Just fixed my dead Parking Brake Actuator.
 

When my parking brake actuator broke a few months ago, I swore I'd tear it apart first before shelling out $1000 for a new one.

So, I've finally had some real time and got it out of the 2008 X5 4.8i, cracked it open, and viola! The ground spade for the motor had separated from the motor!!!

Did the electrical repair, and tested it directly on the car battery, and it worked! Got it reinstalled, pressed the brake button to reset, and the yellow light went away.

I had all tools and expendables in the garage. $1000 saved!

So if you're mechanically inclined, consider taking a look inside of it first.

^^ Good job! I love reading stories like this. Too many people on here are wallet mechanics.

Amazing that BMW doesn't use better quality suppliers for such important components. I guess low-bid rules.

Can u give some details concerning removal, etc?

Kinda a brief DIY, helps tons of people out.

Literally, hundreds would use ur post in the coming years.

cheers,

Yeah, I hope I can get the time go do a detailed writeup. I had TIS to guide me through it, honestly without that I may have never gotten the cables disconnected from the actuator (I was able to leave the bowden cables in which I'm sure saved a ton of time).

I'll get a nutshell walkthrough of its removal and reinstallation ASAP.

Much appreciated!

Really appreciate u taking the time,

OK, here's the nutshell. No pics, they're in the TIS and I was bookin it during changeout.

-At the release cable in the hatch (use your owners manual to find it), use a screwdriver or similar to press in the detents, inside and out, than push the cable down into its little hole.

-Underneath the car, on the same side of the vehicle, you will see the cable coming out between the bumper panel, and the plasticky undercarriage panel. Unbolt the two closest bolts to where the cable comes out and you can pull the plasticky undercarriage panel out just a little bit to pull the cable all the way. You'll know its the brake release cable, because it runs to the actuator which is mounted under the X5, behind the axles. If you need pics of it, google it and there are many diagrams for it (asking $1000 for the module).

-Pull the cable from its mounts. This doesn't require tools, just pull them.

-Now, its time for at the unit. Disconnect the electrical connection (easier said than done, get a flashlight to see exactly where you need to manipulate the clip, its not very natural). Than, undo the bolts holding the unit to the frame, or whatever it was bolted onto. This will let it free hang, but it needs to free hang if you want to disconnect the Bowden cables without removing them.

-Now that the unit is hanging, use either a crescent wrench, or your brute strength to unscrew the plastic covers where each of the bowden cables goes into the actuator. The reason you want the unit to hang, is because on the driver's side, the release cable is in the way making getting to it with a wrench extremely difficult (well, getting the wrench on is easy, but having enough clearance to turn it is almost impossible). With the unit free hanging, you can twist the unit, and pull it away from interference so you can use a wrench. However, if you can bare hand those plastic caps, good on you!

-When the caps are loose, its about to get a little more interesting: For the drivers side cable, its screwed into the worm gear. There is a small square piece (you'll have to be there to understand) which you turn clockwise to release from the unit. Yes, that's opposite of normal, and I learned this the hard way. It may seem like you're turning it forever, and you will hear the cable turning in its sheath. But if you turn it as if you're tightening, it will untighten and release.

-Now that the driver's side is release, move on to the passenger cable. This will be much easier now, since you can pull the cable almost all the way out of the unit now that the driver's side is released. Note that if you had to manually release it already, the order that its performed won't matter. On the passenger side, you will see a white plastic sleeve no more than a half inch long. Use a screw driver to undo this clip and slide it away from the actuator. This white clip is holding the cable onto its part of the worm gear. Once its moved back, the cable easily slides off in an "upward" direction, that is, if the actuator were mounted, the cable would slide up towards the stars to come off. Again, the white plastic sleeve clip has to be unclipped and pushed away first.

-With both cables removed, the release cable loose, and electrically disconnected, maneuver the actuator out of the car. Note, its mounting bracket is still attached, but I was easily able to slide it out in the passenger side direction. TAKE NOTE OF HOW THAT RELEASE CABLE WAS ROUTED TO THE BUMPER!

-------And that's all for the moment.... will continue in a little bit.

Great write up by darkmesa8. Thanks! Thought I would add to this post with my experience.

Removing, opening the actuator/control unit and reassembly took around 4 hours. Probably took me a little longer as I was working on my back and trying to figure some things out on the fly.

I think my vehicle represented more of a challenge as it has the active dampening and air bags in the rear. there is very little room to work with and actually sliding the unit out after all cables and electrical were removed was very difficult.

The electrical connector is a levered connector. just take a screwdriver and move the lever back and the connector pops right off.

Be very careful when removing the white clip on the passenger side Bowden cable is it is quite fragile and I managed to break the clip from one side. There are two tabs on the white clip that need to be lifted slightly to be able to slide the white clip back which releases the cable. Getting the clip off and on is a serious pain with the limited space.

The control unit takes some muscle to pry apart after removing the torx 25 screws. Just start at one side and keep working around.

When reassembling the driver side bowden cable you may notice the square screw just keeps turning anticlockwise and doesn't catch. I found that if you take a plier that has the grip which locks you can pull the cable out of the emergency release cable a bit and lock it with the cable out. This basically drags the actuator part out so that you can screw the right side back in easily. The screwing action has to be done by hand and takes forever!

Unfortunately for me I did not see any lose wires and the connector showed no evidence of any burnt pins so after all that I am no further ahead :(

No other tips but feel free to PM me if I can assist. Some pics

Yep, definitely left some gouges while prying it apart. Definitely make sure you properly seal the unit when putting it back together, to keep moisture out. A small bead of RTV should do the trick.

PS, hasn't been exactly a "long" time, but it is still working great here.

Have you tested to see if the motor works? A pair of spare wires and a car battery should do.

Even if the motor is dead, I'm sure there has to be someone in your town that can repair it for less than $1000.

New update :thumbup:

Well after resiging myself to go to the dealership i thought I would borrow a freinds $8,000 Snap On scan tool. There were 4 codes, one was that there was a sporadic malfunction and another that said error comminicating with DSC. I cleared all EMF codes and everything is back to normal. Been driving for two days with no errors.

I was waiting for my new cable so I could do this myself with NCS Expert. I bet anyone can do this with NCS Expert which is what I would do if I get the error again.

park brake issues
 

Hey every one, my name is mike and I'm new to this site!
I have an 08 4.8 sport x5 and the park break is malfunctioning so I did some reading on this site and found out that its a pretty common problem and also learned how to take the actuator out, at this point i have the actuator out of the car and i have no issues that i can see (bad connections burnt trace wires on the board ect., I tested the motor and it works great and i tested the pwr at the plug and it is present so im wondering if anyone knows what all the diferent wires do? which one triggers to set, release ect. i would like to test it out of the car to see if its a problem with the board in the actuator box or if the problem is in the wiring of the car? any help would be great thanks

Hi all

thanks for all your posts re E70 parking break actuator. I have a question re fitting the cables back in.

When my actuator broke, it sheared the cables as well. Now that I have the parts and am ready for the mechanic to put it back together, he was wondering how far to screw the long threaded cable end (drivers side?) into the actuator to ensure that when it is switched on it is not too tight and so snaps the cable? Has anyone any suggestions as the best way to do it?

Thanks in advance

Hi can anyone tell me how to reset the brake actuator, I have managed to change the motor inside the actuator but it still gives a error. Some say pull up the brake button 5-15 seconds then push down 5-15 second I have tried that with engine on and off. Anyone has change the motor to ?

replaced the actuator with a refurbished but no luck
 

Got an indi mechanic to replace the actuator but error message won't go away and resetting it is not working.

Also looking for guidance on how to make it work.

Also can I sell the broken one ? I am sure there is a company interested to refurbish them.

Where did You Buy the part ? Was it a refurbished one ?
If you changed the whole unit you need to learn the new part in with dcan you can check on YouTube how to do that
I'm still checking where to buy the part if you have a good tip maybe ??

Anyone know what to do?
Changed motor and fuse in the emf module, during driving I can use the handbrake module but once I release it it doesn’t stay on the parking break. Orange parking light still on, does the emf module has a error that it keeps in memory and needs to be reset ?

Not trying to resurrect an old thread, but as this is one of the first ones that comes up when you search E70 Parking Brake Actuator, I want to say thanks by adding a few items.

First thanks to DarkMesa8 for the original post. It allowed me to do the repair in a couple of hours.

Mine had the negative spade on the motor broken clean off. Simple problem, not really an easy fix. There is small hole next to the spade. I used a small drill bit to enlarge it, then pushed a wire inside (next to and in contact with the broken spade), then soldered it. Not pretty but it seems to have worked.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/MYTaT3H4Fobj7GxZ7

2nd Tip - The Ebrake reset procedure.

I have seen it a few times online and on Youtube. For my X5, it only works when in DRIVE. I tried it a bunch of other ways: Ignition on, engine off, foot on brake. Engine on, tranny in Park. Unhooked the battery for an hour. Nothing. I could get the park brake to work while driving, but still had the error, until I tried doing the reset procedure in Drive, foot on the brake pedal. It cleared the dash error after holding the switch down for 5 seconds.

On a side note, using bimmergeeks ProTool, I did not have any parking brake codes stored in the module once clearing it after the fix. But still had the error as soon as the truck woke up.

Hopefully this will help someone else out.
Steve

Thank you to you and Darkmesa8. I will try this on mine sometime soon. The yellow light is driving me crazy! Do you think that I can drive the car without the actuator, as long as I dont activate the brake?