Telescopic/Tilt Wheel Abnormality

[I_Miss_My_///M]

I purchased my '08 X5 in November 2018, and up until 2 days ago the column/wheel did NOT retract when exiting the vehicle, though both the tilt & telescope functions worked perfectly fine when using the lever to adjust. But Wednesday morning when I pulled the key fob from the dash and opened my door it motored "out of the way", and has continued to do so every time since.

Prior to that morning nothing out of the ordinary happened or was done (i.e. no service visit, battery wasn't unhooked, no software updates done, no coding done, etc.), and from all that I've read the only way to disable this function is by coding it out. Does anybody have any idea why this would have just started working out of the blue??

[Bimmernut88]

Was your drivers airbag recall completed?

[I_Miss_My_///M]

Originally Posted by Bimmernut88

Was your drivers airbag recall completed?

Not yet, but thank you for the reminder that I need to get that scheduled! haha

[rpoitras]

There seems to be an anti-trap safety feature where if the vehicle senses blockage while trying to move the wheel it will disable movement until you manually adjust the position again. I know this because I wanted to disable easy entry/exit on my X5 and before I found out how to do it via coding I would physically block the movement to disable it.

With coding easy entry/exit will be totally disabled and allows you to adjust the steering wheel position to your liking. By using the 'hack' as soon as you adjust the position it will re-enable.

So, maybe while exiting the vehicle while the steering wheel was still moving you could have put pressure on it to help getting out and it tripped the anti-trap feature? This is how I initially found out that you could disable it that way. Most days I would already be out of the vehicle and the steering wheel was still moving so it's not very helpful for me.

[I_Miss_My_///M]

Originally Posted by rpoitras

There seems to be an anti-trap safety feature where if the vehicle senses blockage while trying to move the wheel it will disable movement until you manually adjust the position again. I know this because I wanted to disable easy entry/exit on my X5 and before I found out how to do it via coding I would physically block the movement to disable it.

With coding easy entry/exit will be totally disabled and allows you to adjust the steering wheel position to your liking. By using the 'hack' as soon as you adjust the position it will re-enable.

So, maybe while exiting the vehicle while the steering wheel was still moving you could have put pressure on it to help getting out and it tripped the anti-trap feature? This is how I initially found out that you could disable it that way. Most days I would already be out of the vehicle and the steering wheel was still moving so it's not very helpful for me.

Interesting. It seems, though, I'd have to do this each time I got out to keep it from moving, which I don't. Or is it "turned off for good", so to speak, once it trips?

[rpoitras]

You do it once (put opposing force against wheel as it's moving) and the wheel should stop. At this point it will stay in that position forever until you, or someone else, manually adjusts it again. If you want this feature disabled the best route is to code it out. Also, applying pressure on a moving part always has a chance to break something so I don't recommend doing it.

[I_Miss_My_///M]

Originally Posted by rpoitras

You do it once (put opposing force against wheel as it's moving) and the wheel should stop. At this point it will stay in that position forever until you, or someone else, manually adjusts it again. If you want this feature disabled the best route is to code it out. Also, applying pressure on a moving part always has a chance to break something so I don't recommend doing it.

Thanks! I'll give it a try and see what happens.