jallerd

Ok I have a 2006 530xi wagon and trying to troubleshoot an issue with the soft close motor for the liftgate. BMW calls this the trunk lid power lock drive.

Symptoms are the liftgate closes but the soft close motor fails to power on and pull the liftgate all the way close. I've tested the motor and microswitch in the assembly and they both work correctly.

Question - How does the soft close motor know to activate? What is the trigger?

Next question - When I took apart the motor assembly I think the gear for the microswitch may have spun. Does anyone know the correct orientation? Should the switch be open or closed when the latch is full closed? See attached pic.

jallerd

Ok I figured out the issue. There was a break in the +12V wire feeding the K207 relay. This is one of the red relays that sits in the wheel well.

MiniNL

Thanks for the update.

jallerd

Here's a more detailed update:
This is a result of water leaking down the passenger side over the fusebox. There is a plug that goes into the fusebox with the output side of the fuses and it appears water sat in that plug and started to corrode the pins. One was broken and guess which one that was . For now I wired the relay to an unused fuse location on the block.

I spent a LOT of time troubleshooting this one. What ended up helping me fix it was the wiring diagrams on BMW-Planet.

BostonJon

i have an 07 and my motor looks quite different than the one you have pictured. i didnt realize that there were multiple variants of that part.

glad to see you got it fixed.

PeteNZ

Cargo area rhs fuse board. Plug corrosion.
Thank you for following up your posts with updates. It helped me a lot. I had previously tried to figure out the problem a year ago and after testing the motor and replacing the relay I had been stumped. Your post led me to actually test the relay plug to see if it was getting power (only reading 7V, suggesting serious resistance circuit) then to tracing the power wire to the fusebox (Brown/Red wire). Checked the 30pin plug and amazing conincidence - serious corrosion on just the lower 10 and whaddaya know, that same pin broken off! Weird it's the only pin broken and same as yours. I guess the corrosion accelerates by bleeding of the 12V through the corrosion itself.

Pulled the Brown/Red wire from that plug and wired it directly to the #53 fuse. We now have soft-close tailgate!

I think this corrosion can be attributed to those damn sunroof drain hose grommets. When I bought the car 2 years ago all the modules and relays from the spare tyre well had already been relocated to the LH side of the cargo area. But they had failed to fix the damn problem. So much standing moisture and humidity trapped for days after rain. I would have ditched this car a year ago but it remains my favourite car of roughly 40 or so over the years. Hard to give it up!

PeteNZ

Soft close wiring circuit & components. Grey block in the middle on the right going out of picure is the body control module.

donmarkon

Wish you all good day
i have the same problem on e61 2010
This damn thing won't work no matter what I do, there is no 12v on live wire at all...
Can someone explain me where the wires exactly go from that 3 pin adapter for the lock ?

PeteNZ

Have a close look at the wiring diagram I posted right before your post. The plug you are holding has the 3 wires that come off the grey unit at the bottom of the pic. The wire of most likely interest is the GE (yellow) one. That supplies power to the motor. Which comes from the relay, which in turn gets it's power from the fuse in the large main fuse carrier block in the rhs of the trunk.

To find the components in the car Google the indentifier codes and you'll find photos or diagrams. Eg: For the plug that goes into the Fuse carrier block Google "BMW X11012".
When you pull that plug out you'll see the pins are numbered on the plastic housing. The pin/wire you want is #14. Look at the diagram long enough and the numbers snd "X" codes start to mean something.

(btw, that diagram I posted I think, from memory, was a pic I took of a page in the Bentley manual.)

donmarkon

Thank you for fast reply

If i understood you well, from adapter those 3 wires are going under the spare wheel area and there is a module with 3 square looking fuzes. Is that correct?