I was driving on the highway, cruise control on, nothing eventful going on, when suddenly I get all kinds of warnings come up on the dashboard.
Yellow ABS warning on the center display, yellow "Brake" light came on, and the traction control disabled light as well.
iDrive menu also shows:
1. Brake and drive systems malfunction.
2. Dynamic Brake Control (DBC) is not active during emergency braking.
3. Start-off assistance inactive.
"This is not going to be cheap" was my first thought.
After going to my trusted BMW mechanic (NOT the dealer), I was given the suspected terrible news:
ABS hydro unit has gone kaput.
He immediately followed with even worse news: the repair is going to cost me $3000. Out of that, labor is only $200.
Mechanic also told me that this is a fairly common issue.
The car has 67K miles, build date 12/07. I wasn't braking, skidding or anything remotely similar when all the warnings came on. Just driving on a straight line with the cruise control on.
I should've known something like this was going to happen after I kept bragging all over the place about the 128's reliability...
Below you will see pics of my dashboard and iDrive screens: