Trans failsafe
Discussion
Looking for a bit of advice if that's possible.
bought an alpina b10 3.3 (jan 03 car 51k miles) a few months ago which I really like but unfortunately has had quite a few issues.
It's thrown up the transmission failsafe prog error on starting up the car in the morning but once i switched the car off and restarted, the error message didn't reoccur and the car was perfectly fine. Had the same issue about a week ago and the car ran alright and had no issues until this morning.
Previously I've had the transmission error come up on switching the car off but I'd replaced the battery and alternator about a month and a half ago plus also a gearbox selector switch which the dealer (BMW Holland Park) had previously diagnosed as the issue and the car had been alright until last week. Any ideas what might be causing this latest issue or should i simply bring it back for a recheck?
rgds
bought an alpina b10 3.3 (jan 03 car 51k miles) a few months ago which I really like but unfortunately has had quite a few issues.
It's thrown up the transmission failsafe prog error on starting up the car in the morning but once i switched the car off and restarted, the error message didn't reoccur and the car was perfectly fine. Had the same issue about a week ago and the car ran alright and had no issues until this morning.
Previously I've had the transmission error come up on switching the car off but I'd replaced the battery and alternator about a month and a half ago plus also a gearbox selector switch which the dealer (BMW Holland Park) had previously diagnosed as the issue and the car had been alright until last week. Any ideas what might be causing this latest issue or should i simply bring it back for a recheck?
rgds
Personally, if you've had a dealer working on it recently, I wouldn't try diagnosing myself. They should get the opportunity to check their work first, & are unlikely to appreciate being second guessed. Also, Alpina reprogramme the gearboxes, which may not be apparent on standard diagnostics: there have been situations where the wrong button pressed has completely screwed someones car.
e39s are quite sensitive to battery condition: even a new one may not be fully charged off the shelf - this can cause some spurious warnings. If you have a charger, I'd make sure it's fully charged as a first step. Then, after a check back to the dealer, I'd hunt out an auto box specialist, just in case they run out of ideas: tbh, a specialist is probably a better bet by now, anyway; once the dealer has made sure you're on the latest software version, they're pretty limited to what the diagnostics say. As cars age, dealers move onto the newer versions & forget the older cars, whereas a specialist comes into their own, & is often where the dealer sends the car anyway. Finally, have a search on www.thealpinaregister.com , & http://forum.bmw5.co.uk - lots of info on both.
e39s are quite sensitive to battery condition: even a new one may not be fully charged off the shelf - this can cause some spurious warnings. If you have a charger, I'd make sure it's fully charged as a first step. Then, after a check back to the dealer, I'd hunt out an auto box specialist, just in case they run out of ideas: tbh, a specialist is probably a better bet by now, anyway; once the dealer has made sure you're on the latest software version, they're pretty limited to what the diagnostics say. As cars age, dealers move onto the newer versions & forget the older cars, whereas a specialist comes into their own, & is often where the dealer sends the car anyway. Finally, have a search on www.thealpinaregister.com , & http://forum.bmw5.co.uk - lots of info on both.
MarkwG said:
Personally, if you've had a dealer working on it recently, I wouldn't try diagnosing myself. They should get the opportunity to check their work first, & are unlikely to appreciate being second guessed. Also, Alpina reprogramme the gearboxes, which may not be apparent on standard diagnostics: there have been situations where the wrong button pressed has completely screwed someones car.
e39s are quite sensitive to battery condition: even a new one may not be fully charged off the shelf - this can cause some spurious warnings. If you have a charger, I'd make sure it's fully charged as a first step. Then, after a check back to the dealer, I'd hunt out an auto box specialist, just in case they run out of ideas: tbh, a specialist is probably a better bet by now, anyway; once the dealer has made sure you're on the latest software version, they're pretty limited to what the diagnostics say. As cars age, dealers move onto the newer versions & forget the older cars, whereas a specialist comes into their own, & is often where the dealer sends the car anyway. Finally, have a search on www.thealpinaregister.com , & http://forum.bmw5.co.uk - lots of info on both.
ok cheers for that, I'm sending it back in a few days so fingers crossed for nothing major. I guess the main worry is that I read that any number of issues can cause that error so I'm just a tad wary of the dealership coming up with some rather expensive fix instead of something that might actually fix the problem...e39s are quite sensitive to battery condition: even a new one may not be fully charged off the shelf - this can cause some spurious warnings. If you have a charger, I'd make sure it's fully charged as a first step. Then, after a check back to the dealer, I'd hunt out an auto box specialist, just in case they run out of ideas: tbh, a specialist is probably a better bet by now, anyway; once the dealer has made sure you're on the latest software version, they're pretty limited to what the diagnostics say. As cars age, dealers move onto the newer versions & forget the older cars, whereas a specialist comes into their own, & is often where the dealer sends the car anyway. Finally, have a search on www.thealpinaregister.com , & http://forum.bmw5.co.uk - lots of info on both.
MarkwG said:
Personally, if you've had a dealer working on it recently, I wouldn't try diagnosing myself. They should get the opportunity to check their work first, & are unlikely to appreciate being second guessed. Also, Alpina reprogramme the gearboxes, which may not be apparent on standard diagnostics: there have been situations where the wrong button pressed has completely screwed someones car.
With the latest DIS it's not physically possible to reprogramme/code/ or do anything like that with it. If you start using dodgy scanners/carsoft/3rd party software then you may mess it up.
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