Yesterday my Active steering didn't initialize after a cold start. My car is in a heated garage, currently there is around +5C degrees, not too cold. The battery (AGM) is new, just 3 weeks old.

After about 200 meters of driving, Active steering initialized correctly, as expected.

I had this problem very often when my previous battery was drained and old no matter the temperature. But now it happened for the first time yesterday after 3 weeks of using the new battery.

Any clues?

 

I'm getting the same message but when I take a left turn slowly. It doesn't happen all the time and when I restart the car, the problem is not there. It started when my battery was dying (I have a 2007) and first I attributed it to that. I still had the problem after the battery change, My master control module went out shortly thereafter and I still have the problem after replacing that. Since it doesn't happen all the time, I'm hesistant about taking it in. My husband had a Volvo with lots of electronic modules and replacing what you think may be the problem doesn't always fix it....

 

Thanks.

Guess I'll take it to a dealer just to find out they didn't provide any meaningful help, wasting my time and money. :thumbsdown:

 

I lived with that for 2 years did everything to avoid these failures a laser alignment changed bushing checking steering fluid new tires always checking how much pressure in them and couldn't avoid it I heard most of 5 series have this problem

 

Problem comes and goes.... I had some issues after having a battery for several years. Battery checked out fine but I wanted to replace anyway. After that problem went away for a bit. UNTIL i changed some front suspension components on the front end. I did not disconnect the battery while doing so which was a mistake. I drove for a few days with a touchy/swaying car and a crooked steering wheel. Then I changed the rear components and had the battery disconnected for about 4 hours. When i started it back up, everything was back to normal..

Try disconnecting the battery and leaving it off overnight, let the computer drain out.

 

I was just told today at the dealer (good, educated and reputable technician) that this is normal if it happens sometimes.

Supposedly there's a column in the steering wheel for active steering detection. If there's a micro-thin layer of humidity (which is normal depending on where and how you keep your car, outside temperature etc.), there's an initialization problem.

It's recommended to just steer like crazy for a few seconds to the max if you want to get rid of the problem in-place very quick, or drive cca 100 meters and the humidity problem is resolved. Which is actually true, that always worked for me. Just drive off.

 

I had the light come on after disconnecting the battery to get the water out of the compartment. I cycled the steering wheel and restarted and the light went out. However, the steering wheel was off centered slightly to the left.

Had an alignment to try to correct a tire wear problem on the extreme outside of the left front tire. Dealer said the alignment was not far off from the original setting and doubted that this was causing the wear. The car drove the same after the alignment.


Returned to the dealer yesterday to diagnose a increased emissions light and the SA said that the active steering light came on as he drove it into the repair bay and the steering went to the left. He re-initialized the active steering system for free Now the steering wheel is slightly off centered to the right but seems not to pull to the left. Maybe this will solve the tire wear problem. He stated that using the self active steering reset is only a temporary fix and it needs to be re-initialized by computer. Go figure...... don't know if he was just feeding me a bunch of bull

 

I think this is true because as I remember I washed my engine once and I saw steering warnings for couple of times that day so I believe it's related to humidity or something like it