ABS, Brake and DBC Malfunction warnings

[ATSR]

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:

[Dackelone]

Yes, I have seen a few posts about this ABS Block going bad. Maybe you should hit up BMW NA and see what they can do for you. Might be covered partly or mostly, you don't know until you ask/cry to them.

There is a company over here that repairs these ABS Block ECU's. Their name is tachopix.de or Digital Tuning Service, in Hanover, Germany.

Here is the link (in English) to the e87 ABS Block. I am sure they can also repair e82's as well. Send them an email and ask.

http://www.tachopix.de/controlunit/n.../pagetype.iav/


They recently repaired the pixel failure on my old BMW e39 instrument panel. 155 euros for the repair. Took them less than half a day. With the next day mail over here my car was down three days start to finish!


Dack

[GaryS]

Originally Posted by ATS

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.

There's no possibility of replacing it with a used ABS hydro unit?

[ATSR]

Originally Posted by Dackelone

Yes, I have seen a few posts about this ABS Block going bad. Maybe you should hit up BMW NA and see what they can do for you. Might be covered partly or mostly, you don't know until you ask/cry to them.

There is a company over here that repairs these ABS Block ECU's. Their name is tachopix.de or Digital Tuning Service, in Hanover, Germany.

Here is the link (in English) to the e87 ABS Block. I am sure they can also repair e82's as well. Send them an email and ask.

http://www.tachopix.de/controlunit/n.../pagetype.iav/


They recently repaired the pixel failure on my old BMW e39 instrument panel. 155 euros for the repair. Took them less than half a day. With the next day mail over here my car was down three days start to finish!


Dack

Thank you very for the reply Dack

I don't know if I will contact BMW NA about this issue though. They will probably just say "sorry your car is out of warranty, tough luck". Even when the car has a warranty they try to avoid as much as possible to fix an issue, so I can't imagine them paying for anything that is out of warranty.

I'll research the website link you sent me and see if I can work something out with them.

[ATSR]

Originally Posted by GaryS

There's no possibility of replacing it with a used ABS hydro unit?

Not with my BMW mechanic. He warranties his work for 1yr/12K miles so he doesn't accept used parts from anybody.

Besides, if these ABS units have been identified as a troublesome part, the used part will probably fail soon too.