Just fixed my dead Parking Brake Actuator.

[DarkMesa8]

Have you tested to see if the motor works? A pair of spare wires and a car battery should do.

Even if the motor is dead, I'm sure there has to be someone in your town that can repair it for less than $1000.

[Noodle555]

New update

Well after resiging myself to go to the dealership i thought I would borrow a freinds $8,000 Snap On scan tool. There were 4 codes, one was that there was a sporadic malfunction and another that said error comminicating with DSC. I cleared all EMF codes and everything is back to normal. Been driving for two days with no errors.

I was waiting for my new cable so I could do this myself with NCS Expert. I bet anyone can do this with NCS Expert which is what I would do if I get the error again.

[garlickmike]

Hey every one, my name is mike and I'm new to this site!
I have an 08 4.8 sport x5 and the park break is malfunctioning so I did some reading on this site and found out that its a pretty common problem and also learned how to take the actuator out, at this point i have the actuator out of the car and i have no issues that i can see (bad connections burnt trace wires on the board ect., I tested the motor and it works great and i tested the pwr at the plug and it is present so im wondering if anyone knows what all the diferent wires do? which one triggers to set, release ect. i would like to test it out of the car to see if its a problem with the board in the actuator box or if the problem is in the wiring of the car? any help would be great thanks

[werdn]

Originally Posted by Noodle555

Great write up by darkmesa8. Thanks! Thought I would add to this post with my experience.

Removing, opening the actuator/control unit and reassembly took around 4 hours. Probably took me a little longer as I was working on my back and trying to figure some things out on the fly.

I think my vehicle represented more of a challenge as it has the active dampening and air bags in the rear. there is very little room to work with and actually sliding the unit out after all cables and electrical were removed was very difficult.

The electrical connector is a levered connector. just take a screwdriver and move the lever back and the connector pops right off.

Be very careful when removing the white clip on the passenger side Bowden cable is it is quite fragile and I managed to break the clip from one side. There are two tabs on the white clip that need to be lifted slightly to be able to slide the white clip back which releases the cable. Getting the clip off and on is a serious pain with the limited space.

The control unit takes some muscle to pry apart after removing the torx 25 screws. Just start at one side and keep working around.

When reassembling the driver side bowden cable you may notice the square screw just keeps turning anticlockwise and doesn't catch. I found that if you take a plier that has the grip which locks you can pull the cable out of the emergency release cable a bit and lock it with the cable out. This basically drags the actuator part out so that you can screw the right side back in easily. The screwing action has to be done by hand and takes forever!

Unfortunately for me I did not see any lose wires and the connector showed no evidence of any burnt pins so after all that I am no further ahead

No other tips but feel free to PM me if I can assist. Some pics

Thank you to you and Darkmesa8. I will try this on mine sometime soon. The yellow light is driving me crazy! Do you think that I can drive the car without the actuator, as long as I dont activate the brake?

[yj8001]

Hi all

thanks for all your posts re E70 parking break actuator. I have a question re fitting the cables back in.

When my actuator broke, it sheared the cables as well. Now that I have the parts and am ready for the mechanic to put it back together, he was wondering how far to screw the long threaded cable end (drivers side?) into the actuator to ensure that when it is switched on it is not too tight and so snaps the cable? Has anyone any suggestions as the best way to do it?

Thanks in advance

[tmling76]

Hi can anyone tell me how to reset the brake actuator, I have managed to change the motor inside the actuator but it still gives a error. Some say pull up the brake button 5-15 seconds then push down 5-15 second I have tried that with engine on and off. Anyone has change the motor to ?

[jpericao]

Got an indi mechanic to replace the actuator but error message won't go away and resetting it is not working.

Also looking for guidance on how to make it work.

Also can I sell the broken one ? I am sure there is a company interested to refurbish them.

[tmling76]

Where did You Buy the part ? Was it a refurbished one ?
If you changed the whole unit you need to learn the new part in with dcan you can check on YouTube how to do that
I'm still checking where to buy the part if you have a good tip maybe ??

[tmling76]

Anyone know what to do?
Changed motor and fuse in the emf module, during driving I can use the handbrake module but once I release it it doesn’t stay on the parking break. Orange parking light still on, does the emf module has a error that it keeps in memory and needs to be reset ?