99 M3 convertible - Since I got the car in Dec, there had been a small issue with the cluster. Sometimes it would go dead. All the gauges would drop and the odo display would go dark. This would last anywhere from a few seconds to 3 or 4 minutes. Then it would act like just turning on the key. All lights light up, the service reminder would light up and after a couple seconds everything would be normal, everything working. Some days it would do it a half-dozen times sometime it would go days working fine. After searching around on the forums, it seems to be not an unheard of problem. OK, I was driving around today, a number of starts and stops, turning the car off a number of times. One time I started driving and saw that the parking brake and brake fluid lights were on. The brake handle was all the way down. The red light on the temp gauge was on with needle setting in the middle as always. Stopped, turned the engine off and popped the hood. Brake fluid was full and there was no sign of overheating. Started the car up and now the lights were out along with everything else on the cluster. The only thing that worked was the speedo, no tach, temp, fuel gauge, no odo or trip odo. Started home and after about ten minutes, the cluster went out again as before. In a minute, it came back and everything was working normal. Except…….. The red dot at the odo was on and the odo had gained 5000 miles. The car just turned over 60,000 two weeks ago, it should be reading about 60500 and now it's reading 65500. Anyone have any ideas about this. Am I now screwed because the red dot is on?
that's the manipulation dot, it's on when the mileage stored in the cluster and the mileage stored on the computer don't match, so when the cluster jumped up 5k miles it illuminated it, you can get the dot turned out and the correct mileage displayed again but it requires a trip to the dealer since no one else is likely to have the computer needed
No, but you are now forced to make the trip to a dealer or good indy shop that you were clearly hoping to avoid. Sad fact of life my friend: most glitches do not "fix themselves," they just go into hiding until utter failure is really inconvenient. The odometer memory in the instrument cluster can be reprogrammed from the redundant copy stored elsewhere in the vehicle. This will clear the tamper dot. (I'm not sure which component holds the backup in your model; in many but not all it's the lighting control module (LKM).) However: (1) that can only be done by a BMW diagnostic computer that only a dealer or well-equipped shop will have (due to its five-figure price tag); and (2) you need to fix the original problem first. I would not be penny-wise and pound-foolish here: Get it all fixed properly at a dealer or very good shop. If the component that stores your odo backup happens to fail also--either from related electrical problems or sheer bad luck--then you will be screwed.
Didn't drive the car yesterday. Today when I started it up, the ASC and ABS lights stayed on. After I turned the car off and started it up again, everything was back to normal. Yep, going to talk to the dealer.
If you haven't figured it out yet what you have it is an electrical fault. I experienced one like this in one of my older 7's and chased it down to a cold solder joint in the cluster.. took out my soldering iron and fixed it and never saw the problem again. Now I honed that skill when I was a test tech in a manufacturing plant. It could also be a loose connector or a faulty ground wire. Unless you know what you are doing it is definitely time to get it fixed by a professional. It is very unlikely to permanently get better on its own. Chuck
