No Coolant Level Sensor?? 2001 X5

[TerminatorX5]

well, the cap would have to be "shorting" the two pins, in order to complete the circuit to ground... easy to test with a continuity test...

[DSAviate]

X5snd - I found that same male connector with cap at the front top of the left wheel shroud, and thought it was obviously the wire that should have been connected to the level sensor . . . two problems:

1. The wire isn't long enough to make it to the sensor.

2. The female sensor has two pins, the male connector I found with cap has a different setup.

[X5SND]

Well ain't that a head stumper...what's that plug for then?

[TerminatorX5]

here is the coolant level sensor itself, part number 17137800097, about $18 from a dealer if bought separately from the expansion tank...

I just tested the sensor with a multimeter for continuity - there is NO continuity in the sensor as it was tested outside of the tank... I did not submerge the sensor into water, to see if the lines will short, as it needs to be rigged up, and i am too lazy...

so, to further properly test this mystery, the plug from the curled connector needs to be tested as well... once it is tested "positive" for jumper functionality, further investigation would be to see if the wires can be actually extended to reach the live sensor in the tank...

[DSAviate]

Yes, that's the level sensor.

The sensor does NOT go into fluid. It's cavity in the expansion tank is sealed closed from the tank fluid . . . So I imagine there's a magnetic float in the tank around the sensor that sets it off.

I wouldn't want to arbitrarily short male harness connectors without an appropriate amount of resistance applied for fear of screwing up a circuit.

[Kristophe]

The mystery may have something to do with having a Low OBC vs High OBC?

http://www.xoutpost.com/articles/x5/...-retrofit.html

[UCrewX5]

Originally Posted by Kristophe

The mystery may have something to do with having a Low OBC vs High OBC?

http://www.xoutpost.com/articles/x5/...-retrofit.html

you could be right. My 2001 X5 3.0 (September 2000 build date) has the high OBC and I do have the coolant level sensor on my vehicle from the factory.

[TerminatorX5]

so... what would happen if the sensor is plugged into the pre-wired plug? will it work? will it report the low coolant to the driver?

[DSAviate]

The wired plug with cap that X5SND found and shows in post #20, is the same one that I found on my E53 (see #22). But note the two problems:

1. The wire isn't long enough to make it to the sensor (indicating that either the factory didn't intend this harness to go to that sensor, OR, they installed it with too short a wire on a defined run of trucks and just decided not to hook it up . . . I believe the former).

2. The male plug will NOT go into the sensor . . . different mating surfaces!

We (I) still haven't found an unused male plug on my vehicle that could be intended for this level sensor. And I can NOT imagine, or accept, that BMW would intentionally allow the vehicle to leave the factory WITHOUT this sensor connected.

[Kristophe]

Oh and for the record, my X has the On-Board Computer-Low and I too have the unconnected coolant level sensor. From my understanding the higher OBC is only contained in an upgraded instrument cluster that then leads into either the Nav or MID to display the additional monitoring information.