e38 electrical problem
Discussion
After 3 faultless years my 1997 735i E38 seems to have developed an electrical problem.
The car's fitted with the optional TV and telephone. When I turn the car on the TV screen remains blank about 10% of the time. The other 90% of the time it looks like:
The radio won't turn on and I can't select on-board computer or move the focus to television etc. The dashboard on-board computer does seem to work fine. The phone remains turned off with nothing being displayed on its LCD screen. The time in the bottom right hand corner of the TV does change correctly so the screen isn't frozen.
The windscreen wipers also stutter. By this I mean they occasionally stop for 1 - 2 seconds then resume as normal and when cancelling them they sometimes stop in the middle of the windscreen.
The strange bit is on long journeys (normally over ~30 minutes) there will suddenly be a beep and then the phone will turn on and the radio will suddenly come on a second or so later. The windscreen wipers will start working normally again and everything else works perfectly for the remainder of the journey.
Any ideas where to start looking? I'm very confused by it!
Many thanks!
The car's fitted with the optional TV and telephone. When I turn the car on the TV screen remains blank about 10% of the time. The other 90% of the time it looks like:
The radio won't turn on and I can't select on-board computer or move the focus to television etc. The dashboard on-board computer does seem to work fine. The phone remains turned off with nothing being displayed on its LCD screen. The time in the bottom right hand corner of the TV does change correctly so the screen isn't frozen.
The windscreen wipers also stutter. By this I mean they occasionally stop for 1 - 2 seconds then resume as normal and when cancelling them they sometimes stop in the middle of the windscreen.
The strange bit is on long journeys (normally over ~30 minutes) there will suddenly be a beep and then the phone will turn on and the radio will suddenly come on a second or so later. The windscreen wipers will start working normally again and everything else works perfectly for the remainder of the journey.
Any ideas where to start looking? I'm very confused by it!
Many thanks!
I don't know E38's but just fixed intermittent electrical issues on my E34 by replacing the fuseable link. This is a c. 80A fuse wire that will be located in a terminal box near the battery. Follow the positive leads from the battery and you should stumble across it.
Edited by juliann on Wednesday 16th September 19:32
I'm updating this in case anyone else has a similar issue.
The problem was the Ignition Switch. Details of how to replace it can be found at http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/244045
The problem was the Ignition Switch. Details of how to replace it can be found at http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/244045
Gassing Station | BMW General | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff