Hi wgrupp, I had exactly the same warning 3 or 4 times on the first 2 months. An engine restart allways solved it.

When I was at the dealer for a s/w u/g I mentioned the fact. At the end of the day they told me it was a serious problem, gave me a loaner and placed an order for replacement parts, don't know exactly wich ones.

Probably you should go to the dealer asap, just in case.

Cheers.

 

I had active steering go out after a dead/low battery...problem resolved after a jump and "after lunch." It did not fix itself right away but did go away on its own.

 

OK I think it was posted before... and I ran a search and no luck... how do you resrart the iDrive if I dont have NAV?

 

welcome aboard, wgrupp !

 

Without nav - nobody found the trick yet.
So the answer would be, turn off the engine and restart after five to fifteen minutes.

 

I have had the active steering warning a few times.
Turning the car off and on fixed it normally (straight away).
I have had a flat battery a couple of times, and active steering is one of the last ones to work on low charge.
I even had to drive the car (heavy steering) for 100yds once then it kicked in fine again.
Never had a problem once moving.

 

Without nav - nobody found the trick yet.
So the answer would be, turn off the engine and restart after five to fifteen minutes.
[/quote]

Oh... the power button... LOL

 

Hi,

The active steering failure happened again so I decided to try a little experiment. I pulled over and rebooted the iDrive. This did not fix the active steering failure. Then I turned the car off and restarted it. This fixed the problem and the active steering now worked fine.

This makes me feel a little better since it tells me that the iDrive computer does not make the decision as to whether the active steering is working or not. I would hate to think that a computer running WinCE has control over vital car control functions.

Wayne

 

My active steering has failed a time or two before and like the others, was fixed by restarting the car or went away all together by itself.

The one time it did not quickly fix itself however, I decided to have some fun around the parking lot. I found that I actually enjoyed the heavier feel and busier arm movement. Active steering is not all it's cracked up to be IMO.

 

When the message appears, take it to the dealer while it's still displayed. Don't turn the car off when you get to the dealer.
That's what I did. The tech will be able to trace the error. Just because the error goes away doesn't mean the problem has been solved. A "valve block" had to be ordered from back east and replaced.