Water damage to dash interior -- MID display & buttons not work even after replacing

[tnken]

I have water damage to my dash from the sunroof drains becoming clogged. The drains have been fixed and cleared, the car dried for months in the garage, and then checked for water leaks again before working on it.

My problem is the center dash navigation unit, that I understand is known as a MID, is not working. The car will turn on and start, but the display never comes on and I hear the radio. I cannot enter the immobilization code and when it does occasionally trigger the immobilizer, I have to do that 10 minutes wait thing to start the car

I tried replacing the unit with a "known good' one from eBay but I have the same problem. My original was part number 65-52-9 934 412 and I replaced it with a 65-52-9 934 413. From what I understand this kind of swap out is ok because the difference is just viewing angle. I pulled the nav computer from the trunk and it is part number 6590 6 920 182-03 but I have not replaced it

The dash works mostly but the turn signals do not. Occasionally when I turn the ignition off I can see the DIM show information for a brief second. When it needs the immobilization code and I turn it off, for a brief second I see the 0000 code request on the display

Any suggestions on where to go from here? I don't mind replacing computers and units. I've got to get this car fixed because the wife unit insists on getting her car back. Help?

[JimLev]

Welcome to the forum tnken.
Have you checked all the fuses just above the glove box and the ones under the carpet on the front pass side?

[tnken]

I checked all the fuses in the glove box just now. Pulled each one and ohm'd them out. None were bad. I'm gonna go after the passenger floor fuse box now. I know there was water down there

[JimLev]

If you disconnect any of the wires under the seat remove the negative battery terminal first so you don’t trip the SRS (airbag) light.
the fuse block under the carpet powers almost everything in the car and under the hood.

[tnken]

Yep got the battery disconnected. The front pass seat loosened, trim removed, and lifted the carpet. He's the weird part: there is some water in there! The tub wasn't full but definitely the underside of the carpet and foam area had a soaking lot of water and that white box with fuse/breakers in it was wet all around but not submerged. It is corroded but none of the wires are broken and I wiggled them and wiped it off

That car had a a lot of water in it when we originally parked it in the garage. It sat there inside for the past 9 months. When I parked it, I vacuumed and wiped all the surface water and then left it. The other day, after cleaning the sunroof drains, we carefully ran water all over each window and then put a lot of water down each of the 4 sunroof drains. I live on a hill so I was able to point the car up/down to verify the rear sunroof drains made it out under the rear bumper. I had someone inside the car the entire time checking for leaks and noises. Nothing

Is it really possible that there is still water under the carpet 9 months later?

[tnken]

I did it safe. Got under there and found water in the tub! I had the car sitting the garage for the past 9 months. When we parked it I wet/dry vacuumed it out. The other day, once we confirmed the sunroof drains were cleared out and working, we ran water all over the car and had someone inside checking for leaks or noises. Nothing

Is it possible there is water under the carpet that had been trapped in there for 9 months?

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

I did it safe. Got under there and found water in the tub! I had the car sitting the garage for the past 9 months. When we parked it I wet/dry vacuumed it out. The other day, once we confirmed the sunroof drains were cleared out and working, we ran water all over the car and had someone inside checking for leaks or noises. Nothing

Is it possible there is water under the carpet that had been trapped in there for 9 months?

Of course water could have been trapped and all pooled up down there. If it has, you would also be smelling nasty levels of mildew,

[tnken]

So if the top of my carpet throughout the car is dry, then does that mean the door plastic vapor shield or whatever is intact and the water under the carpet did not come from something like that in the door when we were water testing it?

How likely is it that the sunroof drain lines are damaged if I am getting good water flow out of them on all 4 corners to the under car drains on all 4 corners?

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

Wow man, instead of all these questions, use your head. Think. So you already knew that your drains were clogged? Or were they cracked, leaking? So, we are talking the front passenger side, right? If the right front drain was leaking, then the path it would have taken was down the A pillar, correct? So, hmmmm.... where do we look.... well, I’d be worried about the LCM module, that module is behind the right front kick panel. Pull the kick panel out of the way, yes, that involves pulling the inner step strip, pull all that out, then you can pull the curved piece of trim out, and then you can fold the carpet <<< the kick panel carpet out of the way. The LCM is bolted on the side wall, one bolt 10mm, pull down and out. Peak through the cooling holes, either it will be clean electronics in there, or water damaged, corroded electronics. Open the sunroof, pour water in the rail and see if water is flowing down the wall where the LCM was located. It will be a small stream of running water, quiet, you will not hear it, so use your eyes. The door seals why test them with the doors closed? Leave them open, why let more water into the car?

So with the windows rolled up have someone run water on the glass, rain water is designed to go into the door through the belt molding seals, there are two drains on each corner of the bottoms on E39 doors. If debris is in the doors, this happens when you always park your car under crap dispensing trees, trees that shed a bunch of crap when it rains, this crap finds it’s way inside the doors, then it dams up the drains, water pools up inside the doorshell, and the vapor barriers give way, especially when somebody had to replace a regulator, all of us go through that with these wonderfully beautiful cars, no cars are perfect, and neither are their owners, so vapor barriers were not properly put back on, rain water gets in there, and it will find the weak part in the seal.

So back to the water leak test, if the vapor barrier seal is bad, it usually is at the bottom because cycles of rain, hard rain hammered on it, and it will break loose at the bottom, I’m not a rocket scientist, but I slept at a Holiday Inn about a month and a half ago. If the seal is bad, and the person you tasked at holding the hose hasn’t given up, you will see water start running out from under the inner door panel. If that’s been going on for a long time, the fiber board under neath the vinyl pleather will be nice and rotten with mildew as a side dish.

Secret to a proper seal, new butyl rubber from 3M, $16 a roll at Advanced or whatever auto parts store turns you on. The other part of the secret, clean the surfaces very well, including the crap that stuck real well to the vapor barriers foam, be patient, be meticulous. I actually use 3M adhesive promoter on the doorshell, and on the foam vapor barrier. Apply the butyl rubber on to the door, then before you splat the vapor barrier back on, Use a heat gun to heat up the butyl rubber, soften it up, it gets even stickier, don’t heat the whole thing up, and expect the earlier heated sections to still be hot, start at the top, locate the vapor barrier, press it on, then continue heating up short sections as you go, get the bottom sections hot, press it on really well, I even use a 1 inch wide wooden roller to press it down.

The water under the carpet, like Jim said, disconnect the battery, remove the seats, pull the carpet up, the center console has to come out if you want to pull the carpet, just prop the cart corners up with a long screw driver if you have some, anything, no tools, no props, a freakin 2x4, use something to prop the carpet up. Pull all the foam out, some will be brittle, try not to rip it all up. If there is water down there, it will be a lot, it will blow your mind, suck it in, pull out the shopvac, make that suck the water out, then disinfect the floor with some cleaner, something with bleach maybe, but maybe even just Simple Green should be good. The shopvac likes to suck, use that some more and suck the water out of the foam and the carpet, if that was wet. The electrical box under the passenger floor will be wonderfully corroded. Pray that it’s not far gone, you can take it all apart and clean it up real well, or at least as well as possible, inspect the copper on the wires at the connections, if they are black, they will have built up resistance, and should be cut off as far up as the black death goes, you can snag some from cars at the scrapyards, cut more than you need, solder them onto the good wire in the car, use really good heavy duty heat shrink. Now, I like to solder, theres been an age old argument as to which is better, crimping or soldering, they’re both good, if you know how to properly solder, and seal up with good heat shrink, or have the proper crimping tools, the proper crimps, preferably the crimps with the real heavy duty heat shrink already wrapped onto them. Your choice. Before you bolt the connections back on, dialectric grease is your friend. Good luck!

[tnken]

Wow man, instead of all these questions, use your head

I went back and counted. I see 4 questions I asked in this thread, all the while including as much detail as I thought relevant to help whoever might happen by to provide me assistance. Maybe I misunderstood the purpose of this forum. I do have a head and I do use it quite frequently

Regardless, thanks for your reply and the additional information

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

Not giving you a hard time, just telling you to use your head. Its really common sense. I was answering your last question, the one right before my response. If i was giving you a hard time, I wouldn’t have wasted my time trying to give you some pointers.

Here’s another one. You never know the history of the car, unless it has been in your possession from the very beginning. Has it had the windshield replaced? If so, it could have been done by a hack. If he didn’t properly use urethane primer, the scratches that he put on the metal slicing the old windshield out, tha would be a bad prelude to rust, through the years, it could finally break through and there’s your leak. I hope it’s not that, but I’ve seen it before so many times, back in the days when I worked at bodyshops.

[tnken]

All of that info you posted is really helpful. Based on what I was looking at, I am going to completely pull the carpet and take a full look under there. In the past, I already had pulled both front seats to do that electric motor repair where the cables popped out and I still need to fix one of the gas tank floats; I've got spare sensors for those from a junk yard

What gets me about the current water is the top of the carpet is completely dry. Originally when I parked it because the inside was soaked from the rain, there was LOTS of water on the floor and I got it all out

So that's why I was asking if it was possible to get lots of water UNDER the carpet without any on top from simply washing the car and running water outside all around the seams and sunroof drains. I'm trying to confirm as best I can that my original problem of a water breach is solved

I'm aware of the underside hole stoppers and how they can gather road water underneath the car while driving. I've not been in that circumstance since parking or testing it

Sat in garage for 9 months

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

Yeah, I hear you man. We have all, well, I’m sure most of us have been through all this. If you have not, it’s a miracle from the BMW gods, and they’ve been holding back to nail you with a doozy. They’re messed up that way. Or, you just have not messed with these old BMWs enough.
The carpets can be dry up top, but the foam underneath is almost three inches thick, and can hold a ton of water.
Sorry for my gruff ways of grabbing your attention, it works on most people, and gets them going in the right direction. Open all the doors, pull the inner panels, tug at the bottom of the vapor barriers, go up the sides to at least halfway up, if the barriers are compromised, you will be able to pull it off the doorshell very easily. If your window regulators are sketchy, order good new ones and do them now so you don’t have to compromise the vapor barrier seals all over again.

[scottieducati]

I would also check your brake booster box and the plug near the top / bottom of windshield.


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[tnken]

if the barriers are compromised, you will be able to pull it off the doorshell very easily

Think I'll get some of that door material you suggested and do it right since it sounds like sooner or later those doors need to be worked over.

When I pressure tested the closed sunroof, I didn't get any spray-through into the interior, but afterwards, there was a slight amount of water in the sunroof troughs, not enough to hit the drains, but it was there. I'm supposing that means my sunroof is sealing acceptably because I really blasted the seam all the way around

And I suppose I'm forced to deal with all these details until I can figure out why the MID controls are not working. It is odd the screen lights up with BMW but never goes to the regular menu. The radio usually comes on after battery reconnect but not always. I wonder which other supporting computer or modules feeds the MID. Whatever it is, probably broken

I would also check your brake booster box and the plug near the top / bottom of windshield.

Will do. Thanks

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

Hell, my green wagons passenger side window regulators went about 8 months ago, I have the new regulators, went ahead and got oem overpriced ones, but I’m sure those won’t have me doing them again for quite some time. I am sick and tired of the aftermarket crap breaking every couple of years. I am so sick and tired of having to clean the doorshell, and vapor barriers and resetting new butyl rubber, so sick of it, I’ve had the new regulators for well over seven months and still have to do them. I was waiting for the drivers side to go, but they both work flawlessly, I even bought oem regulators for those too. Got a whole custom sound system to do, so I am getting ready to tear the whole car apart, do it all at the same time. The clear coat on the roof, and hood, both fenders and drivers door, new M5 front bumper and rear bumper and tailgate are getting re painted, so yeah, the stupid window regs are all gonna get replaced soon. Glad I have another E39 wagon to drive while the green one gets a makeover. I just have such a hard time driving anything else, I have a souped up 2003 Mini Cooper S, and I don’t really care to drive it much, don’t get me wrong, driving that thing is fun, but I just feel better in my green wagon. I can’t imagine not having a spare E39 to drive, there’s something wrong with me....

[tnken]

I'm that way with VO's. Got 2 v70 T5's sitting the driveway with blown headgaskets

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

Shoot! The silver wagon I have that I never drive, all it’s windows work! As soon as I start driving that thing on a daily basis, when I tear my green one apart, thats when the windows go, lol! Why? Because we are gluttons for punishment. Two Volvo’s with blown head gaskets? I think you’re terminal.