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Another engine light issue

M

Mike6

Senior member
Late last year I started using the new fuel and soon after one of the oxygen sensor lights appeared. I reverted back to E5 and the light hasnt come back.
My car gets limited using being a second car insured for 2K miles a year. The other week I decided to clear out under the wheel arches, clean and spray all the brake hoses etc and bleed all the brakes. All was well until about half way through when my one man bleed kit broke and I had to resort to the old method of bleeding which seemed ok but must admit brakes did seem a bit spongy . Will be doing a rebleed with new kit but yesterday I had four orange lights appearing. Tried a fault diagnosis but my reader is saying no faults found and car still drives really nicely.
The lights are ABS and then a circle with a question mark next to it and a tyre light underneath followed in the speedometer dial by a triangle with an arrow going round it.
Any ideas. As i said earlier no fault codes are showing so I wonder if it is telling me the brakes need bleeding again. Thanks
 
Should get yourself a K+ DCAN cable and read the faults with INPA or one of the other official BMW tools. Cables are cheap on eBay. There might be someone local with one on here that can help
 
I did say that I have a code reader and it isn't throwing any codes. Orange lights I think are advisory
 
The lights appearing should have set codes, I would question what scanner you are using, if its a generic scanner it may not be capable of reading the module concerned. As previously suggested INPA or BMW Scanner 1.4 would be the go to diagnostics on a laptop or a Creator 310+ handheld scanner. I use all three on my Z3 and Z4 cars with good results. The usual cause of the lights you describe are bad wheel speed sensors or corroded reculter rings in the hubs that the sensors take their readings from. With any of the diagnostics I mentioned you will be able to view live data from the sensors which will prove if they are working or dead.
 
If the brakes still feel spongy then I'd try a proper bleed again.
Regarding the sensors, they are on all four wheels.
I believe if the left rear fails then your speedo won't work either.
My Autophix 5900 tells me exactly which sensor has the problem, as will the Creator.

If your recent clean out dislodged any debris, particularly metal flakes, then this could be blocking the sensors.

Not sure if those lights could potentially be on of the sensors on the master cylinder? If so, could be related to inadequate bleeding?
 
Speed sensors on all four hubs, rear ones inboard of the brake backplates, front in the steering knuckles. Connecting wires in little plastic box inside the wheel arches, disconnect there and follow the wire to the sensors, one small bolt holds them in their mounting holes, often the sensor itself will be corroded in and often have to be destroyed when taking them out.
The sensors on the brake master cylinder, there are two, one for each circuit that enuff zed mentioned would set codes if they were out of spec, one failed on mine and set a code, Creator 310+ found that, it was out of spec, put a new one in I obtained off ebay for £12 and that sorted it.
 
Thank you, very helpful comments. I have live data on my scanner which I will try before buying the one you suggested. One stupid question, do you have to take car on the road with scanner plugged in to get live data or simply start car up. Currently my scanner works by just turning ignition key and not starting car
 
Mike6 said:
Thank you, very helpful comments. I have live data on my scanner which I will try before buying the one you suggested. One stupid question, do you have to take car on the road with scanner plugged in to get live data or simply start car up. Currently my scanner works by just turning ignition key and not starting car
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I'm not certain so your stupid question could be getting a stupid answer but:
In my mind it seems logical that the component has to be in an operating condition. Live data for the engine only needs it to be running, not necessarily moving the car (unless you need to see effects of load etc)
However, for the ABS system I would expect at the very least you'd need the wheels turning?
 
Ignition on with diagnostics plugged in to view speed sensors live data, wheels off the ground and spin the wheels either by hand or in drive/gear. See which one is not registering. Can also be done with a volt meter connected to the sensor wires, voltage they produce is minimal so meter needs to be set on a low scale in order to see if they are producing and working. Just unplug the connector and probe the plug with the meter leads. You couild drive the car with diagnostics connected and view the speed sensors or have someone sat in the passenger seat to view the scanner whilst you drive it.
 
SonnyA85 said:
BMW have said all their cars are fine on E10. The car also has a knock sensor either way.
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Did you actually read the thread?
The issue is around the ABS system. The brief mention of fuel at the start was merely by way of introduction.
 
enuff_zed said:
SonnyA85 said:
BMW have said all their cars are fine on E10. The car also has a knock sensor either way.
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Did you actually read the thread?
The issue is around the ABS system. The brief mention of fuel at the start was merely by way of introduction.
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No he said he had 2 different issues.

"I started using the new fuel and soon after one of the oxygen sensor lights appeared"

That has nothing to do with the ABS system. The second issue though does.
 
SonnyA85 said:
enuff_zed said:
SonnyA85 said:
BMW have said all their cars are fine on E10. The car also has a knock sensor either way.
Click to expand...
Did you actually read the thread?
The issue is around the ABS system. The brief mention of fuel at the start was merely by way of introduction.
Click to expand...

No he said he had 2 different issues.

"I started using the new fuel and soon after one of the oxygen sensor lights appeared"

That has nothing to do with the ABS system. The second issue though does.
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I give up.
Read it properly!
 
Thanks again for comments. Fuel issue was an introduction as light hasn't come back on but if it does I know for certain which oxygen sensor it is. Think I will see as a started whether my scanner will read any live data before jacking car up. If it does will then rebleed all four wheels and then connect up scanner and rotate wheels as you have suggested. Brilliant advice.
 
I have the Huwee code reader (recommended on this site some time back) it does seem to read live data but I have no idea what all the abbreviations mean. Which one should I be looking for please.
Just knew i should at my age have stuck with carb classics. Why on earth would i get 4 lights showing for a single issue.
Thanks
 
Mike6 said:
Why on earth would i get 4 lights showing for a single issue.
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Cos the ABS sensor uses wheel speed to work out if you're wheel spinning (traction control), locking up under braking (ABS), if one wheel is rotating at a different speed to the others (diameter changed - loss of pressure)
Ummm, and a light to tell you that you have three lights on. That makes four. :D :thumbsup:
 
The Creator 310+ handheld fault finder arrived yesterday - £49.99 with free delivery. Plugged it in, selected Z4 and it immediately bought up the four codes:
5E5c Initialize run flat indicator
5E40 Steering angle implausable
5DA2 wheel speed sensor, pulse gear, front right
5DA3 wheel speed sensor, front right.
So not only is it confirming a wheel sensor but helpfully which one it is.
When I get round to re bleeding the brakes I will clean up the sensors and reluctor rings with particular attention to front right.
Many thanks for the recommendations for this scanner, my other generic scanners didnt pull any codes. Whats more the scanner works with most other Beemers so will come in handy for my day car.
If you dont yet have a fault finder, this is a must have for any tool kit.
 
Just to close out my thread and answer a number of recent threads, I finally got round to rebleeding my brakes today and deal with what my scanner was showing as right front wheel speed sensor, yes 4 yellow lights showing. Re bleeding was fine with my replacement one man bleed kit and I purchased both front wheel sensors from eBay for a tremendous price of 26 pounds. Not as easy as it may seem as although my car is low mileage and rarely gets wet the bolts holding the rear sensor in place were badly corroded with an Allen key head which had just about rusted away, managed to get one undone and the sensor was not that dirty so gave up on the other one as limited space meant drilling out was going to be difficult. Better luck with the front ones but only just as corrosion was taking hold. These front ones were really dirty so I cleaned up the reluctor ring through the small hole and replaced them both
I started the car and the warning lights were still on but the code reader was not showing any faults. Took the car out for a ride and yeh all the lights went out and haven't come back on.
A good job worth doing but watch out for those bolts, a stupid design if you ask me.
 
Excellent result.
Good for us that we got it right and good for you that you now have a code reader that is clear and precise. :thumbsup:
 
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