smurf520i

Hi All,

I drove my car some 10-20 miles today and when I started it for the journey home I got a "vehicle check" warning light on my panel.

The fault says something about "any lights could be faulty, indicators, fogs, hazards etc." and that I should "drive carefully" and "get the car checked by my BMW service".

With the ingition switched on and/or engine started:
- I have no control over any lights, manual controls do not respond
- the side lights are off
- the low-beam headlights are turned on, with the Automatic swith turned OFF
- high-beam headlights don't work
- rear lights and fogs are on
- instrument cluster lighting is off
- indicators don't work, had quite a bit of trouble driving back home
- hazards don't work

Other features such as air-con, locks, windows and radio all work fine.

I checked the "lighting" fuses and they all (well two of them 50 AMPs each) seemed ok.

Has anyone got any ideas before I splash out some ?200-300 at a dealer?

Thanks
BMW 520i SE - 2004

Ricracing

Sorry that your first post has to be like this smurf520i, but welcome anyway.

If you checked out the fuses my next best guess is the battery.

Since your car is a '04 the battery could well be gone by now.
That can result in many unexplained electrical problems.

smurf520i

How do I check the battery short of replacing it outright?

DrumGuruEC

Hi and welcome! Could be a battery issue. Some of these weird electrical gremlins are intermittent though... have you tried letting the car go to "sleep" for an hour or so and seeing if the problem persists when starting up again? Only other thing I can think of is that you have a failure in your lighting control unit. On these cars your light "switch" isn't really a switch at all. It just sends commands to the lighting control unit to turn lights on and off. Another of the many over-engineered system on our cars... you may need to take it to the dealer! Don't forget to bring your checkbook!!

nigxdoof

does the dinging sound in the car now louder than normal? All ur faults seem like you need a new alternator. I shad all those symptoms a few months ago and the dealer replaced it under warranty , with $50 deductable.

bradleyjs

Have you checked the date of the battery - might be very old? It might need to be replaced outright anyway... been there and done that a few times with my '99 540i/6 -- always had very strange electrical issues and it solved it immediately.

craigm1841

if nobody has told you to check the battery yet, you should do that...

smurf520i

What is a "dinging" noise? I did not hear anything unusual on that drive back and I do have a very sensitive ear when it comes to cars.

I guess parts go faulty when their time comes.
Would the alternator go wrong in a car with 11,500 miles on the clock? Or is it more related to it's age?

nigxdoof

The dinging sound is the bell/sing that goes on when u enter the car and put the key near ignition.

smurf520i

no, I have not checked the date on it, I'll 1st have to find it...
I have owned this car from new and I got it in March 2004.

On the battery side of things, I've done my homework and searched the topics here about it, can see that quite a few changed their batteries on 4 years.
I also remember reading my BMW manual (cannot find that section now no matter how hard I look) that said something about a 7-year life on batteries, replacing them on 7 years no matter what. I guess that they can discharge earlier... this is a garaged car in London where temperatures don't go that low, well ok, this year was an exception.

However, worth noting that this is a very rarely driven car, weekends only, about 20-30 miles on average per weekend.
So that could be another potential battery-killer.