Clock Spring Replacement Questions?

[TowDawg]

My wife's car had been clicking from the steering wheel for a little while and then last week it finally gave way and the SRS malfunction warning came on.

I installed a new one tonight (complete new assembly with stalks) and upon hooking the battery back up, I've got more issues now.
(The clicking is gone though. lol)

My issues now are:
SRS malfunction warning is still there.
Stability system malfunction is now also on.
Cruise control turns on, but when I try to set it, I get a cruise control malfunction warning.
Blinkers don't automatically turn off after making a turn.

From what I've read, sometimes the car needs to be "programmed" to the new clock spring and sometimes it doesn't.
I guess mine does. Looking at different programmers now that can handle the SRS and Stability malfunctions, but I'm open to suggestions.

I guess my biggest questions for any techs or people that have done this themselves out there, is could all of the new issues be tied to coding the new clock spring, and/or the stability malfunction?
I mean, I could see cruise control not working if the car thinks there's an issue with the stability control.
I could see the blinkers not turning off being related to the car not "recognizing" the new clock spring and not realizing the wheel has been turned.


Just hoping there's some people with first hand experience out there that can share some advice / lessons learned.
(I did try the "turn all the way right, then all the way left and going for a short drive" to reset the stability malfunction, but no luck.)

[White94RX]

It needs to be programmed.

[jclausen]

It's not plug and play that's for sure

[TowDawg]

Thanks guys. Got one of the Foxwell units on the way to be able to program it.

[TowDawg]

Just got through running everything I could find and re-setting/programming areas where I was having issues and I got the SRS, Stability Control, and "auto-off" blinker issues fixed. (Not sure about cruise control. I forgot about that one and didn't test it when I went for a drive.)

[Stück]

You need to use a legitimate diagnosic platform, IE ISTA/P for this.

The Foxwell unit you purchased may as well be made by Playskool, its a toy and not capable of performing real programming tasks from psdzdata.

[TowDawg]

No idea what psdzdata even stands for, but it worked well enough to get it synced with with SRS/SAS/Stability Control to take care of all of those issues.
Certainly not worth the time and ridiculous amount the dealership wants for hooking it up to a computer for a few minutes.

[White94RX]

Certainly not worth the time and ridiculous amount the dealership wants for hooking it up to a computer for a few minutes.

You drive a $50k+ vehicle, but a couple hundred bucks to fix it properly is too much. Wow.

[TowDawg]

You drive a $50k+ vehicle, but a couple hundred bucks to fix it properly is too much. Wow.

Ha! Actually the cheapest vehicle I own.
It's about the hassle of the dealership and the principle of paying for 3 hours of "labor" to hook up a cable and hit a button.
I do all my own work on my race car, the majority of work on my other cars, coach, motorcycles, etc, so I kind of prefer to do my own work. Just looking for some help from someone who had done it. Forgot that a lot of BMW owners "just take it to the dealership".

[Stück]

(its) principle of paying for 3 hours of "labor" to hook up a cable and hit a button.

The depths of your ignorance and disrespect for talented technicians and the work they do is showing for all that actually know what they are talking about to see.

How many F cars have you programmed with ISTA/P?

[White94RX]

I'm going to say not a single one, since you can't program anything past an E car with ISTA/P. They're all done through regular ISTA now.

I can't speak for other tech's or dealerships, but we only charge 1.5 for programming a car. There's more to it than just hooking it up and pressing a button. It's also occupying a stall or lift for anywhere from 30 minutes up to all day. That lift or stall is worth money because it can be used to make money on other vehicles while your car is just sitting there programming. And if anything goes haywire during programming, or any modules crash, it can take hours upon hours to properly recover them, and finish the programming properly. This can even involve BMW connecting to the car remotely from New Jersey and programming or resetting certain modules that have crashed. And believe me, when shit goes wrong programming, it's not even worth the 1.5 hours labor anymore and I wish I never would have gotten the job. So yeah, sorry we're a hassle for you and we cost too much. I as well prefer to do all my own work, but there's just some things I can't do without the proper tools and experience. Maybe it will take a little of the burn out of a visit to the dealership when you actually know what it takes sometimes.

[Stück]

Eh, ISTA vs ISTA/P is semantics in BMW's ever changing evolution of the diagnostic and programming apparatus game. Dealer access is going to be different than me, as an independent, that buys an annual subscription and accesses through OSS. The loading screen still says P to me ;-p

Adding the world of wasted time spelled out above is the fact that BMW is constantly issuing software updates rendering the files you downloaded last week or even the day before outdated, requiring you to download more specific program data before you can even program the vehicle. These update packages are often several gigabytes in size.

1.5 is our standard charge as well, and its a gift from the BMW gods when it actually gets done inside that window of tech involved time. It almost never does, particular on aging vehicles when someone cheap ass has swapped used control units into it and ISTA has a GD cow over it.