Alright, I'm looking for some advice. Searched some post and i found lots of simliar issues but none quite like mine.

What happened: I was driving the car as usual came to a stop light and while waiting for it to turn green the car's rpm's dropped and it started to roughly idle. Also, I got the battery light and trans fail safe mode error. I drove cautiously as my destination was 3 miles or so. The car shifted awkwardly but it did shift. I figured this was the safe mode. Once I got to my destination I decided to turn the car off and on in hopes that it will clear my error codes. Well what i got was a little surprise. Codes remained and the engine wouldn't turn over. Eventually the codes did go away.

Diagnostics: Tried to jump it and nothing. Checked Batt voltage 12.0. I noticed that the car didn't seem to sense when I was in Park/Drive whatever gear the lights on the dash weren't changing. Tried to start in N and Park and nothing. I must say that if i put the car in Park it doesn't move and the transmission is engaged. If i put it in neutral it does go in neutral. I can see the shift lever under the car has a full range of motion.

Scanning the codes I found one engine code for o2 but I doubt this is related. The interesting one I found was for Transmission Range Sensor (i'm pretty sure that's what it said). This makes sense as the car can't tell its in P or N and it won't start.

What and Where is this sensor? Has anyone seen this before? Is this a waste of time because it means my trans is shot or is this a simple fix? I'm wondering if this entails dropping trans pan and changing sensors inside or if this is some place else. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

BMW Repair – BMW X5 P0720 and TRANS FAIL SAFE mode. Not sure if this is related.