakes, upon a test drive the lights will automatically go out as the unit self-calibrates back to the vehicle. You will still have full functionality of the ABS / ESP system as before”.
Obviously I have not tested these claims and cannot verify if they are true (maybe someone on here knows more about sinspeed?), but I guess it’s worth getting in touch with this outfit and seeing if they can supply what they say. It’s gotta be better than being screwed by BMW for a new DSC unit (if it all works as advertised of course).
Cheers,
Garry.
I also posted this on the problems forum in response to the DSC query on there:
I’m new to this forum. I’ve got an ‘05 E85 3.0 litre roadster, which I bought in march/april. Love the car. I’ve only ever run crap sensible repmobile family type stuff, getting my speed kicks from my bike, but this car is a lot of fun on four wheels for sure.
Anyhow, i’ve very recently suffered from the dreaded DSC lights, and did a lot of searching for information on the interweb. There’s a lot out there but some of it is confusing and contradictory, so I thought I’d share what I found out on here. BTW, I’m not saying that the following is correct, so please feel free to disagree.
Fortunately for me, my problem turned out to be a failed pressure sensor on the brake master cylinder. I took my car to a local performance car specialist for diagnosis and repair (replacement of sensor), and the total cost was about £230 all-in.
From my internet trawl, my understanding is that certain DSC units can be repaired and certain units cannot. I believe the one fitted to my car is a Continental Teves Mk. 60 DSC unit which almost everything I found says cannot be repaired. During the last couple of weeks I have been in touch with a company called sinspeed (e-mail: [email protected]). They also have a website. They reckon that they could supply a replacement hydraulic unit for my car for £240 + VAT with lifetime warranty. I quizzed them on this, bearing in mind everything I’ve read, but they assured me it was good for my particular model of Z4. The words they used in their last e-mail were:
“We are supplying the hydraulic valve block with a modified pressure sensor, it is uprated to withstand better pressure and will not over pressurise which is the design fault in your original unit. I can confirm it is the correct part for your vehicle”.
The preceding e-mail response to my initial enquiry said:
“This is a very common fault and we now carry these units in stock, on the shelf & ready for dispatch. These units now come with our full Lifetime warranty and are self-calibrating, making them fully plug & play. - This means no programming will be required. Literally just remove your unit from the vehicle, fit our modified unit which is a direct fit part and bleed the brakes, upon a test drive the lights will automatically go out as the unit self-calibrates back to the vehicle. You will still have full functionality of the ABS / ESP system as before”.
Obviously I have not tested these claims and cannot verify if they are true (maybe someone on here knows more about sinspeed?), but I guess it’s worth getting in touch with this outfit and seeing if they can supply what they say. It’s gotta be better than being screwed by BMW for a new DSC unit (if it all works as advertised of course).
Cheers,
Garry.
Nice details there Garry!
I was going to say that BMW will often over-egg problems simply because that is what will make them a lot of money. I'm certain on their flow charts there will be other solutions/checks before 'replace most expensive part on the car'
Maybe I'm being harsh on BMW, but it's with these problems that you are better going to someone independent and specialist. The last thing you want is to be replacing the DSC unit for £££ to find out that it was the £25 sensor on the invoice that actually was at fault and fixed the problem hehe
Good luck with it!
Dave
I was going to say that BMW will often over-egg problems simply because that is what will make them a lot of money. I'm certain on their flow charts there will be other solutions/checks before 'replace most expensive part on the car'
Maybe I'm being harsh on BMW, but it's with these problems that you are better going to someone independent and specialist. The last thing you want is to be replacing the DSC unit for £££ to find out that it was the £25 sensor on the invoice that actually was at fault and fixed the problem hehe
Good luck with it!
Dave
Cheers Mr Whippy,
I struggled to find coheret information and specific details on the web, even though there's a lot of posts on this subject. I used a local independent because I had a feeling that the standard response from BMW would be to take my pants down and just say that the whole DSC unit needed replacing.
After the diadnosis, the independent guys told me that the fault codes showed pressure sensor failure both in the master cylinder sensors and also the DSC unit. Their approach was to replace the cheapest component first (one of the master cylinder pressure sensors as it turned out) and then to try and clear the codes relating to the DSC unit. Fortunately this worked for my car, 'touch wood'.
Garry.
I struggled to find coheret information and specific details on the web, even though there's a lot of posts on this subject. I used a local independent because I had a feeling that the standard response from BMW would be to take my pants down and just say that the whole DSC unit needed replacing.
After the diadnosis, the independent guys told me that the fault codes showed pressure sensor failure both in the master cylinder sensors and also the DSC unit. Their approach was to replace the cheapest component first (one of the master cylinder pressure sensors as it turned out) and then to try and clear the codes relating to the DSC unit. Fortunately this worked for my car, 'touch wood'.
Garry.
The thing that rings alarm bells for me is the battery and speedo really.
If the DSC unit fails in it's entirety why would the speedo not work?
I'd be investigating that avenue for a while longer I think... DSC entirely depends in function on the wheel speed sensors for ABS and DSC operation. The speedo probably uses a gearbox output shaft speed sensor, well it does on other cars... but on the Z4 it may well use a combination of wheel speed sensors?!
Hmmm
Dave
If the DSC unit fails in it's entirety why would the speedo not work?
I'd be investigating that avenue for a while longer I think... DSC entirely depends in function on the wheel speed sensors for ABS and DSC operation. The speedo probably uses a gearbox output shaft speed sensor, well it does on other cars... but on the Z4 it may well use a combination of wheel speed sensors?!
Hmmm
Dave
Thanks guys! Sorry long day at work and not had a chance to reply! I do see what you mean about BMW 'over-egging' the problem, as they were so darn right rude n dismissive n very vague about the fault until I demanded to know exactly what was wrong n insisted I had it in writing along with the fault codes, which they didn't like, I reckon they though oooohhh 'woman' what does she know haha, well enough to complain n get my diagnostic check for free, so that was a result and they fixed my heater too which only needed a reset. Anyway I digress.
I now think I will take it to an independent as a few people have sed that it could be the break pressure sensor within the control unit and considering I've got one one diagnostic for free I'm happy to pay for the next one
But yes the battery and the speedo is a problem as my car now cannot sit over night without me finding it's died again the next morning, so I'm hardly using it now and rediscovered public transport.
Ok as everyone on here has been so helpful I've got enough knowledge to take some next steps. I've lost faith I. BMW as they didn't even pick up the speedo problem!
Ill post a picture of the fault codes tomorrow once I work out how.
Nazy
I now think I will take it to an independent as a few people have sed that it could be the break pressure sensor within the control unit and considering I've got one one diagnostic for free I'm happy to pay for the next one
But yes the battery and the speedo is a problem as my car now cannot sit over night without me finding it's died again the next morning, so I'm hardly using it now and rediscovered public transport.
Ok as everyone on here has been so helpful I've got enough knowledge to take some next steps. I've lost faith I. BMW as they didn't even pick up the speedo problem!
Ill post a picture of the fault codes tomorrow once I work out how.
Nazy
That sounds like the DSC module has dropped out of the can line rather than a module fault..
The reason all the codes are triggered is because the module isnt being seen by the can network and the other modules that "talk" to it cant see it either.
The description of the test procedure is the next step....And i would suspect a drop out of the earth connection or a wiring issue(live feed).The only other option is a catastrophic failure of the DSC module....Its not unheard of,but rare..
Fingers crossed...
The reason all the codes are triggered is because the module isnt being seen by the can network and the other modules that "talk" to it cant see it either.
The description of the test procedure is the next step....And i would suspect a drop out of the earth connection or a wiring issue(live feed).The only other option is a catastrophic failure of the DSC module....Its not unheard of,but rare..
Fingers crossed...
I think WDS will show earth points....
But what is really needed is to follow the loom from DSC unit and find the appropriate earth for that loom..Check its earth point,but the earth wire to the DSC will also have to be load tested..
If the wire has corrosion then it isnt necessarily at the end of the wires..It could cave a lump of corrosion mid loom thats hard to detect unless the wire is load soaked..
Its not as hard as it sounds,but has to be done for a definate diagnosis..
PS.....We usually have to do all this kinda testing AFTER the dealers have fitted the DSC unit (or any other) and the problem is still there!
But what is really needed is to follow the loom from DSC unit and find the appropriate earth for that loom..Check its earth point,but the earth wire to the DSC will also have to be load tested..
If the wire has corrosion then it isnt necessarily at the end of the wires..It could cave a lump of corrosion mid loom thats hard to detect unless the wire is load soaked..
Its not as hard as it sounds,but has to be done for a definate diagnosis..
PS.....We usually have to do all this kinda testing AFTER the dealers have fitted the DSC unit (or any other) and the problem is still there!
Had my codes read by a snap on scanner. Tried googling the code and got nothing. The first half of the code brings up plenty of E46 errors. 5d8ch.
So I'm still no better off even tho I've had the codes checked. Really don't want to face the stealers to find out. But worried if I pay an Indy I will just find out the same code that doesn't help me.
Full code given was 5d8ch/23948
So I'm still no better off even tho I've had the codes checked. Really don't want to face the stealers to find out. But worried if I pay an Indy I will just find out the same code that doesn't help me.
Full code given was 5d8ch/23948
