Using INPA 5.0.2 to activate a new AFS module in an E60

[reedog117]

Using INPA 5.02 I'm trying to initialize a brand new active steering module in my car.

I first went into the Satellite Steering Column Module (SZL) and made sure that my steering angle sensor reads 0 when the wheel is perfectly straight.

Then I went to the Active Steering Module. First I ran the function that makes sure that the VIN is sync'ed between some other module and the AFS. Then I set all 'motor position' values to invalid. Then I went through the option to initialize 'motor position' values. I first start with a yellow screen that says to have the steering wheel perfectly straight and has roughly a 10 second delay. Then the screen color changes to blue it says to move the steering wheel around and there are three lines below with on/off indicators that I don't remember off the top of my head.

Here's the problem. The steering wheel won't move. And of course it wouldn't... even though my key is in position II, the car isn't running. Now if I turn on the car, INPA loses the connection to the module. Is there another way around this?

My car is a 2004 545i. I'm connected via a modded USB->OBD-II connector so I can access all modules. I'm running INPA 5.02 in a VM on a Linux laptop.

[reedog117]

Seems I got it to work... after turning on the car after the "blue screen" and driving around for a while, all active steering errors went away.

However, a little while later my steering wheel became very offset and I received an active steering malfunction. However, upon next startup, the errors went away again.

I then decided to go this route, and I haven't seen any errors since

In INPA ---
- Make sure your car is parked with your wheels perfectly straight
- Clear all errors in memory related to both SZL and AFS modules
- Calibrate SZL (invalidate, and then initialize SZL -- make sure your steering wheel is perfectly straight!)
- Initialize AFS (invalidate, and then reinitialize motorposition)
- Drive around for a bit until everything clears up
- Make sure your car is parked with your wheels perfectly straight
- Clear all errors in memory for SZL/AFS again (might have some errors saying that SZL angle measurement isn't matching AFS)
- Double-check SZL calibration (invalidate, and then initialize SZL -- make sure your steering wheel is perfectly straight!)
- Initialize AFS (invalidate, and then reinitalize motorposition)
- Make sure your car is parked with your wheels perfectly straight
- Drive around for a bit
- Clear all errors in memory for SZL/AFS again
- Drive around for another bit
- Read SZL/AFS looking for any errors. -- At this point everything seemed to be meshing

Each time I drove around, I made sure to hit from lock-to-lock in a parking lot or during road driving.

Ends up the dealer was also trying to tell me my steering wheel was straight for the longest time, but in reality, my steering wheel was offset 6 deg to the right. Grrrr... at least I can fix it myself now.

[pshovest]

Thanks for the feedback.
You've cleared all the errors several times. I hope they're gone for good.
What prompted you to change the AFS module?

Paul S
BMW CCA 69606

[reedog117]

Thanks for the feedback.
You've cleared all the errors several times. I hope they're gone for good.
What prompted you to change the AFS module?

Faulty sunroof cassette had some sort of leak that had water from the sunroof penetrating into the passenger footwell -- frying out my Active Steering module (and potentially my subwoofer too).

What sucks is that the dealer already replaced it once, but didn't diagnose the sunroof as being the cause, then I had to deal with it again later.

I guess I was just being thorough clearing out the errors multiple times -- a lot of the errors I was getting after recal'ing the SZL were the SZL and AFS coming up with different readings for steering angle, so I just wanted to make sure they were both in sync.