brent

Hi everyone. My cousin recently picked up an early build 530i as a demo with 7,000 miles. She has let me drive it extensively, and I noticed a few problems with it that I brought to her attention (she's not a car buff). The biggest one is the warble sound coming from the car, which I searched for, and the others I haven't searched for yet:

1 - When driving, there is a sort of "warble" sound coming from the car, for lack of a better word. It is a sort of vibration that speeds up in frequency as the car gains speed. When you brake, the warble slows down. You can both hear and feel it. It sounds as though it is coming from the wheels. Do you have any ideas?

2 - The "Passenger Airbag Off" light randomly turns on and off while driving. Very strange indeed.

3 - The center dash cupholder has too strong a spring that pushes drinks to one side. The right dash cupholder isn't like this.

She explained to me that one night she started the car up and reversed, and all the sudden strange things started happening. She said the car continued to start after she let go of the ignition (I know it has auto-start), the windshield wipers activated, the interior lights came on, the brake lights stayed on, and no interior button would work. Since nothing worked, she let the car sit over night until the battery went dead (too bad she didn't call me for advice!). She had it towed to the dealer, where they said an airbag computer had crashed. I don't know if that has anything to do with problem 2 above or not.

I suggested that she take the car in for the problems listed above, so I think she is sometime this week.

Other than those, it is an awesome car! The headlights are amazing! The drivetrain feels very artificial and takes some getting used to (I drive a DBW car as well, but the 5 takes lots of getting used to). Also, is there a way to force the transmission to start out of 1st instead of 2nd every stop?

Evenflow545

Just tell her to take it in for service, Brent. They'll fix all that with software updates. The "warble" sound may be the run flats. I thought the cupholders were whacko in the beginning, but I actually like them now.

If only they were large enough to hold a brandy snifter.

EBMCS03

1.) The sound might be the run flats... especially since you said she has a early build car. they had problems with the run flats being very noisy.

2.) It might be a faulty airbag sensor... get the dealer to look at it.

3.) Early cars also had retarded cup holders which were replaced I think... run a search about it here... you might be able to get it fixed under waranty...

The sudden crash? Probably a glitch in software... do go get a software upgrade if its a early build car and hasnt ever been upadated with new software. Software upgrade will fix a lot of problems.

brent

Thanks, guys. I at least wanted to get an idea of what was going wrong so she'd know what to ask for. I am pretty sure her car was the very first 5 our dealer ever got. When they got that car in, I went and took pictures of it (Sept 2003) to post on www.thecarlounge.net . It's pretty odd she ended up getting that exact one a little over a year later.

EBMCS03

WHere you from/

brent

Central Texas

Iceman

Welcome aboard, brent !

Pls put the location in your profile. It helps answering questions, due to the country spec of our E60's.

brent

Dankesch?n! Gr??e an alle Leute, die aus Deutschland kommen!

Iceman

Dankesch?n! Gr??e an alle Leute, die aus Deutschland kommen!
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tab545

I find that the airbag sensor light is obviously on when the RF seat is empty. When somebody sits there, it goes off, meaning the airbag will fire normally. But if the RF passenger has some obstruction on his or her lap, like a backpack or briefcase or something, the airbag senses that obstruction and turns itself off -- so the light goes on. If the person puts the briefcase on the floor, the light turns off. So make sure the passenger doesn't have obstructions. Just an idea. There seems to be some kind of sensor there, measuring (sonically?) for anything in the way or a person too close to the airbag.