08 E70 Oddity's
 

Got rid of the E53 06 as it had WAY too many issues and picked up a beautiful 08. But some strange things are happening. The steering wheel buttons stopped working. I can't get the radio to change stations consistently. Tuner shows the frequency changing when turning idrive knob or when selecting preset, but nothing changes.

Any ideas?

I unfortunately cant lend any advice to your stated issues. I've never experienced this myself and haven't stumbled across it on the forums. Just wanted to point something out. Not trying to be a jerk but if you sold your E53 because it had a lot of issues and got an E70 expecting it will be different, you will likely be in for a rude awakening. To my knowledge, the E70 is not any less problematic. About the same, if not worse than the E53. It just has it's own set of issues. This includes a plethora of bizarre electrical problems similar to the ones you are stating. I would wait and see if the problem sorts itself out but if not, expect fixing it to be time consuming, expensive or both.

Also, you didn't state, but hopefully you got the 3.0 engine. The 4.8i V8 is a "special" motor that feeds on time and money.

How about your reboot the idrive. Procedure in in the manual

Not my first BMW and I had just bought the E53 and found so many underlying issues I didn't want to deal with them. So in response to your statement; No I did not expect it to be different with an E70. But I do have far less as it is in much better condition than the E53 and far less miles.

I perform all my own wrenching and have on BMW's since the early 1980's so I have no problem with that.

No, I didn't purchase the 3.0 but did get the N62 4.8 and have been working on them since they came out initially. Fortunately, this has the N62N which is a little less problematic but as any BMW engine has its own set of problems too. Just like the M62TU and its issues with timing chain guides. Replaced many sets of TCG's not only for my E38 (which I've kept on the road for over 275k miles and still runs like new) but friends E38's and E53's.

This issue with the steering wheel buttons and the entertainment system are the kind of odd electrical gremlins makes me think of the battery being the culprit. But also wanted to see if there is anyone who happened to deal with this already and if something as simple as battery replacement or the old battery "nap" would possibly correct these gremlins. Another thing is since we have two keys, it also may have something strange to do with key coding and I'll have to connect my INSTA-D to it this weekend and look for any anomalies there as well.

Thanks for the reply.

Good idea, I'll have to give that a shot too!

Get a tool to scan error codes; it's probably the clock spring, though.

:iagree:

Thanks guys. I've got the tools to scan, but haven't had the time to try yet. I'm also thinking the clock spring too at this point. I'll advise once tested.

Quick question, is there a specific fuse that effects the steering wheel buttons on an E70? There wasn't if I remember correctly on my E38, but want to make sure.

Thanks again

Update - Scanned with Insta-D and was inconclusive on the clock spring and didn't find any other issues. So I decided to go ahead and get a clock spring to replace the original.

Installed the new clock spring today and SUCCESS, that fixed the issue. All the steering wheel buttons are now working. So for future people looking for this issue, if your fuses are all okay and you haven't caused your i-drive to go crazy, I would highly recommend the clock spring be the culprit. The additional problem with not being able to change the radio station on a random basis also appears to be corrected too.

Thanks for the recommendations.