Found fried wire in harness to DME - anyone know what it’s for?

[seem3go]

Hey guys, I removed my DME today to try to track down another issue I am having and found a wire that was fried in the harness that connects to the DME.

Does anyone know what this wire is for? Looks like it goes into this heat shrinked yellow cap that is right before the big DME plug. The wire that’s burnt up is light brown, like all the wires going into the heat shrink cap thing. It looks like two bigger gauge brown wires and two smaller gauge brown wires go into the cap thing.

The car is a 1997 m3 5spd







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[seem3go]

Correction: looks like one larger gauge wire and one smaller gauge wire (the fried one) go into the yellow cap from the engine side. And then 5 wires go out of the cap and head towards the DME (3 larger and 2 smaller gauge wires). All wires are brown.


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[cashmancab]

Most likely a bundle of ground wires. Use a meter, touch the wire and a known ground point, should see continuity.

[bmwstephen]

was this car previously an automatic?

[pbonsalb]

It is a shorted ground wire, possibly from someone using the wrong relay somewhere under the hood. BMW colored relays are rarely interchangeable and you usually cannot swap generic Bosch relays — the use of the pins changes. Splice in new wire and hope you found the extent of the problem. If not you will need a good used engine harness.

[seem3go]

It is a shorted ground wire, possibly from someone using the wrong relay somewhere under the hood. BMW colored relays are rarely interchangeable and you usually cannot swap generic Bosch relays — the use of the pins changes. Splice in new wire and hope you found the extent of the problem. If not you will need a good used engine harness.

Yup looks like this was it, traced it all the way back to the SAP relay. Thankfully it did not fry any other wires and I just soldered in a new ground for the relay and everything works fine.

[Csa00]

I am having the same issue with a 1999 m3. I am trying to figure out the relays and if one is swapped in wrong, but the relay information seems different for each car. Could you post of picture of the relays you have and which they are. I believe that it is fuel pump relay which is a salmon color, then dme relay in the middle that is a light green, and SAP relay closest to fire wall and it is a light green