Check engine light and oil level sensor malfunction

[zanderch]

Hey guys,

I'm posted on behalf of a friend of mine. He has a 09 e70 4.8, and it's been flawless ever since he bought it, about 30 000 km ago. It now has about 120 000 km on it.

Last Wednesday, he started it up, and instantly an error message popped up that said "Engine Oil Level Sensor Malfunction".

On his way over to my place, his check engine light came on as well. I plugged my OBD reader in, and it pulled the following codes:

P1440- Something to do with Evap leak
P0071- something to do with ambient air sensor
P1440- same one as first error

I tried clearing the codes but it wouldn't work, just kept saying error and would get he same codes again and the CEL wouldn't go off. I find it strange that I can search for this P1440 code and no one seems to have any experience with this one, the only place I find it is in the long list of codes.

Well anyway, I find it hard to believe that all 3 of these sensors could go bad at the same time. I should also mention that the car drives, handles, and behaves perfectly normal.

What could be the problem? I thought it might have just had a drained battery or something so I unplugged the battery for about an hour and charged it up, hooked it back in and same thing.

I'm pretty stumped as to why this would all happen, and at the same time. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot

(I'll also mention that all fluid levels are fine, and oil is only about a month old BMW synthetic)

[bawareca]

Usually reading BMW codes with a generic scanner is not very successful.Most of the time codes couldnt even be erased,like in your case.Some of the codes could be just stored in the memory from before and some may be active.I would recommend reading the car to a BMW scanner like DIS or INPA and run the test schedules so a more precise diagnose could be done.
The oil level sensor failure is not uncommon and it doesnt have anything to do with the current oil level.

[zanderch]

Oh okay, that makes sense. The majority of the BMW expierice I have is on my 04 E53 3.0 and a relative's 07 E70 4.8, and my OBD reader has worked for everything I've needed so far.

I do plan on getting a newer X5 in the near future though, so I should probably invest in a better code reader. Are either of these you mentioned reasonable for a hobby mechanic to purchase? Are there recommended brands or suppliers of these readers?

I was reading about that oil sensor though, I'll replace that regardless as it appears to be problematic like you said.


Thanks a lot.

Alex

[bawareca]

You can put together ISTA for around $600-700 and it will work for diagnostic and programming for models from 2000 to the newest ones,depending on the software version.