Something very strange started happening with my 1999 E39 BMW 528IT:
- Occasionally the speedometer stops working (showing a speed of 0 mph), and of course this also messes up the MPG and MPH averages in the on-board computer.
- When that happens, the automatic transmission also goes into FailSafe mode (gear light goes on the cluster). With the car in "D", the automatic transmission appears to be stuck into high gear, and is no longer shifting up or down, making starts from a full stop very sluggish. However I can still shift into 1st, 2nd or 3rd gear manually if I want to, so I am guessing that the transmission is working fine, and that the instrument cluster problems may have something to do with this.
- The ASC and ABS lights are also on a lot (almost all the time), although this could be caused by something else (or not...).
I took my car to the nearest BMW dealership, and they say that they can't read the fault codes (diagnostic equipment cannot establish connection with computer), so they are at a loss to tell me what is wrong with my car...
Would it be possible for a faulty instrument cluster to cause such problems?
I don't think the transmission is bad, as I can shift manually - I suspect that this might an electrical problem of some sort, but without diagnostic codes, it's hard to tell what to replace before finding the root cause to the problem...
Thanks,
JP Abello