[ms.hbomb]

I hate to be one of those people that joins a forum just to ask a question but I have used the forum extensively for a while just haven't needed to post.
So my question is when a FRM 'bricks' if you will, does it only kill the circuit that was problematic only or is it a random circuit issue when there is a short that can cause unrelated circuits to be affected? I had the typical bad trunk harness wires with a reverse light failure, fixed them up, then realized it was too late and my FRM was beyond resetting and picked up a used one (supposedly guaranteed to be good). But upon installing the replacement FRM and recoding it to the car I had completely different light issues than I had before. Spent some time hunting shorts or breaks in the wires in the trunk and all the doors and found nothing. I put my old FRM back in in case there was actually still a short somewhere and I didn't want to lock up the replacement FRM but now the new light issues I had with the replacement FRM are fine and it's back to the old issues I had before. So could the new FRM be bad and the car it came from have had a different light issue? And my other question is is there a way to find shorts and breaks in the wiring without putting a new FRM in so that I'm not risking wrecking a new FRM since this time I think I'm better off going new (didn't want to burn $700 on a stupid module but this is getting annoying)

[mweisdorfer]

Originally Posted by ms.hbomb

I hate to be one of those people that joins a forum just to ask a question but I have used the forum extensively for a while just haven't needed to post.
So my question is when a FRM 'bricks' if you will, does it only kill the circuit that was problematic only or is it a random circuit issue when there is a short that can cause unrelated circuits to be affected? I had the typical bad trunk harness wires with a reverse light failure, fixed them up, then realized it was too late and my FRM was beyond resetting and picked up a used one (supposedly guaranteed to be good). But upon installing the replacement FRM and recoding it to the car I had completely different light issues than I had before. Spent some time hunting shorts or breaks in the wires in the trunk and all the doors and found nothing. I put my old FRM back in in case there was actually still a short somewhere and I didn't want to lock up the replacement FRM but now the new light issues I had with the replacement FRM are fine and it's back to the old issues I had before. So could the new FRM be bad and the car it came from have had a different light issue? And my other question is is there a way to find shorts and breaks in the wiring without putting a new FRM in so that I'm not risking wrecking a new FRM since this time I think I'm better off going new (didn't want to burn $700 on a stupid module but this is getting annoying)

Buying a used FRM module is always a risk. My best advice would be to buy a new FRM 2 or 3 depending on what's in your car and what your budget is.

A new FRM 3 is around $500.00, on FCP Euro & it comes with a lifetime warranty. If you search google high & low with the part number & "BMW" before the part number, you might find a dealer for less. Morristown in NJ tends to sell items cheaper.