Hello all,

I just wanted to share something I experienced with my 2006 X5 3.0.
The car has 169k miles and about six months ago, I noticed that I would get a notification about Engine Fail Safe mode as soon as the car would start. However, the car never went to into LIMP mode and would drive pretty normally.

Normal except that I experienced rough shifting from time to time. What was really noticeable was downshifting from gear 3 to 2 as I slowed down.

So in order to fix this. Here are the list of items that I got fixed.
AFT fluid and filter replacement
Replaced 2 motor mounts

I was hoping that doing the fluid replacement would help with the error message, but the error message never went away. The car would drive pretty normally with rough shifting. I did not want to take it to the dealer because I've had pretty bad experiences with dealers fixing other things beyond what I tried to fix so I drove like this for about 5 more months.

Well, as I was browsing youtube and this forum I stumbled on a post or video about Rheingold ISTA. I figured I had nothing to lose when I saw that I could buy it on BimmerDiagnotics.com for less then $20 US dollars. I saw a video detailing how to intall it on Youtube with a $30 DCAN USB device so i took the plunge even ambitiously thinking I can try INSTA P.

I will say installing ISTA D was no small task. It is very involved. It takes about 3 days at least with the download + extracting and installation, but I finally got it working.

I decided to take at clearing the faults using ISTA D and the Engine Fail Safe finally went away. Keep in mind that I also was able to clear fault codes using my bluetooth OBD scanner. That never cleared the Engine Failsafe.

I took the car out for a drive and I am amazed at how smooth the car is running. I can't believe it and am so happy. The car did not need a new transmission, but is running so silky smooth.

I also realized after watching some youtube videos that I should not touch ISTA P for programming. That is really dangerous and you really have to be an expert with more highly sophisticated cabling and battery stabilizers.

I just wanted to share my experience because I thought my beloved car was on its way to a junkyard, but I feel like it's now got second life.