What's my Christmas Tree telling me

[gt2200]

Having owned my X5 (2005 X5 30d) for a couple of months I decided it was time to change some tyres, do the front discs/pads and carry out a service.

All was fine until the next day, when accelerating away from a junction my 4x4 inactive light / ABS / Handbrake light etc all lite up on the dash!!! The Speedometer is still working and having checked / cleaned all the ABS sensors I'm struggling to come up with a solution.

I took the car to a local indy and he's put it on the diagnostic and has said the transfer box has gone! Anyone else got any ideas, all just seems a bit weird after just carrying out some routine maintenance.

HELP!

[northernlight]

Yep, been there, done that!

It's a fairly well known issue. If you are lucky, you have a stripped gear in the transfer case actuator motor. These can be bought separately (place in States sells for about £100), fairly easy job to do.

If that's not the case then unfortunately (like me) you're in for a big bill. The transfer case will cost £2500 at an Indie all in.

Be careful driving when the warning lights are on as you've got no 4WD, traction control or ABS. So it's like a big go-kart. Which is fun in the right conditions!

[northernlight]

Having said that, if you've had no clunks or any mechanical sounding issues then could be a sensor fault somewhere.

You should get the specific fault code from the garage. 5F3A is the doomsday one....

[Mick.H]

When you say no 4wd. What does it revert to Rwd or Fwd?

[northernlight]

RWD. That's the main drivetrain on the car. The front wheels operate via a complex clutch system in the transfer case and front diff to give traction to whichever wheel needs it most. Think it's normally about a 60/40 rear/front split. Xdrive seems to be a very effective system, when it works.....

However, when the system senses a fault, it disconnects the transfer case entirely so you essentially have the same as any other RWD BMW, albeit with no abs or traction as with the circuit broken the computer cant' tell what the front wheels are doing.

Hence the need for caution...not ideal going sideways with 2 tonnes!

[Mick.H]

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Awesome thanks!  I quite like the sound of that

[shadrack]

[quote="gt2200"]
Having owned my X5 (2005 X5 30d) for a couple of months I decided it was time to change some tyres, do the front discs/pads and carry out a service.

All was fine until the next day, when accelerating away from a junction my 4x4 inactive light / ABS / Handbrake light etc all lite up on the dash!!! The Speedometer is still working and having checked / cleaned all the ABS sensors I'm struggling to come up with a solution.

I took the car to a local indy and he's put it on the diagnostic and has said the transfer box has gone! Anyone else got any ideas, all just seems a bit weird after just carrying out some routine maintenance.

HELP!
[/quote]

what size are the tyres? I changed the 2 rears for new ones of slightly different size and the lights all lit when accelerating hard

[Gazzi c]

Mine did that once after fitting anew throttle body boot turned out I'd forgot to plug the maf back in :-[