e39 M5 - help needed
e39 M5 - help needed
Author
Discussion

IOMm5er

Original Poster:

4 posts

156 months

Wednesday 12th June 2013
quotequote all
Hi all,

I have a 1999 M5 and need a wee bit of help.

A wonderful parking company decided to let my battery run down and then basically jump started it wrongly, causing the dash display to get fried. Have bought a replacement cluster from ebay (stealer price around £900!) but here is where I need some help.

I need to reprogram the IKE, EWS and LCM with the Car's VIN (to re-enable DSC and remove the tamper light) and the correct mileage - car is 75k, cluster is 106k - and I am reliably informed that I can do this with PA Soft 1.4.0.

Are any of you wonderful people on here based in the Isle of Man and have use of it to help me out?

I have bought the hardware but am not v techno savvy and could really use some help.

Thanks

DW

Motorrad

6,811 posts

213 months

Wednesday 12th June 2013
quotequote all
Can't help personally but look at http://forum.bmw5.co.uk/ and ask there.

A better group of people you'd be hard pressed to find. I think most of your issues are E39 rather than M5 specific.

TheEnd

15,370 posts

214 months

Wednesday 12th June 2013
quotequote all
Is it just a new cluster?

You won't be able to change the mileage in it with PA soft, it's a special chip that can only count up, so no way of making the number lower.
You can however set up the new clocks with PA soft and changed the stored VIN.

IOMm5er

Original Poster:

4 posts

156 months

Wednesday 12th June 2013
quotequote all
Thanks guys - will give that a try.

It is a used cluster - but at £80 it was worth a punt.

I did have a Speedofixer look at the fried one and it works find, just the LED is fried - but that part is not available - would be much easier to just have that fixed if I could I am sure. This is the guy that said the VIN and Mileage could be amended. Not overly bothered about the mileage aspect, it is the lack of DSC on an M5 in the IOM (mucho rain!) that is my priority!

DW

TheEnd

15,370 posts

214 months

Wednesday 12th June 2013
quotequote all
Are they M5 clocks?

If they are of the same type, it's highly likely you'd just be able to swap a tiny chip between each set that holds the individual settings.

Otherwise, for the set up, it should be in PA soft's "IKE" menu, and then coding
Write FGRNR should be the one for the VIN, it may be either the full 17 digit vin, or the short VIN which is just the last 7 digits.

skeeterm5

4,510 posts

214 months

Wednesday 12th June 2013
quotequote all
Why isn't the company that caused the damage sorting it out?

S

IOMm5er

Original Poster:

4 posts

156 months

Wednesday 12th June 2013
quotequote all
They deny all responsibility - they claim it was 'already like that' and all they did was jump start it as they have done 'many times without any problem'. B*****ds.

The fried one is a Grey facelift one that was put in around 2006, the one I sourced is an original black set of M5 dials.


TheEnd

15,370 posts

214 months

Wednesday 12th June 2013
quotequote all
Have you got the PA soft lead, or was that just a plan for the future?

It'll be able to scan everything in the car, and also it'll be able to tell you the mileage that is stored in other units incase the last clock swap took a few miles off too.

IOMm5er

Original Poster:

4 posts

156 months

Wednesday 12th June 2013
quotequote all
I have the unit and leads(s) - the software disc that came with it is u/s, but I managed to DL it - only runs on XP tho so trying to set up a Virtual PC on my laptop running XP.

Tech stuff is NOT my forte..... LOL

TheEnd

15,370 posts

214 months

Wednesday 12th June 2013
quotequote all
OK, remember it'll only work once plugged into the car, otherwise it'll say "hardware not ready"

Click "continue" on the first screen, and it'll pull the details out from the instrument cluster, and the EWS.
You can then close that window and click the "Scan" button at the top.

It'll record everything into a log which will be automatically saved in a folder with the PA soft program. That will show part numbers, VIN numbers and recorded mileages in different modules.

Hedgetrimmer

571 posts

283 months

Thursday 13th June 2013
quotequote all
skeeterm5 said:
Why isn't the company that caused the damage sorting it out?

S
Not a good enough answer from them. If they acknowledged that the car was jump started without your authority then you should seek advice. It is reasonable to expect that jump starting the car will cause electrical issues on a car like an M5.

Quinten

1,169 posts

267 months

Thursday 13th June 2013
quotequote all
Out of pure interest (since I have an E39 M5 too), how can you jumpstart it 'wrong'? Care to explain what they did to fry your dashboard?

eztiger

836 posts

206 months

Thursday 13th June 2013
quotequote all
If it's the led's that are fried would it be worth contacting someone like :

http://www.speedofixer.co.uk/bmw_pixel_repairs.htm...

(note not used them, just as an example of someone who can do the common 'pixel fix' on the dash cluster).

If they can fix the pixel issue they might be able to sort the lot out in a similar fashion? Might be worth asking.