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Reduce exposure to costly repairs by Inspecting the battery compartment.

Discussion in 'F10/F11 (2010-2017)' started by phjbmw, Jun 5, 2015.

    • Member

    phjbmw

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    Being new to any forum postings (this is my first ever); I may not have the etiquette and process exactly correct. Nonetheless, I am making this entry because I thought my recent experience may be helpful to others that follow these things, and because my search of the forums on the club site did not find a like subject.

    I own a 2013 550i (F10) xDrive vehicle with roughly 35K miles. Recently, a number of warnings appeared. These are paraphrased as follows:
    · Parking brake hold failure – have vehicle serviced
    · SOS system failure
    · Steering warning – have vehicle serviced

    Understanding that the vehicle behaves in many ways like a computer, I expected these warnings to disappear after stopping, and restarting the vehicle. They did too, but only for a short time. They all returned quickly, and in fact, the steering warnings appearance coincided with a change to the feel of the steering much like when I use the cars Sport function settings.
    My vehicle is under warranty, and the repairs by the dealer were all at no cost to me. Here is the detail that may interest forum readers. I was advised that water had leaked into a control unit in the trunk. The dealer replaced:

    PN 32 43 6 856 855 control unit servotronic
    PN 34 43 6 862 808 Control unit EMF
    PN 63-21-7-372-515 Gasket set

    It is my understanding that these parts would retail with a BMW dealer for roughly $1,000.00. The dealer reported that they found water in the battery area, and the control units were soaked in water. They found the source to be water entering around the trunk lights. Consequently, the tail lights were removed and the gaskets replaced. Given my experience, and the potential cost liability, other owners of these style vehicles may want to inspect this area to assure integrity of a dry battery compartment, and associated electronics.

    Further, please note that I learned when the dealer clears the vehicle of all your profile settings, not all of these return from a saved profile on a flash drive. I imported my saved profile, but could not recover the radio satellite settings that were originally programmed by me.
    • Member

    MGarrison

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    Thanks for sharing the info, welcome to the club & forums!
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    charlson89

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    Thank you for the info!
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    eric.starmer 2011 535i M Sport

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    Very good advice, I'll be pulling up the carpet and looking tonight.

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