Simultaneous "Brake" + "Trans. Failsafe Prog" alerts
 

(I realize "joeboch348" recently posted with a similar error but I didn't want to hijack his thread. It also seems that the "Trans. Failsafe Prog" message can be the result of a dozen+ causes)

After driving my 2004 X5 4.4i (81k on the clock) about a mile today I noticed an amber "Brake" light on the instrument panel. I thought this was odd since I had a PPI done on the car less than 1k miles ago and they did not mention the pads. I pulled over a few blocks later to Google it, killed the motor and saw for the first time ever the "Trans. Failsafe Prog" message. The vehicle had been driving normal and utilizing all gears up to that point, best I could recall.

I let it sit for maybe an hour, started it back up and both messages persisted. Drove it another ~mile parked, sat another ~hour, and now both alerts are gone.

The battery was replaced with an OEM unit less than 600 miles ago by my indy. Previous to today we took it for a long drive (300mi) on Wednesday without issue.

In the PPI my indy did identify that the transmission connector was wet with transmission fluid and that it needed to be resealed. I asked them to rank each finding and that one was prioritized last. I'm not aware of any other brake or trans issues with the car, past or present.

I'm sure they prevailing response will be to take it back to my indy for eval but I thought maybe the occurrence of both the "Brake" and "Trans. Failsafe Prog" messages appearing (and disappearing) at the same time would elicit some ideas here. I plan to check the brake fluid levels tomorrow.

I'll post a root-cause follow up to hopefully help others in the future.

Thanks as always for your thoughts,

Voltage problem. Charge battery full. See if the errors reset after a rest. Use hidden menu to monitor vBat. Any dip below 13.2 or so the voltage regulator/alternator is not doing their job. This can be caused by a bad ground.

Thanks for the suggestion, I will try to test this tomorrow if I can drive it enough before hand to ensure the battery is fully charged.

You don't really need to fully charge battery. If the alternator is operating it will keep the voltage approximately 14v +/- 0.5. Dips in voltage will cause all sort of errors

Ok, just tested and saw some fluctuation but nothing below 13.9 or above 14.3.

I'm also no longer seeing either the "Brake" light or the "Trans. Failsafe Prog" message. I have done nothing to manually reset either.

Keep monitoring voltage. Get the cheap plug in cig model. It will reset itself if the voltage become stable if the voltage fluctuated for any reason like a loose bolt or a loose cable ground for example you'll get a voltage dip that will cause the error


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Thanks for the suggestions. I will continue to monitor and report back if anything of interest develops.

While frustrating to not know the cause, this is turning out to be a better than expected outcome from when I first started Googling the "Trans. Failsafe" message.

Make sure alternator bolt is tight. That was the cause for me

this happened to me, it was a bad abs module. i will look for loose electrical wires, if none. then the culprit could be the abs module.

Hm, I did somewhat recently unplug my hood sensor due to my alarm going off randomly. I've driven it quite a bit since but maybe it's time to replace that sensor and reconnect the wire...