c7xlg

Hi ALl,
My 2005 E61 550i has thrown a huge fit. Driving it on monday the speedo and rev counter starting cutting out (flicked down to zero and than back on... repeated a lot), then the idrive screen started flicking on and off. Followed by lots of error messages ending in 'Central electronics total failure: do not drive'. The car still drove fine, but not much worked (including indicators, idrve etc etc), though the wipers did come on!!

THe car is in at an indy dealer now who have found 97 errors reported by the OBD.

Any thoughts on the possible cause/fix?

I think water might have been leaking into the boot area from the sunroof drains. A quick google seems to suggest this is possible, and that there are a load of computers/electronics modules located under the boot floor that would be affected by water ingress, and cause failures like this.

All thoughts/expereinces appreciated as I think I could be looking at a big bill to fix. My worse nightmare is a damaged car wiring loom, but no work has been done on the car so water ingress after all the heavy rain over the weekend seems more likely.

thanks,
Neil

phelix

Could be an alternator or battery issue - fingers crossed it's not water in the spare wheel well.

gummysDad

if it is a water leak in the boot, there are others that have had that happen, and though the bill was exhorbitant, all the electronics were replaced, and they were back on their way. Good luck, keep us posted.

mmitev

funnily enough, today I did have the same error message on the screen for about 2 seconds

without any apparent reason, while driving slowly in a straight line, I heard the gong sound and the message came up. 2 sec later it had disappeared without a trace and I have no clue what it could have been:

- roof drains are clean and no trunk water problems (i had these in the past, and the message that came up was about electronic error but said I could drive further slowly)
- faulty alternator leads to other issues, afaik not to this message
- one possibility is water in the front, just behind the glove box. have to investigate this to make sure everything is ok there, hopefully

narvselius

... if there is a gong, there is a stored error message... You don't happen to have friend how could read the error code(s) for you? A bit expensive to let a dealer check it w/o knowing what's the reason.

mdobin

I vote battery. I had that happen and it was the five year-old battery giving up its life.

Disconcerting, but it was driveable.

mmitev

thanks, will have it checked next time I visit my (indy) mechanic

mmitev

In my case the battery is less than 2 years old, Bosch, and in excellent health.