drapere61

Hello - This is my first post to this forum, and in an attempt to give a little back thanks for ht great advice on the tailgate wiring I thought I would share a little of my experience.

Usual symptoms, de-mister not working, radio playing up. Then no central locking.

Turns out not only had the cables broken in the hinges, but the diversity unit was fried aswell, due to water ingress.

Most things are covered here so I wont go over them again, but for clarity I faced once major problem. The tailgate would not open, which mean I could not remove the large re panel to access the glass tailgate manual release. I found the easiest way to get to the panel out of the way was to remove the two screws holding the main lock. To do so I used a ratchet and the right hex bit.

Once removed you can pull it down and over the lock and access the glass tailgate manual release.

I have attached two pictures of the bolts and one of the location of the manual release (circled in red). Pop a flat screw driver in there and give it a wiggle.

I purchased my cables from Senkom SenCom T.Q. - Startseite They are based in germany and are extremely helpful.

Now all working but it took hours, don't forget to check fuse 59, I thought all was lost and this had also blown!

gman6262

I just completed the full SenCom wiring harness repair kit install - both left and right wiring harnesses and the antenna cable splicing kit on a North American 535xit. All worked perfectly - I've put about 40 photos up on a blog posting showing some of what I learned during the 14 hour repair. Lots of work - but worth it so far - rear window defrost working again, improved central locking / unlocking range with the keyfob remote. Here the link to the posting and photos

The Fix-it Blog - Sorting Things Out: BMW 535xi Touring E61 Tailgate Wiring Harness - SenCom Repair Kit Installation

BostonJon

amazing write-up and great pictures. i hope i never need it but with an 07 E61 living in a cold-climate winter, i'm sure i will need this eventually.

gigity1107

Has anyone had the SenCom kits installed by an auto electrician? If so, how long did it take them? I ordered the kits, but as I don't have the use of a garage. I'm finding it very hard to find the right weather to attempt this myself. I've had a quote at £45ph. Which is probably better than I expected.

The electrician I spoke to said he would do it but he's never attempted it before so had no idea how long it would take.

Greg_V

Right harnesses took me 5 hours start to finish. Haven't done the left harnesses yet. I'm guessing an electrician would run about the same, maybe 4 hours if you're lucky, per side. It was incredibly tedious.

grilledcheese

About 10 hours of labor for both sides is what I paid to have mine done.

burnbabybyrne

I know this is a longstanding thread, but the problems with the tailgate wiring persist so I thought I'd post what I found to be useful.

I have been having all of these problems with my now 6 year old 525D Touring MSport:

1. Central locking not working from key remotes (wire(s) to antenna in tailgate broken at tailgate wiring guide)
2. Rear window washer fluid hose not working (hose broken and leaking at tailgate wiring guide)
3. Rear number plate light intermittent connection (wire almost broken at tailgate wiring guide)
4. Tailgate glass lid opens randomly (intermittent connection in wire at tailgate wiring guide)
5. Tailgate window defogger not working (suspect broken wire in tailgate wiring guide)

As a materials engineer the problem seems to me to be a design flaw: not preventing fatigue of the materials by use of adequate stress relief in the design (opening and closing tailgate over the years subjects the materials to sufficient fatigue stress that they fail - it's the same a bending a metal coat hanger back and forth, after a very short while the otherwise fairly tough and strong material breaks easily). There appears to be no stress relief in the BMW tailgate wiring guide design and it is fundamentally flawed (and the guides have sharp edges too which doesn't help) and it may well be that the loom is too short, adding to the problem of inadequate stress relief.

Of course my BMW dealer (in Ascot and Maidenhead, UK) states it's the first they've heard of the problem and they've never had a customer complain of this before ... so it's down to me to pay to have it diagnosed and then fixed!!! They also previously stated (when I was chasing them to fix the remote locking which had failed just after the warranty expired) that they cannot take into account what is said on the forums because "it's company policy not to take into account forum posts" and "what's said on the forums is hearsay."

I found this very useful guide for anyone struggling with these problems. It will almost certainly help you show that there is a common denominator between all of these seemingly disassociated problems:

http://www.snowspire.cz/staticke/E61-kabely.pdf

I also see the excellent write up at The Fix-it Blog - Sorting Things Out: BMW 535xi Touring E61 Tailgate Wiring Harness - SenCom Repair Kit Installation mentioned by some of the users in this thread.

By the way, I followed the first set of instructions to prove to myself that the problems all stemmed from the same problem. It only took me about 30 mins to carefully remove everything and identify the problems. Another half an hour saw everything cleaned up and put back in place. If I had a wiring loom available to me, I suspect it wouldn't have taken too many hours to splice it in and reattach everything (just for the rear). The dealer quotes of 8-10 hours labour seem high to me - no surprise there.

Come on BMW: fess up ... the design is flawed. Speak to your materials engineers, or better, try bending your wires a few thousand times to see if they survive. If not, put out a recall to replace the rear looms.

burnbabybyrne

Quick update. I contacted BMW UK to see if i could get any further than talking to the dealers who deny there being any problem. Of course I received the same party line from BMW UK: there's no problem on record for this vehicle and you can't rely on what people write in forum posts.

It beggars belief that so many people can be facing the same problems after the same period of time and that BMW can take the line that there's no record of any problems. Language from owners like "I'm experiencing the usual symptoms" wouldn't exist if there wasn't a trend in the problems we're experiencing.

Would users in this forum thread be willing to identify themselves and their vehicles to BMW as a group so the problems cannot so easily be ignored?

Chris

mitchgixer6

Hi Chris

I'm happy for my name to go on record and to BMW. You can email me on mitchifer69@hotmail.com

I had to do another repair yesterday to the tailgate wiring. Previously I had only done the repair to the inside (spoiler) feeds, but my parcel shelve release was operating whilst closing the glass, so I immediately knew what the problem was.

I opened up the outside left feed and low and behold, 7 out of 12 wires had a break in the insulation. Luckily I had some experience in fixing it, but still took me over 3 hours from start to finish. I'll tackle the other side once the weather heats up a bit as I've not got any symptoms from that side. YET!

Jax of Marlow

Burnbabyburne. I had both side looms replaced at huge expense by sytner Maidenhead and they also obtained a small discount from BMW uk because it was a known issue. If you need detail let me know.