My 2004 M45 developed an intermittent electronic Gremlin.

I tried to search the forums with about five different keywords but no threads were returned regarding my strange issues.

It started when I tried to adjust my bass control in the CD Changer mode. As soon as I touched the joystick the bass cursor systematically decreased on its own until it moved full left or minimum bass. It would not move to the right. Then I moved the joystick down to adjust the treble and the system continued to move the treble to the left until the minimum position. Same with the balance. Sometimes the display would lock to prevent me from accessing the previous page (back out).

Then magically it was fixed and now the A/C controls (including fan speed and all dash buttons) were frozen without response. The only function available was altering the actual temperature. During both of these gremlins the voice activation would not trigger.

Then this issue cleared and the gremlin moved to the cruise control not responding and the ABS, SLIP and VDC lights illuminating at ignition and remaining on even though no change in performance is evident.

Now yesterday, the issue cleared again and the problem has returned to it's original source affecting the audio page during CD play with the bass and treble controls moving far left on their own.

Each gremlin phase lasted a few weeks before moving on to the next. This appears to be an endless circle of three areas.

Unfortunately, I do not have much confidence in the dealer to inquire.

Any information would be appreciated.

Thank you.

to NICO!

I don't have a lot of experience with the newer models, so I'm not sure that I can be of much help... Hopefully one of our resident experts can come along and help. Unfortunately I'm going to guess that this will end up being a dealer-fix type problem. Just for the fun of it, you might try disconnecting your battery overnight to see if that resets something.

Heath

Hi there,

I highly doubt you have a common problem that is moving...although I have no idea what condition your car is in and what the history is.

Taking a shot in the dark here I would guess that your control buttons are sticking or internally failing. The ENTER button is sensitive to begin with in a car it is not unheard of for the buttons to die. In any case repairing this is really not possible as the circuit board is actually what tends to fail.

The cruise control will not work at all if there is a fault in the ABS system. Anything from a bad wheel speed sensor to low brake fluid can cause a fault in the ABS system. Do you have Intelligent Cruise or standard?

It sounds like you need help. I do not think asking around the internet will yield you the magic gremlin spray you are searching for.

Find a dealer you can trust and have them take a look at it if you want it fixed correctly. Unless you have some electrical diagnostic skills and a bunch of tools you will not be able to do anything. The M is a very complicated car to work on (electrically) and just about everything in the car is expensive to replace.

Hello and thank you for your input into my issues.

The car is a "cream-puff", purchased with 34K miles in April 2008. As of today it has 47K miles of which half are highway. This car has the OEM Michelins still mounted. It has Intelligent Cruise with the lasers and every option. It has had no service issues.

A failed circuit board does seem to answer the console controls malfunction, especially the fragile Enter button/joystick. However, the problem has moved and remains temporarily indicating the ABS/SLIP/VDC circuit fault by displaying all three lamps simultaneously. If I turn off the car, remove the key and then restart the issue goes away and the lamps go out. The centre console controls are working as new, audio, nav and climate buttons including the Enter button. Even when the audio or climate controls "freeze", they would return to normal operation after 10 minutes of driving. The issues establish themselves at ignition.

My reasoning behind the "moving" problem stems from my years working with professional audio equipment. My experience tells me that if a circuit does not receive enough voltage, it's display will read normally, however, there may be no output or garbled/confused output as any chip-based electronics needs the full specified voltage. This happened often when using diesel generators or 100 year old buildings for AC power. This leads me to believe that there is a central power unit/voltage regulator that suppies power to the various sub-system circuits (nav,audio,climate,ABS,Cruise,etc.), and this unit is unable to provide enough juice to satisfy all sub-systems or it's distribution circuit is weakening/failing. Almost like a musical chairs game where there is an odd man out. Barely not enough juice and systematically becoming worse.

I like the idea of disconnecting the battery for a clean boot and will try this next.

Is there a proper way to approach the ingnition process? When turning the ignition, how long or how many bells do you wait before firing the starter? Does the system need time to initialize before firing?

Thanks again for your input.

Wow you are really over thinking this I bet.

If I had your experience I might lead that way too but.... that really doesn't work with this. Unless you have a problem between the battery and the main fuse block but there are so many common circuits that a bad enter button and low brake fluid are not related to moving electrical gremlins.

Remember we are dealing with DC here its more reliable over the short distances.

Check your brake fluid.