Bought the 05 X5 4.4 in Oct. of 2011 with 123xxx one owner miles
Currently 132,000 miles
Late March:
My story begins with a 100 miles drive and a car wash. On this trip I used the manual shift for the 1st time. Less than 30 min. after car wash I receive the 1st jolt….In this order Stereo shut off (reset)/4x4 light ABS & Brake light came on/loud clunk and front brakes grab and grind. Trans. Failsafe pops up. I park it for a min. and then started it back up and of course the lights were off just like everyone else who has experienced this error. Thought I was out of trouble but just as I started home the error returned. Got a hotel room decided to head home the next morning and did so with out an error.
So over the next month or two the error has come back more frequently. It can handle a short commute of 2 or 3 miles without the error but anything over that it will show up.
What I know:
Got the error codes from a local repair shop:
Flipped the Actuator:
Big Thanks to SlickGT1 and his DIY info on the Actuator flip and his advice on this problem.
Also noticed that the coolant reservoir had split and was leaking…replaced reservoir.
Replaced battery (lots of people saying start with the battery)
I hook it up to my Actron scanner that can graph live data of the voltage. Just as the error hit the graph went up over 17.5 volts.
Had Advance check battery and alternator and both check out good:
All of this did not stop the error from coming back and with help from my Brother-in-law we started pulling fuses to try and isolate the problem.
Pulled all the fuses in the back and error returned:
Pulled 12 ABS, 51 ASC, 55 DSC & 63 the error returned but with these fuses pulled, I did not receive the brake lock/grind. You can feel a slight hesitation but that was all. Pulled radio and navigation still the error returned.
Once the error occurs I can put the car in park and reproduce the error by revving the rpms up to 2 or 3 thousand. You can see the voltage shoot up to 17.+ every time I step on the gas. At idle the voltage is normal and no error.
you can see the video here >
xIMG 0492xx - YouTube