Brake, ABS, DSC lights, speed sensor issue?

[X5User]

The Brake, ABS and DSC lights up, typically after the first hour drive after a flat battery, turning off, restarting hours later. Those lights are usually on within 20 metres of movement. In addition to this, when the brake is applied lightly at above 90 km/h the whole vehicle wobbles on the horizontal plane like a wheel sensor has failed, this reduces with intensity with speed reduction down to about 60 km/h. Brakes were replaced by the previous owner who said that the speed sensor was damaged. Before purchase, about 30% of the front end was rebuilt including an outer front CV boot (grunge?), 3 ball joints, tie rod, left hand control arm bushes. There are no 'thunk' sounds from the front end. It's possible that the vehicle may be a victim of cut/shut where wires may have been damaged. Besides replacing a few dash lights, reseating indicator, park, brake and rego lights only the right front park light doesn't work. Recently, the dash indicators for the right and left turn don't make any noise, brake lights or park lights stay on although this may be related to safety features as I read today. I'm in Australia but the dash is set to UK. I accessed what I believe were test codes, I ran them 3 times. I'm new to OBD but was a mechanic until 1990 so the closest I got to auto electronics was EFI and auto oscilloscopes. Test 2 dash functioned normally, whereas the following except for diag 5 being all zeros.

diag: 1 bd d0 211
diag: 1 bd d0 219
diag: 2 11 84 016
diag: 2 11 84 019
diag: 3 be c8 085
diag: 3 be c8 090
diag: 4 8d 50 018
diag: 4 8d 90 018
diag: 4 8d 50 040

I doubt there's 9 wheel speed sensors all throwing errors. I have looked at the RHF speed sensor and emptied out the dust from the connector and scrapped the grunge off that sensor. I wasn't successful measuring the resistance.

Calibration was ~1007 but may have messed that up because it started displaying outside temperature as -40 C when it was around 14 C outside, I suspect the engine coolant gauge was also reading about 60 C despite running in the normal range for an hour. Before this there was no issues with coolant temperature. After playing around further possibly resetting something the outside temperature then read 50 C despite being 14 C.

[X5Sport]

Hello and welcome. I strongly recommend that you have the error code log read out via the diagnostics port. That will give you a set of Hex codes that can then be interpreted to tell you where to look. If possible avoid using a ‘generic’ reader as they tend to use ‘P’ codes rather than the proper BMW error codes. Without those codes, or at least access to the BMW diagnostics software you will end up chasing your tail for what might be a simple fault.

Wheel vibration under braking is frequently cause by either a seized brake calliper or warped brake disc. A wheel speed sensor will not cause vibration. A ‘sticky’ brake usually leaves the relevant wheel warmer to the touch than the other three.

A bad battery will often trigger the ‘trifecta’ as it’s known. It can be resolved by charging (or replacing) the battery and then at very low speed turning the steering from full lock to opposite full lock. Known to many E53 owners. Not always the case, but it’s a simple place to start from.

[henrym3]

Looking at what you say I would take X5Sport advice and start with the battery. Needs to be in top condition or it will throw up all sorts of faults. As the faults reappear after driving then a good check of the charging system might be in order. As you’re getting lots of lights on it’s unlikely they have all failed at the same time. If you own one of these the best money you will ever spend is on a code reader and make sure it can read data especially wheel speed sensors. If one has failed it will throw up all the faults you describe and more including gearbox. Good luck.

[Alan Gunn]

As above.
Codes need to be read with bmw gear and cleared first and read again after a short run.
By bmw gear i mean a code reader specific for bmw as some can tell porkies my Snap-On does.

[henrym3]

Was fitting new head unit yesterday and got distracted by the wife cutting her finger, by the time I got back to the car the battery was below 8v. (Had left doors open ignition on) After jumping it I had all the trafica lights and g/b in limp mode. Stuck in 4th gear. Even with a drive in 4th and having cleared all the faults it remained in 4th. So before panic set in I stuck it on the charger overnight and this morning all is good and back to normal. To me this just emphasises how sensitive these thing are to a tip top battery.