Advice about transfer case
 

I bought my 2005 X5 4 months ago from my local BMW dealer. It is out of warranty. 2 days after I got it, the 4x4 warning light came on. I took it to the dealer and they told me that nothing is wrong and that it was just a dirty wheel sensor and not to worry about it. The 4x4 warning light has continued to come more and more frequently along with the ABS and Brake warning lights. I decided to take it to a shop the specializes in BMW's where they ran a diagnostic test and found that my transfer case is shot and it needs to be replaced. They said that the dealer never reset the fault codes and that almost all the codes were the same. They also told me that there is no such diagnosis as "a dirty wheel sensor". They believe that the dealership had to have known that this was an issue before they sold it to me. My father was the sales manager at this BMW dealership for 25 years and its things like this that made him retire early.

My question is, does anyone think that I have any chance of getting the dealership to do this repair for free? I know that I bought it "as is" but you would expect the dealer to address the issue before selling it. I was quoted $3500 to have it fixed at the the place that specializes in BMW's. I would bet that the dealer will want close to double that price.

Any info would be great! I'm just not sure if I have a fighting chance.

I had a similar problem. Which was diagnosed first of all as the Transfer Box Actuator and then as transfer case it self - had it replaced under warranty and it did not fix the problem. In the end it was solved by replacing the Transfer Box control box. Given that control box is plug and play, might be worth seeing if you could swap one over from another X5 before going for the whole transfer case replacement. A lot cheaper than doing the box.

It seems with these things that the Diagnosis of the problem is not as straight forward as it might appear.

And technically the x-drive transfer case is rebuildable... the clutch pack inside it can be replaced vs the whole case. I would be curious, what faults are stored in the VTG and DSC systems? (VTG= transfer case control module, DSC= dynamic stability control module)

do you have a fault stored in the instrument cluster for terminal 15 fault?

Not sure what you mean by a fault stored in the instrument cluster. How can I check that?

check with a fault code reader , diagnostics tool .

Anyone know the location of the control module?
Replaced my motor twice with genuine units and the 4x4 light came on yet again this morning.
Starting to lean towards the control module.

I would also like to know where it is located, i have been searching allot but still no luck in finding the location!

It's under the back seat on the driver side. You need to pull up the bottom part of the seat and lift a rubber flap and you will see it mounted vertically with a wiring harness connected at the top.

Just an update. A new alternator fixed a very similar issue in my X. After researching the problem more in depth I found others had experienced the same issue and cure. Not saying its your problem but you never know.

http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...-06-4-8is.html

Thanks for the help! This helped me a little bit in the search for the solution to my problem.
The problem i´m having is that i couldn't access the control module from dis/gt1, but after jcorreanyc help i quickly drove to the breakers and picked up a "new" module from a slightly newer car, i can now access the module but think i have to do a bit more work in dis to hopefully get it to work!
If anyone has done this in dis i would me more than happy to know how!

My problem solved a while ago!
I took the control unit of once more and noticed that the wiring connectors had a lot of corrosion on them, cleaned them and sprayed some electrical spray on them and after that it has worked perfect! no error codes, changed the oil in the transfer case and had no problem to reset the transfer case from DIS/GT1.
The 4x4 now works perfect in the snow!