E53 4.4 won't turn over
 

Hi all. I recently parked my X5 on a surface lot at my work this past Friday morning and returned to it late Monday evening after being on vacation to find it won't start. The battery seems to have plenty of juice as everything else appears fine and the lights are bright as ever. When I attempt to start her up, I get no noise at all. She won't even pretend to turn over.

Seems weird that the starter would decide to go out at that very point. I tried locking and unlocking the door from the outside hoping it may have been cause by the alarm being set off. I'm also going to try my spare key later this morning.

Any ideas as to what could have caused this? I did a search for various search terms and couldn't find anything. Any help would be appreciated!

Check the park/neutral switch. It is on the side of the transmission, and ensures that the gear selector is in park or neutral. It can be out of adjustment. Test by moving the gear selector lever and seeing if it fires. Try Park and Neutral, separately.

So, of course, I come to work this morning and give it another shot. Using the same key as last night, I remotely unlock the doors and there is a distinctly different sound indicating it's unlocked. I believe there are 2 chirps when normally unlocking it and in this case it was more like 4. As soon as I hear this, I think to myself, it's going to start now. And sure enough, it fires right up.

So I'm pretty convinced it's related to the alarm system but can't figure out why I couldn't get it to start last night. I'd love to know what I could have done different to correct it. Does sitting for a period of time allow the alarm to reset itself?

Nope. More chirps means the vehicle locked and then unlocked, with acknowledgement of each action.

Remember the selector lever for when it happens again.

That's weird. I actually tried starting it in N last evening, to no avail. That is a very valid suggestion though, so thank you for pointing that out.

I know for a fact that the vehicle was locked when I left it last so if your suspicion is true about it locking then unlocking, that means it became unlocked overnight somehow. Strange coincidence that the different sound was followed up by it actually starting, too.

The good news is that it is still starting currently so here's hoping it doesn't happen again. Would still love to know what the original cause was.

Park or Neutral mode
 

I had the same problem earlier. I could not start my car in "Park" mode. I switched it to "Neutral" mode and started. It worked.

Now I switch between "Park" and "Neutral" mode all the time to start. Usually it takes my gear selector a round trip between "ParK", "Drive", "Neutral" modes. And I can start on "Park" mode. Otherwise I just start on "Neutral" mode directly. It always start on my "Neutral" mode.

"Out of adjustment"? What do you mean? Can it be fixed by replacing a gear selector or something?

Thanks

Talk to Weasel. He managed to turn over his E53

Neutral start switch. It is an interlock switch to prevent starting in gear. Mounted on the side of the transmission. It needs adjusting, or has dirty contacts at the connection. Not a big job