yesterday while make a "slow" 90 degree right hand turn in my neighborhood the car completely dies and a message pops up asking "that you come to a safe stop and restart to car to reactivate the active steering" Try braking and turning with no power when you don't expect it!

Thank goodness there were no cars coming in the other direction

I was so "stunned" by what just happened that I forgot to take of picture on the warning message....

Has this happened to anyone else?

I have had no problems since!

TIA

 

New to me.

Jochen

 

Wow...that's scary...please let us know what you find out. Good thing everyone was okay :'(

 

Please clarify -- your engine shut down before the AS failure, but you have enough battery power so that you can see a displayed message re: AS failure. Also, it appears that you were able to continue turning the car through the 90 degree turn without AS or power assist even though your engine shut down.

The AS has failed in my 545i, but per the manual, the steering defaulted to a fixed steering ratio (e.g., like cars without AS) and the fixed ratio steering was a little heavier and I drove around town for many miles. When I parked, returned and restarted, AS was fine (there are many other postings like mine).

The only similar experience to this was from EvenFlow545. However, in his case, the engine shut down, the brakes were applied and his steering column locked so that he could not turn the car.

An engine shut down may cause AS failure (among other electronic failures in the car), but not vice versa (engine start up or shut down is not coupled to AS). Sounds like it has not happened again, but I would have BMW look at it the next time your car is in for service.

 

My situation was a little different. I started the car soon after shutting the ignition off...I think, not giving the computer enough time to shut-down properly. Upon re-starting the car, the computer indicated a warning indicating that AS was not working. I drove around for a while not realizing what happened. It happened only one other time when I actually saw the warning before driving off. This time I turned the ignition off immediately and gave the computer enough time to boot down completely before restarting the car. Damn computer!

 

Oops! The last reply was me.

 

This has happened to me as well, scarred the living daylights out of me. I was going around a 90 degree bend slowly and the car stalled saying Active Steering is f*cked or words like that'. If if it had been a fast sweeping corner I would not be here. Took it to a dealer and they said , yes a glitch has been logged , no further action. Has not happened since - about 6 months.

 

Again, the engine shut down - no power! Thankfully I was only going about 10 mph, but I did cross into the on coming lane (As with steve545 it could have been much worse.)

I read the error message and did what it said, which was to restart the car to reset the AS. Have had no problems since.

Cheers,

 

Exact same thing happened to me and only during slow right turns. BMW wound up replacing my '04 545 with an '05. They couldn't figure out what the problem was either.

 

Happened to me once last summer in a parking lot soon after starting. I do not believe that the engine shut down though. It was very difficult to steer. I was supprised how difficult it was and I am not sure I would have had control of the car if I had been on the road. Has not happened since.

Regardless, I love the AS !!!