Trans Program Failure and O2 OBD codes - ideas on the cause

[Tonyfeb14]

My 2003 X5 4.4 Sport (M62) which I have owned since Feb (bought it with only 44k miles) now with only 54k miles, gave me a Transmission Program Failure a few weeks ago (shown on dash display) and went into a failure mode, limited shifting. Never any problems before. I shut it down and restarted and the problem went away and the transmission shifted fine. A few days later, same thing. I shut it down and restarted and the problem was gone. The car has been running great with no other problem.

That was about two weeks ago. Now apparently a new problem, or maybe something related. This weekend, the SES came on with P0030 (HO2S Heater Control Circuit, Bank 1, Sensor 1) and P0031 (control Circuit Low Bank 1), P0037 (Control Circuit Low, Bank 2). I checked the wiring, visual only, and everything looked in order. After reading how sensitive the Bosch DME ME 7.2 system is to voltage, and needed to run with about 12.6V, I checked and found the battery was only putting out 11.82V. Not knowing how old the battery was, I replaced the battery hoping low voltage was the problem in both the strange transmission shift problem that disappeared, and now the range of OBD codes all related to the heating circuits for the 4 oxygen sensors.

No such luck. I erased the codes, and with the new fresh battery, the SES is back on and I just got P0030, P0050, P0037, P0057 and P2271 and P2273. All related to the O2 sensors. It doesnt make sense to me that its all the sensors are bad, so it must be something common to all.

I did check the ECM wiring diagrams and Pin assignments, and its curious that both the oxygen sensor circuits and the automatic transmission control module (AGS) are all related to Connector 2 (X60002) on the ECM. I have not tried to disconnect and reconnect just yet. The ECM in the engine compartment looks high and dry and normal so I have not attempted to open and check it out further.

Any ideas on where to look next before I break down and try a dealer (last resort...) I usually like to fix this stuff but this one has me guessing. So posted to this forum for some ideas.