Auto Hold Retrofit
 

My 2007 4.8i didn't come with the Auto Hold feature so when my Parking Brake Switch broke, I replaced the switch with the upgraded one P/N 61319148508.

It was a direct swap. Auto Hold works perfectly and no coding was needed. Completely plug and play.

probably a silly question but would this work for a 3.0si as well.. i didn't even know of the hold button.. what does it do? how much did the part cost??

My guess is that it will work for 3.0si, but don't hold me to it. I suggest you look really carefully into your instrument cluster and see if there is the word Auto H in the background. It was there on my cluster and the new switch just activates the light when engaged.

The new switch was $55 at FCP Euro.

see this thread for auto hold info.
http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...auto-hold.html

That's one hell of an easy retrofit. But I wouldn't use autohold. Mine came with it and I used it probably three whole times. Eventually the parking brake actuator failed from normal use (of course it would, the lever and cable were flawless for a 100 years) and it's an expensive part. No way would I put the additional wear on it using that feature.

I did get the actuator rebuilt and it arrived home today. I'll report back in my original thread once I've reinstalled.

Auto hold does not use the parking brake it uses the regular brakes.

I use the auto hold feature like crazy. Its a great feature. I find myself being tripped up when I drive vehicles without it though. I thought the auto hold used the regular brakes and not the parking brake.

To Mr X5 3.0si

The auto hold feature holds the vehicle in place when you come to a stop at a light. It keeps the vehicle in place and allows you to remove your foot from the brake pedal and the vehicle stays stopped until you press the accelerator. It's a silly feature but you become very used to it very quickly. I have found that if you shuffle around in the drivers seat and the sensor detects it, the car will go into park and the parking brake will engage.

You may be right. I see other people saying that as well. Wonder why removing the parking brake actuator deactivates autohold?

The failsafe for autohold is to engage the parking brake. Without that actuator to act as a fail safe.....

Maybe doing this retrofit and using Auto Hold wasn't such a great idea after all. It was working great for a couple of days and all of a sudden I "PARKING BRAKE MALFUNCTION" while driving to work this morning. The orange Park light is ON. :banghead:

I'm in Houston and the land around here is flat as a pancake so I never even use the Electronic Parking Brake. The switch actually broke 2 years ago and I just left it like that until now. I thought I try out this Auto Hold feature, but didn't expect it will cause the "PARKING BRAKE MALFUNCTION" just after couple days of using it.

Sorry to hear that. Apparently I was wrong about the parking brake serving as the hold mechanism, but the two are related. As I mentioned in one of these posts, I was able to get mine rebuilt for a much more palatable number than a new part. Some have reported wiring problems, but that wasn't the case for me.