Bmw X5 trans failsafe prog

[Thehienz]

I've got BMW X5 3.0L sport .
I was driving along and it flashed up trans failsafe prog. Then suddenly the car wouldn't go anywhere. It now goes but when I'm in DRIVE it starts to roll back and this never happened before .

Anybody had simular problem

[21TonyK]

I had this recently. Was driving at 40-50mpg and it pinged and flashed up. Lost all power so coasted off the road. Switched off, restarted and it has been fine ever since. Maybe done 4-500 miles without further issue.

I think mine was electrical related as my X5 only gets used 4-5 times a month and only does about 3000 miles a year. If the battery gets low all sorts of weird things happen.

[sparks_E39]

Thehienz said:

I've got BMW X5 3.0L sport .
I was driving along and it flashed up trans failsafe prog. Then suddenly the car wouldn't go anywhere. It now goes but when I'm in DRIVE it starts to roll back and this never happened before .

Anybody had simular problem

Yes, in my E39 530i, was the 12 year old battery.

Knackered battery = £100
Knackered autobox = £1500-£2000

It's likely one of those two, however mine still engaged third gear and didn't roll back.. sorry to say I'm swaying towards your box having possibly crapped itself.

[corozin]

Not sure about X5s but I've carried one of those small OBD code readers in my 330 for the past 3½ years and have had a couple of occasions where I've had cause to use it to reset the gearbox fault codes when this happens.

Only needed it a few times but it's a pain in the arse when it falls intoo limp mode. The reader was about £30 on eBay

HTH