[Ess]

Hello,

Firstly apologies if this has already been discussed - I couldn't find any info, I have searched.

I put the car in D/S this morning and felt like using the shifter rather than the paddles, and I immediately noticed that the upshifts were not working. Both paddles are working fine, and downshifts from the shifter are also fine - it's just upshifts when using the shifter. Absolutely nothing happens when I pull the stick towards me. The action feels mechanically fine, the mechanism clearly hasn't broken, could it be a sensor?

I recently changed the shifter knob but I can't see how that could have caused this problem, and am also pretty sure I used this shifter since then and it was fine.

BMW want over £100 just for diagnostics, and my local independent wouldn't even look at it - as soon as I said "auto box" he got that look on his face...

Anyone got any ideas? Many thanks in advance!

[DUI Elite]

[Ess]

Thanks a lot my friend, I'll open it all up and see if any of the wires look damaged. I had heard of the wires breaking but I didn't realise that my symptoms could be caused by that - I thought it would not work at all if the wires break, rather than just partly work like I am experiencing. I'll have a go at it and report back. Thanks again

[Ess]

I found this thread which has some instances of exactly this problem, i.e. everything working okay except for upshifts via the shifter. Hopefully this is the problem and not something worse...

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=511799

[Josh1a1h]

GOod luck mate in the fault finding.
I havent heard of this before.

Please post back when you figure out the solution

GD LUCK!

[Ess]

Thanks Josh. I'll take it apart on Sunday morning and update the thread with my findings.

[old grey steve]

Interesting, but not unheard off, look forward to your findings and hope you get it sorted, issues we've seen regarding the problem your facing is to look for broken wires.

We've seen a couple of cars with broken/damaged/crimped wires by removing the trim and shifter lever look from under the shifter unit and to the left from memory (as I think that video will show) there's around 6 wires (don't take my word on this though) and it should be if they are broken fairly straightforward to spot, we carried out repairs to a couple of cars with success in all cases I think we've seen 3 or 4 since I been there wires have been broken and crimped/compressed as there's little movement in there and I guess over time there stretched and will in time become fatigued.

Re a diagnosis yes you have to establish the issue(though it is obvious)main dealers answer would I suspect be to replace the shifter itself must indus like ourselves would want extra time to have a look at the unit itself to view the wiring as it isn't unheard of

[Ess]

Thanks for the advice Steve, it is much appreciated.

I took the centre console trim off this morning and had a look at the shifter mechanism (not something I've done before). First impressions, everything looked fine. I could see some of the wires, and they looked pristine. However, two things:

1) part of the wires were obscured by fabric ties/protective tape which I did not remove as I didn't have any spare to replace them. The damage could be behind the taped sections.

2) most of the wires appear to be hidden behind the small plastic section on the right of the unit - the part which I've highlighted with a square on the pics below.

So I followed the instructions in the video and removed the three Torx screws (highlighted with circles in the pic below) which made the whole shifter mechanism come loose, but by no means released it completely. This allowed me some access to the top Torx screw securing the black plastic cover. Unfortunately the shifter wasn't loose enough for me to get access to the remaining two screws to remove the whole cover, and I was therefore not able to check the wires inside, which was very frustrating. The shifter either needs to come out, or I'd need a tool with a kink in it, like an Allen key. I was reluctant to pull the whole mechanism out as it is clearly still attached somehow and I didn't want to damage anything.

So I put it all back together, and checked everything was still working - it's not. I've now completely lost DS mode and the little PRND LEDs to the side of the shifter no longer light up at all, whichever position the shifter is in...

On the bright side, I think (hope!) that the fact that fiddling with the wires has made it worse confirms that they are causing this. I'll stop off at the dealer tomorrow and ask if they will agree to try to find the broken wires and fix them, but I expect they will just suggest a whole new shifter assembly, as Steve pointed out. If that happens, I'll try to see if a local indy will agree to take a look at it, given that we're almost certain the wires are at fault!

I sure wish I wasn't so far away from your place Steve!

I'll update the thread during the week when I've had a chance to talk to them.

[Ess]

Update: I went to BMW after work and their workshop people had left, but I explained the situation to my usual Service advisor: I told him what the problem was and said I didn't want to buy a whole new shifter mechanism when all it needed was the wires. He promised to call me back tomorrow when he'd spoken to someone in the workshop. Let's see where this goes...

[old grey steve]

Originally Posted by Ess

Update: I went to BMW after work and their workshop people had left, but I explained the situation to my usual Service advisor: I told him what the problem was and said I didn't want to buy a whole new shifter mechanism when all it needed was the wires. He promised to call me back tomorrow when he'd spoken to someone in the workshop. Let's see where this goes...

To be fair it should be a fairly easy one to spot/sort out if thru are willing to give it a go I suspect it'll be a fairly straightforward wiring repair but it's fairly tight if the wires broken of fractured too close to the shifter unit itself.

However if you fall at that hurdle a half decent auto electrician if faced with the problem would be sble to sort the issue out my guts are specialist auto electricians by trade per say but they've sorted these things out with ease so I see no major stumbling block unless the wires concerned are damaged too close to the shifter itself

[Ess]

Originally Posted by old grey steve

To be fair it should be a fairly easy one to spot/sort out if thru are willing to give it a go I suspect it'll be a fairly straightforward wiring repair but it's fairly tight if the wires broken of fractured too close to the shifter unit itself.

Thanks Steve, I actually found a bendy adaptor in my tool kit which should allow me to access the screws I couldn't access to reveal the bulk of the wiring. My concern now is that seeing as my first attempt made the problem worse, I'm worried that if I have another go and for whatever reason I can't fix it, what if it messes it up some more and say I can't put it in Drive or Reverse? At least at the moment I can still drive the car!

Disappointingly but not surprisingly I didn't hear back from the dealer today, despite ringing them to ask them to call me - I'll try again tomorrow and post an update.

[DUI Elite]

Thats a bit odd that your PRND light isn't on, as it should use a different wire connector. Check the connection for that (it's the one on the left, just under the PRND panel), I'm not sure if its possible to plug the connector in upside down or not, but it seems like a possibility, and I don't mean that in any way as a Jab at your mechanical skill!

The ones that I have seen that had frayed wires showed signs of wear just outside of the taped up section. I don't really suspect that the worn section of wires (only real way to lose DS completely) would be under the taped area, as that's the main function of the tape - to protect the wires!

[Ess]

Originally Posted by DUI Elite

Thats a bit odd that your PRND light isn't on, as it should use a different wire connector. Check the connection for that (it's the one on the left, just under the PRND panel), I'm not sure if its possible to plug the connector in upside down or not, but it seems like a possibility, and I don't mean that in any way as a Jab at your mechanical skill!

Thanks DUI Elite. I lost the PRND light when I took it apart: the first thing I checked is the connector, which only slots in one way, so it's not in the wrong way. I'm worried I might have damaged it somehow when I took it apart... My mechanical skill is not good!

Originally Posted by DUI Elite

The ones that I have seen that had frayed wires showed signs of wear just outside of the taped up section. I don't really suspect that the worn section of wires (only real way to lose DS completely) would be under the taped area, as that's the main function of the tape - to protect the wires!

I wasn't able to completely check the wires because I couldn't remove the panel on the right side of the shifter assembly - I'm hoping that when it comes off I'll see the damaged wires. I'll post an update as soon as I can, and thanks again all for your help.

Do you guys know if it possible to lose Drive / Park / Reverse as a result of these wires being damaged? If so I'm reluctant to mess around with it more!

[Ess]

Still nothing from the dealers, again despite ringing them. They promise to call back and then they don't...

A colleague at work is going to give me a hand with it tomorrow and hopefully we'll find some damaged wires. I opened it up again today to check the PRND connectors, and frankly it all seems to be well connected, so hopefully that's also down to the damaged wires!

[Corradokid]

With all due respect I'm not sure what you are looking for from the dealership? If you want it diagnosed then you are going to have to pay their hourly rate anyway so I'd be inclined to find a good Indy and ask them to take a look or an auto electrician. At this stage with you not being able to see anything obvious you've no real idea of what's wrong with it so telling them it's the wiring and you don't want a new shifter may well be completely misleading as you don't know that for fact. I do agree with you though they should have called you back even if just to say you need to book it in so they can have a look.

[Ess]

So today, one my my colleagues equipped with the right tools kindly took a look at the shifter for me. He managed to remove the black plastic side panel where I had got stuck, and what he found beneath it was frankly shocking - see attached photos.

The wires were completely severed! How this poor design passed testing is beyond me, not what I'd expect from BMW! My colleague kindly soldered the wires back together, and I'm delighted to say that it's now all good as new!

In response to Corradokid's post above, I was convinced that this was the problem thanks to all the useful posts on this forum! I just wanted them to tell me if they could fix the wires or not, rather than pay them to have a look, only for them to then say they wanted to change the whole assembly which I would have refused - and hence just wasted my money on them telling me what I was convinced I already already knew!

Also, re the PRND light. This is now working again, so it was clearly linked to the broken wires. I'm just delighted I've got my DS mode back

Thanks again to everyone who pointed me in the right direction!

[Corradokid]

Glad you got it sorted for minimal outlay

[old grey steve]

A familiar story as I said earlier seen em before and usually a wiring repair sorts it as for the main dealer sadly although the obvious is right in front of them they'll only(maybe due to protocol)swap the defective unit over, this ensuring revenue for the parts department and a qualified repair is carried out, without attempting to repair the otherwise serviceable unit, which is the reason why as an Indy if we're confident we can do it we set free to tackle this sort of thing and get things back to where they should be at a fraction of the price

Glad you got it sorted

[Ess]

Thanks Steve. I'm sure you're right with that analysis!

So just to sum up for anyone who might get this problem, my symptoms were as follows:

1. The upshift in DS mode stopped working
2. Then DS mode including both manual up and manual down stopped working
3. The PRND light also stopped working

All of the above were fixed by the following:

1. Put the car into Neutral and then remove the shift knob (just pull it straight up, might require a bit of force)
2. Remove centre console trim (just pull it off starting from the top near the armrest, it comes off with force)
3. Unscrew the 3 Torx bolts holding the shifter assembly down so you can move the assembly to access the next step
4. Remove the black plastic cover to the right with the three little Torx screws
5. Remove the tape from the wires and locate where they are damaged
6. Repair the wires (my colleague soldered them)
7. Put it all back together and enjoy!