Parking Brake malfunction
 

Guys,

Any ideas?
The parking brake is not engaged but i get this message.
Came up in the morning, and i never use parking brake

Thanks in advance

Can you engage the parking brake?

water in the cables, probably froze... See if it is still there when it gets warmer.

Probably a good idea to use it at least once a month, or more, just to keep it "limber."

Show of hands:

Is it possibly a good thing that BMW went away from an e-brake that you could apply manually, without question- with positive feedback, and that could be modulated for emergency use...to an electronic/ electromechanical system?

Anyone?

Then:

Name ONE good thing about it.

A

1 good thing about it... auto hold feature in traffic.
1 good/bad/ugly thing, when it brakes I get paid to fix it...

There have been problems with the e-brake system on the E70's lately, there is supposedly a known problem with the wiring harness routing, but every one I've worked on ended up needing the parking brake actuator/module replaced.

It will be fixed under warranty if you bring it in, but expect 2 visits... First visit they have to do the BMW required step of rerouting the harness, then bring it back when it acts up again and they will be able to replace the actuator.

Parking Brake - good/bad
 

I like a hand operated brake, except on a 2 1/2 ton truck - the brake should either be foot operated or electronic. I had the hand brake on my E53, I tried to use it once - it took a long distance to stop the vehicle.

No matter how actuated (foot or hand) it only brakes the rear, and is pretty wimpy, so it takes a long time to stop...but it CAN be modulated...

Wease- hear you on the autohold. But somehow I've managed to drive a manual car on roads around the world that would stall some cars, and never rolled into the stuff behind me. Seems a price paid in terms of reliability and function simply for the benefit of a shiny feature for consumers enamored with shiny objects...

A

PS thanks for the info on the failure mode.

I hate it as you can no longer do handbrake turns!

Seriously though apart from the above fact I don't find it to be an issue at all.

the whole unit went dead, $1200 replacement with reprogramming

ridiculous price for a parking brake.

very bad idea from BMW, manual was easy and eliminated unncessary electronics

With all the other assorted pieces of techno-wizardry in these expensive cars, I wouldn't think it would be a big deal for them to keep a manually operated parking brake but maybe electronically assist it a bit to compensate for the weight of the vehicle. Would probably be a much better solution for all and might not cost any more than the current electronic parking brake does.

I mean, these are driver's cars after all -- the current parking brake belongs in a Lexus.

I think weasel nailed it when he explained it is required for the autohold feature.

For competitive reasons, BMW is in the "gizmo arms race" with all the other marques for features the public demands in a "luxury suv".

I am sure somewhere in German engineer/drivers were vocal in their opposition but got voted down....

I agree completely with your comments on electronic gadgets that fail and are expensive to replace, while not providing any real benefits.

I think autohold came about as an adjunct to the electronic gear selector, so that there is another way to prevent the vehicle rolling. A silly gear selector design required a just as silly electronic parking brake to avoid liability issues.

I don't think it has to do with rolling back on a hill though. We have two manual transmission BMWs at the moment, and neither has auto-hold, but both have a form of hill holder that maintains application of the service brakes without the brake pedal when you are stopped and depress the clutch, for 5 or so seconds, or until you release the clutch. Works very well. It is like a Mico hydraulic brake lock on trucks, with a quick-release. No separate switch to work it. No connection to the parking brake.

oh goodie now I'm afraid to use autohold too much.

I don't understand the "these are driver's car and therefore they need a manual parking brake" argument. I've had quite a bit of seat time on the track in everything from DEs in street cars to professional racing in 500+ HP GT cars, but I've never once needed a parking brake while driving. Most race cars have the parking brake removed, only retaining it if the class rules require it. On the street the only time I've ever used a parking brake while driving was to do power slides in a snowy parking lot or to hold the car in place while driving a manual.

I do use parking brakes in most cars, including automatics, every time I park. Even that is probably a bit silly in a modern car, but there are worse habits. The X5 is the first car that I've owned that has an electronic parking brake, and I like that it doesn't take up space in the center console. My 335i had the old style manual parking brake, but I'd have gladly traded it for a bit of extra room for my elbow.

Weasel: Is there an SIB on this issue?

I agree with you on the track but when it comes to rallying a handbrake is absolutely essential for the tight hairpins. I actually used handbrake turns on a couple of occasions in the E53 (it was a very handy technique when turning right or left on a downhill snow covered road).

Got it, I wasn't considering that sort of driving.

Can the electronic brake be used in a "dynamic" fashion by pulling up and pushing down on it? Is it rear wheels only?

:iagree:But I all think the USA lobby of "though shall have a minimum of 24 cup holders in each vehicle plying the roads of the US" also got involved! The eBrake enabled them to still keep everything neat, and where you'd expect to see/use it!

Mercedes answer? Column stalk shifters :wow: Thank, I'll take the eBrake any time!!!

There are a couple basic info SIB's on different issues relating to specific fault codes, but what I described doesn't have a SIB at this time and the info is just incorporated into a test plan in the diagnostic equipment at the dealer.

I like the electronic parking brake because with a manual parking brake, the brakes' cable seem to stretch and don't become effective anymore after some use.

Autohold to me is useless though. It's grabby when it engages and the passengers feel that. And If I come to a stop really slow, using the least amount of brake power, like in a congested traffic, it sometimes feels like it's half-engaged, meaning the light on the dash says it's engaged and stopped, but the brakes aren't holding the vehicle firmly, making a bit of a noise and the car almost goes forward a tiny bit. So once again if I firmly apply the brakes while it still says engaged and the car stationary, it doesn't seem to do that any more.

True, but I always use my parking brake when parked, and my experience with the cable brakes is that a cable adjustment is only needed every 50,000 miles or so.

Frankly I like manual cable parking brakes because they use to be know as "Emergency brakes," and that's still part of their function. For emergency use, I figure the simplest system tends to be the most reliable, which is what you want in an emergency brake.

While not common by any means, batteries have been know to fail suddenly with an "open" when a cell interconnection fails. I wonder if the X5 brake would work with no power?

Interesting conversation.. Makes me think of a few things.

For one, I LOVE AUTOHOLD. I think the weight of the vehicle almost makes it NECESSARY, as it is very prone to roll (forward or backward). I do not think it would be a terrible BURDEN without it, but I do like having it.

Someone mentioned the space it saves on the center console, too - a very big plus, I think. The ergonomics are all very clean, and there are few "mistakes" on this vehicle, although I notice the Park Assist is not convenient on the X5, but it's right where it should be next to the shifter on the 5 series (oh well).

Mine does grab a bit but not often and not usually too bad, but yeah, sometimes it will jolt. I have noticed lately - probably after having to do a hard stop yesterday - that the brakes themselves will grab like nobody's business, but thankfully of course the vehicle will dive only slightly.

The reasons we could debate until the end of time, but..

I wholly disagree with the notion that "expensive gadgets" serve no real purpose. When I was a kid, I remember that most German cars were "driving machines" but had few (if any) creature comforts. I also remember when those German cars started to acquire gadgets - and all the problems they had - (remember the Audi 5000 automatic?) but they've come a loooooong way since then.

I think some gadgets are next to useless. (I'm just going to cite Audi by reference and leave it at that) I did not order the automatic cruise control, for example, although there are days it seems like it would be quite useful.

But everyone told me the HUD would be useless - and nothing could be further from the truth. It is undoubtedly the single most used feature in my X5, next to Park Assist. To others it's probably a useless gadget - "what kind of driver are you if you need blah blah blah."

It is certainly a different era, and one in which many gadgets play a vital role. Traction control, anyone? Sophisticated computer control of the entire drivetrain for best performance AND efficiency? Just the way it is these days.

Speaking of which.. Just how many computers are in this car?

Just to be clear, I don't mind extra gadgets, such as HUD, increasing the complexity, particularly when it's an option. I do not have HUD for a couple of reasons, but when I test drove an X6 with HUD, I found it to be helpful and I would use it if I had it. If the HUD stops working, it isn't going to affect the ability of the X5 to function as transportation, so that feature is simply one of cost vs. benefit.

But I do have an issue when they make things needlessly complex which are fundamental to the operation of the vehicle and increase the odds of getting stranded for limited, or non-existent gains. Over the past few years I have seen quite a few people who have posted reports that they were either stranded, or at a minimum had to make a dealer visit due to a malfunctioning parking brake on an X5. I don't recall seeing any posts of a person that's been stranded due to a malfunctioning manual/cable brake.

The AUTOHOLD function, if I remember correctly, really has nothing to do with the parking brake (unless you shut off the engine), it simply has been integrated into the button/system, i.e. you could have a manual parking brake and still have autohold. My understanding is that the autohold uses the normal service brakes, and not the parking brake to accomplish its task, i.e., BMW could have gotten the benefits of autohold without making the parking braked needlessly complex and prone to malfunction. If someone knows otherwise, please correct me.

I don't mind additional complexity, and the associated lower reliability, for things like traction control, DSC, etc., but when one talks of systems that can strand you and require a flatbed recovery, I think the benefits need to be significant before adding complexity.

P.S. Here is an example of where I think BMW has taken a step backwards from performance in the name of luxury:

"Fading Assistance - This function assists the driver in applying the braking force when the brake temperature is very high due to an extreme driving profile which requires a higher braking force in order to achieve the required braking effect."

Frankly, if I am using my brakes so hard that they are starting to fade, I would like to know it by noticing increased braking pressure is required. With the X5 automatically compensating for the brake fade so that you don't notice you are overusing the brake, it would seem to me that it would be much easier to get yourself into a bad situation going down a mountain road.

I see what you mean.. It's a "feature" when it works, and a "defect" when it breaks. :)

Totally agree about the "Fading Assistance" - I did a double-take when I read that 'feature'.

I do not think - at least, I don't WANT to think - that some of these gadgets/features are intended to put you in a place you ought not to be. Rather, many are intended to keep you from doing just that.

Sorry if I can't pull a better example, but it happens I looked very very closely at the redesigned GX460 when it came time to buy (I had a GX470 prior). Remember how quickly it came out from Consumer Reports how its traction control didn't seem to work the way it should (it kicked in later than most did). OK, maybe that IS a safety item..

The demonstration videos were all over the place, and sure, it LOOKED scary. But many others who reviewed the vehicle had no problem with it.. If you were driving like that in the first place, you SHOULD wreck, just to teach you a lesson that the forces of physics are not to be "dissed."

I never READ it, but my thought was "maybe they did that on purpose.. to make sure you KNOW you overdid it before they corrected it for you." Who knows.

From my aviation hobby.. When the Boeing 777 was going through trials, one MAJOR flaw that came out was the "asymmetric thrust" feature. It was intended to make the aircraft easy to handle in the event of an engine failure.

The problem was that it worked SO WELL that pilots could not even tell that they HAD lost an engine.. And they decided that was NOT a good thing, no matter how proud the engineers were that they pulled it off.

Like the old axiom.. "Just because you CAN do a thing, it does not follow that you SHOULD."

BMW sometimes gives in to this temptation, e.g., they put in a system to do something usefull called "X" which, with a little tweak, could do "Y," so they add-in "Y" just because it seems "neat" and is cheap to add.

Case in point? The first gen Z4. It had electric steering assist, so it was easy to change the amount of assistance. As a result, they made the Sport button do three things: (1) make the electronic throttle more sensitive (or touchy, depending upon whether or not you liked it), (2) automatically put the auto transmission into Sport Mode, and (3) reduce the steering assistance boost.

Now, I drove both versions and frankly could never figure out why when you wanted to do some "sporty" driving, you would want the steering wheel to turn harder. It's not like with the design of the EPS you got any more feel or feedback with less boost, and it wasn't a variable boost with speed sensitivity or a variable ratio. No, it just turned harder.

I figure they did it simply because they could do it.

I'm not up on Aviation, but many years ago I was the product planning manager for a major aircraft engine manufacturer (which means GE, Pratt, or Rolls). I would have thought that they would have left that "feature" in the system and either made it into a manually activated option, or left it as automatic with an alarm/"pop the priority warning message to the display screen" operation.

I used the phrase "expensive gadgets" above, but I was discussing gadgets that didn't in fact serve a real purpose. I am with Penguin, I like DSC and traction control, which cost money, but which serve a purpose. It is those gadgets that bring needless complexity without real benefit that get me. I would put power tailgates in that category. I had one on a rental Navigator. It fit with the Cadillac-ish soft nature of that vehicle. It doesn't fit on a driver's vehicle, IMO. I also had a Z4, with the variable assist steering that Penguin mentioned. When steering was built with variable ratios, the quicker ratios were harder to turn. Making the steering harder to turn, while not changing the ratio, just because you can, is silly. It is like putting a motor in the seatback just to push on you, so it feels like you are accelerating when you aren't. That same Z4 had lots of sound deadening. Someone was worried that they couldn't hear the engine, apparently. So BMW installed a sound-port, essentially a tube running from the engine compartment, to channel engine noise to the driver. They ran it right through the sound-deadening material. I guess it never occured to them to reduce the sound deadening material, thus making the car lighter.

But buyers' of the 7 series or any other high end vehicles think that features like the power tailgates are part of a luxurious experience that comes with purchasing and driving expensive vehicles. These car buyers, and dare I say many of them, are not drivers with particular interest in the Nurburgring lap times. So to them, the latest gadgetries, no matter how unuseful, make quite an impression. I guess soft-close doors is also one of those luxurious features that differentiates high end vehicles from lowly Toyota/Honda. Stepless/stageless doors are quite cool too to those who are unfamiliar. It goes well with bragging rights, self-satisfaction, and sometimes, god forbid, being actually useful.
The latest Audi A8 I read online has a feature that can recognize a hand-writing. To me, that'll be useless. But CEOs looking to make themselves feel more important will appreciate just having such gadget, even if they never intend to use it.

And should anything break, the cost to fix will be less than what they spend weekly with their golf buddies at the country club.

Ah.. Sorry, I didn't complete the "story," sorry..

Oh yes - the feature was left in, but you're right.. It was made MANUAL (have to press the button to turn it on) and they decided they wanted an a chime. If it happens to also catch fire in the process of failing, the regular fire alarm goes off too.

Sounds a little foolish, in a way, but it's the old "let's not panic anyone" thing, when such an event often occurs during the most stressful phases of flight (takeoff and landing).

I like that the BMW chimes for events. I know that whenever I hear that sound, something is amiss. Parking brake on, cold outside, low on fuel, going too fast, etc.

The Lexus wouldn't even chime when the low fuel light came on. You just had to notice it. I never ran out, but there were more than a few times that I easily could have had I not noticed it.

I understand that. I would put a 7 series squarely in the luxury category. But I don't think that a 7 series is in any way the ultimate BMW, it is there for status and image. The brand will stand for different things for everyone, but to me BMW stands for driving, not luxury. I think a 3 series is probably the purest embodiment of that.

Tony Hogg, writing in Road & Track, possibly before many posters here were born, defined a sports car as "a vehicle that doesn't have anything on it that doesn't make it go faster". He was discussing the original Cobra. I like that definition, and extend it myself as follows: The more luxury features are on a car, the less sporty it is.

I realize that BMW ventured a fair way down the road away from sports cars when they went into SUVs. However, the original E53 SUV kept a lot of the BMW spirit. The E70, much less so. A loaded up E70, even less so. All IMO, of course. But if it keeps BMW profitable, and therefore provides them sufficient funds to develop new (smaller) sporty cars, then it is all good.

My 2007 had the e-brake lock in place and I had to release it manually. Then could not reset it. I ended up with 2 visits to the dealer before it was fixed under warrenty.

Well, I just had the "parking brake malfunction!" light come on, while the brake was engaged! I had to release it manually, so now I don't have any parking brake at all. I'm just under 10,000 miles. We don't use the auto-hold feature, but we do set the brake every time we park....

The bummer is, I just got it back from the dealer on Thursday afternoon (hitch install, oil change and an open campaign to replace a charge air temperature sensor.) I don't think the malfunction is related to the hitch install, but who knows....

Back to the dealer I guess.....:(


Oh, and I learned that the clowns at the dealer where I bought it (different dealer than the hitch installer) didn't get our BMW Assist activated, so I've got to get that taken care of too.

i just got a brake malfunction JUST NOW. i guess i wont be going to work today or i will try but what's this thing i hear about a brake cable? That i can use it to manually release the brakes? Can anyone please tell me where this cable is located? I have a 2007 X5 3.0si. Thanks in advance

Oh and also let me also add that its 30-35 degrees Fahrenheit right now and i tried leavin around 6am in the morning. Damn this suckssssss. .i just came back from the dealer shit too about a week ago for a brake light malfunction. :(

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EDIT: okay i found the manual release..i thought it was a cable more like a hole n key kind of thing. But anyways i did it and it STILL DOES NOT work. It keeps saying "Transmission Park Malfunction" oh man. OH MAN and yeah the dealership is not open yet either.
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EDIT: okay well i found the brake cable to release the hand brakes. so right now my car is at the dealership gettin serviced.

What you just did is the transmission park release, that has nothing to do with the emergency brake unfortunately.

Question on Autohold. I see on certain X5's a button for Autohold next to the parking brake but mine doesn't have that. Did they add Autohold for 2008 or does mine simply not have a way to switch it off?

Who are you responding to? :dunno:

The transmission park manual release is under the front left cup holder, the parking brake manual release is in the back behind the driver's side cover.

Oddly enough, my parking brake reset itself back to normal function after the manual release, and it hasn't malfunctioned since. Lucky I guess....

Lowell_B I assume.

My auto hold feature has never worked correctly since I got the car. Nearly 2 years ago. It's being back at the dealers endless times for them to fix it. They are aware of some low level error codes that have being logged due to auto hold not working correctly but even after 2 years don't know how to fix the issue.

My problem is simply that once auto hold is switched on and the car is being held by autohold. It will randomly switch itself off and default back to regular park mode without me touching anything or moving off the seat (safety feature).

It's annoying because sometimes you don't realize and apply the gas to move off and of course you can't because auto hold is now off and the normal park break is applied.

The dealer raised a puma case and got the regional BMW rep to look at it but they don't seem to care about it. Pretty lame really.

It's not just BMW that's moving to electronic handbrakes, rather all German makes. Audi and Opel (yes, in the Buick Regal) have shifted to it as well. Along with electronic shifters, the electric park brake saves dash space for bigger cupholders, so say the automakers.

I still would prefer a manual handbrake. It's one less thing to manually release when the battery dies, and one less thing to break.

agree, some things are still better in manual