BMW Drivetrain Warning- Any Ideas?

[bmwhaz]

Hi Chaps,

Was driving home from work this evening and I got a warning light on the dashboard and the BMW media screen telling me that there is a problem with the drivetrain. I took immediate action by driving down to my local BMW dealer who asked me the colour of the warning. As there are two stages of warnings (yellow/red), he said my warning (yellow) was not severe but still needs to looking into and to come back tomorrow morning.

I then phoned up the AA who came by and reset the ECU and the fault has now disappeared. However, how likely is this fault to come back?

Regards

Haz.

[RS250_Steve]

He cleared it without actually checking the code??

Might just be an erroneous value from a sensor but it's anyone's guess.

What is the car? Auto or manual?

Edited by RS250_Steve on Tuesday 21st June 10:47

[bmwhaz]

RS250_Steve said:

He cleared it without actually checking the code??

Might just be an erroneous valve from a sensor but it's anyone's guess.

What is the car? Auto or manual?

Manual 6 speed.

[skeeterm5]

You took it to a BMW dealer who told you what to do and then you phoned the AA? Why would you do that? If he cleared the codes without noting them then wouldn't this make BMW's job of finding out what it really is hard?

[stevensdrs]

Not the smartest thing for the AA man to do in the circumstances. Now you have no fault code to trace.
If it comes back, leave it on until the dealership can read the codes. If it doesn't come back then nothing to worry about.

[Janesy B]

It will log the codes even if they've been reset?

[bmwhaz]

skeeterm5 said:

You took it to a BMW dealer who told you what to do and then you phoned the AA? Why would you do that? If he cleared the codes without noting them then wouldn't this make BMW's job of finding out what it really is hard?

Believe me dude, I wanted it looking into ASAP and the guy from the dealer (Snows in Portsmouth) didn't even come out to look into it. I am already sick and tired of this car and the amount of problems it has had. Roll on August and I will be getting anything but a BMW. Been thinking about the new C-Class or a Mazda6.

[bmwhaz]

stevensdrs said:

Not the smartest thing for the AA man to do in the circumstances. Now you have no fault code to trace.
If it comes back, leave it on until the dealership can read the codes. If it doesn't come back then nothing to worry about.

Unfortunately he was rather miserable and reminded me of a certain Harry Enfield character. He simply couldn't be bothered to do anything else apart the ECU diagnosis check.

[996TT02]

Do you have a record of the code? You could look it up.

Fundamentally the code was not the problem, it was just a flag for it. Clearing it does not make the problem go away. You may be lucky and it may be one of those things, or you may get the same code tomorrow, or next week.

If you must clear a code, such as if the fault makes the car go into limp home mode, and you need to (try to) buy some time, at least take note of it so that the actual problem can be pinpointed.