At 6:45am in December, when it's freezing cold, dark and you've just pulled into the work's car park, the last thing you want from your car is a warning not to turn the engine off.
However, that's exactly the situation I was in. Not fancying leaving the car running for 9 hours, I took a photo of the warnings and headed on into work.
The full warning message read:
Steering lock faulty
Electronic steering wheel lock is not disabled once the engine has been switched off.
Engine cannot be restarted.
If the engine is running, do not switch off.
And was accompanied by a red warning icon of a padlock covering a steering wheel in the upper board computer display in the dials.
After some initial Googling, it seemed a dying battery might be the culprit, resulting in some electrical gremlins.
I started by checking the voltage the battery was producing using the hidden menu voltage read out. If you don't know, follow this How-to guide to access the hidden menus on E9X cars.
Acceptable car battery voltages:
- Engine off, ignition on: 12.4V - 12.6V
- Engine on: 13.7V - 14.7V.
Mine were displaying within those ranges at 12.4V and 14.6V respectively.
Just to be sure, I called in at Halfords on the way home (the car started and drove fine by the way) and had them do a free health check on the battery.
They tested it and said it was within normal tolerances, even though the battery was only producing 530CCA of it's original 640CCA. Despite being ok for now, it'd probably be ready for renewal in the near future.
After further Googling, I stumbled across a post suggesting it might be something to do with the ELV counter reaching it's max count and throwing the error.
To reset the counter, you'd need a working install of EDIABAS ToolSet 32 and INPA on your laptop. Several frustrating evenings later I had my laptop, OBD2 cable and software all talking to each other.
Thankfully, the hardest part of the job was behind me, all that remained was to simply reset the counter. To do that, I just had to run two CAS jobs, simples.
- steuern_elvcounter_cas_loeschen
- steuern_elvcounter_elv_loeschen
Miraculously, this did actually fix the fault, the car still drives fine and no warnings have come up since. I can't recall the last time I fixed my car without having to spend a penny...
If you've been experiencing this problem too, head on over to my How-to guide on fixing the E92 steering lock fault for the full step by step instructions.
Let me know what you think below, when was the last time you fixed your car for nothing?
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Where do you get the toolset 32 and cables my car won't start no lights come on and lock steering light on
ReplyDeleteHi there,
DeleteFirstly, the OBD cable, make sure you get a cable with a green PCB, the ones with a white PCB are cheap knock off's that will fail or never work (I found out the hard way).
I got mine from Amazon in the end, so I would have no troubles returning it if it didn't work. Unfortunately the company I got it from on the Amazon marketplace aren't selling it any more.
I've had a very quick look and spotted this one, it looks like it's provided with the software, but you might want to check with the seller before purchase as the listing isn't specific.
Amazon | BMW OBD2 Cable
If that's no good, there are plenty on eBay, just search for "BMW OBD2 INPA" etc and it'll return a long list of options.
Hope this helps, fingers crossed you get your car fixed asap.
Cheers,
Andy.
Andy hello my friend. I am a fellow e90 owner upgraded everything and even a little shot of nitrous on top of build rob becks...ok I have the ole infamous red lock on my steering. damn, damn, damn. just finished installing my line lock ready for testing an this happens..this car is awesome but damn makes me rethink everything. I have everything downloaded I think properly but I can't get it to reset says I need Windows XP. professional. if you could help me figure this out we could work something out.. I need a fellow enthusiast to help me whatever you need my friend. so if you could hit me up email lockabaciscojr@gmail.com I would be in your debt. I live in New Orleans so hit me back my cell is 228-213-6015 you can text me thanks bro..
ReplyDelete