E70 (X5) shifts to nuetral at speed
 

Hi all, first post and hope someone can help. I have a 2010 48i that's giving me a bit of trouble. This may be a tad long, so bear with me. Initially, the problem started about a month ago. When travelling at an incline and while downshifting, the car with jerk and give a three light error. (abs, dsc, 4x4). Every time the car we started the cold with clear and the car would drive as normal. In fact even after the car with error, the car would drive as normal with the exception of cruise control being deactivated. about a week later before I could get the car into an Indy for diagnostic, a new problems surfaced which is the problem I'm here to ask about. Whenever the car is cold, it will automatically shift itself from drive to park or neutral depending on vehicle speed. The way the car feels and sounds when this happens is exactly like if you were traveling at a low speed and opened your front car door. The truck sat at the Indy for about a week, and he could not figure it out. Initially, the car threw a code for the shifter switch, which was replaced to no avail. The Indy believes my transfer case is bad (showed up in codes) which makes sense for the first problem, but not the second. In fact, he gave up on the second issue. I've scoured the web but I've found no one that has had any similar issues. I have the car back now, and am waiting for an appointment with the dealership. Before they break the bank though, does anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance!

Transfer case is a good bet for the initial fault. I suppose that due to the violent nature of the shifting problem as ddpapgagdd by yourself it may also be the root cause of the bigger problem you are now experiencing? Any way you look at it this is unfortunately an expensive fix if indeed it does involve mechanical failure of transfer case or transmission. I had what seemed to be a transfer case mechanical fault as diagnosed by BMW and they quoted me minimum $4500 for parts...turns out they were wrong and I fixed it myself by replacing the control module. The point I'm making is that by BMW standards the transfer case is costly since they replace rather than repair and by your description it certainly sounds mechanical. Hope I'm wrong...good luck.

Hi all, I wanted to post an update in case this helps someone sometime in the future.

After the first Indy gave up, I decided to ignore the problem for a while to see if it worsened or just became a nuisance. Well, it worsened. It got to the point where I could not drive the car a block without it shifting to neutral/Park or just error in out.

I decided to take it to another Indy (Strictly BMW) and they went down the same road as the previous Indy. Checked all wiring, reprogrammed control modules, etc. Finally, they settled the Machtronics unit as the culprit. Contacted my extended warranty company and they sent out an appraiser. While the appraiser was test riding the vehicle, it completely freaked out and was virtually undriveable. Long story short, I got a new tyranny out of the deal (covered) along with my cylinder 1 coil replaced (new code that happened on the test drive.)

I'll update this thread if it happens again or if I find anything else out.

Thanks,

Drew

**typed on my phone, please excuse any typos! **

I'm just starting to have the same issues...

Do you have any other details beside just the mechatronics unit in general, not the sleeve or something more specific?

I'm out of warranty and hope to find the specifics so I don't have to replace the whole thing for $1600.

Thanks for the update