Hi All,

Longtime lurker and first time poster; don't flame me too hard

I have a 2001 4.4 X5 Neiman Marcus Edition with just over 75k miles. Car runs great but i have been chasing after an issue for about three months with no results yet.

The speedometer will intermittenlty shut off and the Brake, ABS, and DSC lights come on. Most of the time this is caused by the left rear wheel speed sensor.

Not having a scanning tool like i did with my Audi (VAG-COM), i took it to a local indy shop with good reviews. The indy shop installed a new wheel speed senor and the fault returned. I found out later they installed the wrong part number, more on that later. Since the fault returned, they tried to repack the wheel bearing as well as installing and subsequently unistalled a new ABS module and instrument cluster as neither of those changed the fault from returning.

The indy shop was baffled and surrendered the car back to me. When i picked the vehicle up, the ABS system was going nuts and i wasn't even able to drive the car around the block since the ABS system kept kicking in with the wrong part installed. I had the car flatbedded to a BMW dealership in hopes they could get to the bottom of the issue.

They didn't. First time the vehicle went in they informed me the wrong part was installed as their was a model split and the correct part (34-52-6-756-380) would remedy the error. New part installed, the techs were satisfied and i picked up the vehicle. No less than 24 hours later, the symptoms of speedo, ABS, DSC, and Brake lights returned. I spoke with the service manager and he said to bring it back and they'll re-inspect.

Upon the second trip to the BMW dealership, they believed that a stripped hole where the wheel speed sensor attaches to the bearing was causing the sensor to rattle under operation and cause an intermittent signal failure. A new wheel hub was installed and the fault returned once more, this time with the addition of the SLS Inactive light.

I spoke with the shop foreman this time and he said he tried swapping the wheel speed sensors on the back two wheels and the fault didn't follow the newly installed part but stayed at the left rear wheel. He informed me he also checked all the wiring and used a multimeter to check the voltage, which were all within normal parameters when he cleared the vehicles faults.

In speaking with the foreman and service manager, they said they felt "95% sure" that the real cause is the DSC Control Unit and the Control Unit for the ride height sensors as a new ride height sensor didn't remedy the SLS light. All said in done, i was quoted another $4,000 in addition to the $1,200 i spent for the new sensor and wheel hub. They gave me a list of faults, which are as follows:

00008C DME: Activation, map cooling
00001E DSC: Wheel-speed sensor, rear left, transmits no signal
0000BD IKE: Electronic brake-force distribution
000001 EHC: Ride-level sensor, left
000028 LCM: Light check module: fault stored
S 0002 No communication possible with: Slide/tilt sunroof
S 0039 No communication with: Cruise control

The new DSC part the dealer gave me is 34-52-2-285-045 and the Ride Height Level Control Unit is 37-14-6-874-414.

I have spent about $4k on the car in the last six months, some routine maintanence and the rest on this back and forth with the dealer, so i'm trying to determine what's next for our relationship. The easiest thing would be to get rid of it as-is and never look back. However, I'm hard-headed and want to see if this issue really is the straw that broke the camels back financially or if there is something i'm missing, like a DSC/ABS rebuild or yaw sensor. It could be the first shop had the right idea with the ABS sensor but the wrong wheel speed sensor wouldn't let the two work together correctly; hoping y'all can help me find out.

Sorry for the book, but figured i'd give all the details i have to this point. Thank you in advance!