New Member- 5 speed 3.0- already having problems

[WkboardATX]

First off I'll introduce myself to the board. I just bought a 2001 5 Speed Manual X5 to use as my daily driver. I am very familiar with bmw's as I have had several over the last few years and currently have an E46 M3 (Dinan Stage 3) as my weekend car.

Yes, I have already done a search on this issue...

The first 1000 miles of this car were great (except for the airbag light being on) , until yesterday when going up a VERY steep hill when the " Three amigos" (DSC, ABS, Brake lights) all came on when I made the shift from 1st to 2nd. I continued to drive the car and now the speedometer is no longer functioning either. (When I first start the car in morning it stays off for 30sec-1min before coming on, speedo continues to work for a while before stopping)
A friend of mine here in Austin was kind enough to "attempt" to pull the codes with autologic but was unsuccessful. Both the ABS Module and the Airbag Module will NOT communicate with Autologic.
He was very confused and said it could take hours of diagnostic to figure out why this was happening. To me this further points at the ABS module?

What is the forums opinion of the next step I should take to resolve this issue? (I have already replaced battery today as well).