2005 545i body module issues and programming / cloning

[nmlss2006]

Posting for a friend who presently has little internet access.


He has a 2005 545i with ~80kmi on the clock. After a period of very little use, he's putting some miles on the car and has had intermittent electrical issues for a while.


A coil issue that started when he had sparkplugs replaced was apparently solved by cleaning contacts.


OTOH, he now has fairly random issues which include the gearbox going into limp-home mode and one of the parking lights not working.


It shows up randomly at startup and can be temporarily cleared by restarting the car.


A local mechanic, apparently competent, suggested replacing the body module. Is this a viable possibility?


An additional issue is, he has a non-stock (M5) cluster and several added options, so what would the process be to program the new module correctly?




Edit: someone mentioned using a [device not software] called 'MAX PRO 2' to clone the existing BM firmware into the new unit. However, I couldn't even find it, any light there would also be welcome as well as possible alternatives.

[MysticRob]

Have him check grounds and ensure battery is fully charged. Weak state of charge on battery can play hell since everything depends on the electrical system working well enough to not starve the bazillion modules on these things.
Not sure on the coding aspects...

[nmlss2006]

Thank you Rob.
Battery has been checked and seems ok. Visual inspection of engine grounds did not reveal any glaring issues.

Further diagnosis has been very difficult because.. nothing is showing up on the diag pulls. The error with the gearbox, however, repeats itself randomly at first startup. The absolutely confusing part is that even WHEN the gearbox is in 'limp home' mode, there are no errors in the diag *and* the gearbox will allow you to use 2nd, which it should not. Shut the car off, wait ten minutes, restart... no problem. The only clue so far is that IF the car starts off without an issue, the issue doesn't show up afterwards. If it shows up at startup, it will stay until the car is turned off.

Current thought is 'test all the sensors electrically to see if one of them is having issues', but it's kind of a shot in the dark. I suggested adding the wiring loom and connectors to the sensors themselves.

[MysticRob]

Does he have INPA or ISTA, or any of the myriad BMW phone apps that exist to scan the error code(s) he's seeing on the tranny?
I use xHP on my android phone and it works great to read errors.
What with all the seemingly unconnected issues he's having, I'm wondering if he has water intrusion issues.

[nmlss2006]

He does and that's a significant part of the issue: there are no codes present or stored. Which is driving everyone nuts. And yes, something MUST have happened, but it's really odd, because this car spends its life in a heated underground garage. The main issue it has, if any, is that it spends months at a time in the garage on a battery maintainer. Then it gets pulled out for 1000+ mile trips... and this kind of stuff happens. Every time.
I was unaware that xHP could read codes as well, BTW. Good to know!