No check engine light

[Jompe]

Dear x-people
I own a 2005 e53 3.0d since 2017.
The problem I face today is that the car is in great shape 😏.
The other problem is that the “check engine light” will not/never turn on if something were to go wrong with the engine.
I live in Stockholm, Sweden. We do yearly “smog checks” as we call “besiktning”. This year I ended up failing, of course, because the check engine light didn’t come up when starting the ignition, and on top of that not lightning up when I had one bad glowplug and a bad EGR.
I took it to “BMW” where they put in a new EGR vent and reprogrammed the ECU to see if they could get the check engine light back in order.
Cluster test is good. They took apart the cluster board and checked all of the led lights and so on. Nothing seemed wrong.
They suspected that the car has been manipulated. Someone has deactivated the signals that are being sent to the cluster in order to tell me that somethings up with the engine.
TheyI’m talking about the BMW SERVICE PEOPLE!!! Couldn’t fix this problem. Although they could charge me 12000 SEK (about 1100$ for the reprogramming and a new EGR, which to me felt dissatisfying.
Told me to contact the recent service place to ask what they did.
Is there anybody out there who knows what is going on?
Nowadays I’m using a Carly once a week just so that I can sleep at night. It’s driving me nuts.
Wishing well! Jon

[Clavurion]

So they reprogrammed engine ECU (DDE)? That should overwrite any old manipulated software.

A glow plug failure should not turn on check engine light, not even sure with the EGR depending what kind of fault it had.

[andrewwynn]

If they just care about the idiot light at key on, wire in parallel to the oil light. It will come on at start but turn off just after starting. (might be a better option). It could take quite a lot of work to properly resolve and as long as obd reader works you can keep track.

SES light is primarily for smog control the serious problems like loss of coolant or oil pressure have their own light. You will be find to check periodically with the reader

[Clavurion]

Originally Posted by andrewwynn

If they just care about the idiot light at key on, wire in parallel to the oil light. It will come on at start but turn off just after starting.

That would do the trick if there is no logical explanation to the actual problem.

[andrewwynn]

Oh there is certainly a logical problem but it might cost more than the cars value to find It.

As long as the govt is happy and the owner can track for SES manually on the regular it would be a fix I would do myself.

[upallnight]

Has anyone checked to see if someone might have put black electrical tape over the bulb? Wouldn't be the first time I have seen this type of fix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUAdikdm-v8

[timmyc]

Originally Posted by upallnight

Has anyone checked to see if someone might have put black electrical tape over the bulb? Wouldn't be the first time I have seen this type of fix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUAdikdm-v8

IS that the right video? I couldn't watch 40 minutes worth. A/C issues?

[80stech]

Afaik there are lots of "deletes" that get done on diesels that result in the need to have the check engine light deactivated, so even if you get the light working you will then probably then have a lot of expense in adding the deleted systems back in.

[wpoll]

I bet the Check Engine LED has bee removed from the cluster board and the BMW tech missed this.... I'm guessing they wouldn't be checking for such a hack.

The only other alternatives are that a PCB track has been cut (again, hard to spot unless you are looking for it) or the operation of the LED has been blocked programmatically - which BMW's re-programming should have taken care of.

[80stech]

If the light worked for a "cluster check" though that would eliminate a few of the simpler possibilities.