Hey, so I’m here to see if anyone can give me some advice, 07’Bmw’550i, bought the car about a year ago, and so far seems like i bought the wrong car.. Got it for cheap with 189xxx miles.. in the year I’ve had it I’ve only driven it 3 times.. Having the fix leaks in the trunk(spare tire area) having like 4 modules in water.. to soldering a cracked pin on the IVM.. now my car starts, most of the codes went away.. but now I’m getting Electronics Failure message on dash screen.. and cluster going crazy, after a little research I think I also have a faulty instrument cluster.. So I was thinking about ordering a used one of eBay, what do I have to look into when I swap the cluster, I’ve heard I need to program the new cluster after installing, I have basic mechanic auto tech skills but never had to program anything on a bmw, I’ve mostly worked on American cars, Can I swap another cluster into my car and drive it to the nearest BMW dealership and get it programmed there? Does someone know around how much would a dealership charge to do that? Thanks in advance for the help.

 

First of all. try not to stress. We've all been there.

Dealer will charge you a small fortune for simple VIN coding. You can also teach yourself to use the software to DIY but that'll cost sweat money and you'll need a laptop to boot. Instead of just throwing parts at the fix, buy yourself a BMW code reader. It will save you a lot of headaches and guesswork. BMWs are more complex that you can imagine.

 

You could also consider a really good indy shop where you'll pay less than the dealer, but much more than the cost of a code reader. The issue I had (bad valve cover diaphragm) would not have been resolved had I not found a highly-skilled BMW shop who could diagnoze and then clear the error from the car's memory.

 

Which message and symbol is this exactly? "electronics Failure message on dash screen"