Started off with noticing that both upper strut mounts were shot. Ordered replacements and did the driver side no problem.

When taking out the strut on the passenger side I noticed grease along the control arm and saw a tear in the inner cv boot.

Ordered a cv boot kit.

Ended up ripping the out ball joint on the control arm so I ordered that part. Ordered a selection of nuts (tie rod, axle nut).

Broke the clip on the cv boot because the cheap *** pliers I got literally broke and messed up the clip. Tried to fix it and it broke. Ordered two sets of cv boot clamps (just in case).

Finally got all the parts and packed the joint with grease, put everything back together, and immediately got the trifecta - abs, tire pressure, and dsc.

Drove it about an hour and tested it - slammed on the brakes and the wheels locked and a huge plume of smoke billowed in the rear view. Not good.

Got this loud whirring noise at speeds above 50mph or so. Seemed like it would come and go. Diagnosed as a wheel bearing. Figured I might have cooked it when I put some heat on to get the damn axle nut off. Ordered a new wheel bearing and four new bolts.

Just put the bearing in today and before putting everything back together I decided to spin the wheel to see. I didn't torque down any of the bolts, just hand tightened. That explains the "clink" noise at end of each rotation attempt.

I am some kind of "clicking" noise when spinning the passenger side on the jackstands. Driver side is still on the ground and the car is in neutral.

I took a video of it. I'm hesistant to put everything back together but I guess in the name of proper troubleshooting I have to. Now I'm thinking that maybe the cv joint that I thought was ok (the tear was relatively small and there was still plenty of grease in the joint when it took it apart) is not ok after all.

I had cleaned the joint and made sure to pack it with a bag of the grease that the kit came with.

The only thing left to replace now is the axle itself. What do you guys think?

Here's a link to the video I just took of me spinning the wheel by hand. It takes some effort and there's definitely some clicking - it does not spin smoothly. I haven't jacked up the other side to compare yet.


On a related note replacing the pads with Akebonos and new rotors as well.

 

You could be right that the axle was on its way out and you didn't do the reboot in time as it already failed. Did you end up tightening it down and going for a drive? Do you hear the axle clicking or anything?

 

Finally got my new rotors for all four corners. New pads. Went for a test drive after resetting brake light but trifecta remains. I will hear a whirring sound and man it sure sounds like it's from the driver side even though it was the passenger side that I hit with heat to get the axle nut off.

I'm getting that intermittent whirring sound and I guess I need a second set of ears to pinpoint which side.

I'm also getting some crazy clicking on the left side that I was not getting before. And again the work I did on the driver side was a)upper strut mount b) new pads and rotors.

I'm going to jack it up and see if I forgot to tighten something down by chance. I'm gemuessing end links as the clicking is evident only when going over bumps. You can hear it clearly at low speeds. I had both control arm bushings and sway bar bushings am changed out last year so that shouldn't be the cause.

 

I had a local shop scan the obd for abs issues and it clearly said passenger side wheel speed issue so I'm slightly befuddled.

 

I had a noise coming from what I swore was the driver front, when I had someone listen while I drove the car around a little, they pinpointed it to the driver rear, so maybe a second set of ears will be useful. How many miles are on the wheel bearings you didn't replace? I had a whirring noise once that a friend complained about and when I sat in the car I told her she should rotate and balance her tires as it sounded like tire noise. Definitely sure it's not something like that? Just trying to through some ideas out there. What was the P code that was pulled?

 

Good news is the clicking was because I didn't torque down a 16mm caliper carrier bolt. The other good news is I removed the passenger side abs sensor without breaking it and replaced it with a new one.

Bad news is whirring dti there as well as trifecta.

I'm thinking it has to be the driver side wheel bearing.

Other thing I forgot to mention was I had left the car on jackstands with the passenger side up for a week or so waiting for parts. So maybe that pushed the driver side bearing to its limit?

2006 GP with 73k.

 

No ses light btw. Plugged obd scanner no codes.

 

Glad you figured out the clicking. That's one item to check off with a smile. I would just inspect the remaining wheel bearings for any play. I've had wheel bearings make some really strange noises before and cause some interesting symptoms.

 

I had no 12/6 play. I think I had some slight 9/3 play but that could have been a result of me not having locked my steering wheel.

I went to a local shop and had to hook up an ABS obd scanner. Turns out there were 5 codes - 1 for vin issues (which is weird) and 2 each for wheels speed sensor - LEFT AND RIGHT.

So....I figured 73K might as well just change the wheel bearing and sensor. Also will get a outer control arm ball joint as I noticed the dang rubber boot had a tiny tear with some of the grease coming out of it.

Will update you as soon as I can get the parts.

Thanks for your help.

 

You're welcome. So, I do know sometimes the wobble test doesn't really work well for MINI's. Here is a good thread with some info on how to test to see if a bearing is bad besides the wobble test. Either way, definitely let me know what you get resolved and if your issue is fixed once you replace it and the sensor.

 

Finally got the parts today.

Installed a new driver side wheel hub, new outer control arm ball joint, new axle nut, and a new speed sensor (febi).

Bought myself a crp123 obd ii scanner tool that does a whole lot of cool stuff including resetting, reading, real time monitoring of all kinds of data.

I used it to reset the front left wheel sensor codes I had - 5d90 and 93.

Lights went off, reset tpms, and drove off.

Trifecta came on again but no more crazy whirring noise so 100% confirmed that it was the wheel bearing. The outer ball joint had a ripped rubber boot as well. Those are not so much fun to get off.

Pulled over, did some googling for 5d90 and saw that someone on a bimmer forum tried resetting the steering angle sensor.

Well, I went to read the steering sensor codes and there was a dtc code there but it was completely uninformative.

Reset it, removed the new 5d91 abs code (still said front left wheel sensor) and left the crp123 connected so I could monitor the mph of each wheel. It's so cool that you can do that albeit slightly dangerous to look down while driving.

BUT it was hands free I just had it in the cupholder sideways.

Anyways the lights stayed off and everything seemed fine until I had a few instances of the dsc light flash on along with a loss of power when on the gas.

I'm now wondering if the axle but got loose but I don't see how it could - I did hit it with a chisel to dent it so it would back out. I also made sure to torque to 134 lbs/ft.

Didn't happen all the time...but tested the brakes and abs worked fine. Also tested cruise control and that worked too.

Hooray.

 

Still having problems. Been monitoring wheel speed and sometimes I get correct readings and other times left front reads 0 or 187 mph when obviously I'm not going anywhere near that speed.

I even bought another sensor and it is still happening. Swapped sensors left and right and still only left side happening so that means it is not the sensor.

Is there any harm in soldering the wires together? I suppose that assuming the problem is at the connector.

Any suggestions? Bad abs module? Bad connection? The plug pins look fine and the wire is not chaffed as far as I can tell. Unwrapped it as far as I could.

 

I'd recommend solder over a connector. Any type of wiring I've done has been soldered for a better connection. This guy in this NAM thread here had the same trifecta as you. Not sure how helpful it will be, but check it out. This thread here, the guy had issues with chafed wires, but it also has some good info about soldering vs. connectors. Hopefully some of these help you with your diagnosis.

 

Thanks was just reading the first thread you linked. I think I'm going to pull the connector and check the pins he listed and see if anything is open.

Like I said I pulled back the tape and the wires looked good....but will double check.

Thanks.

 

I checked the left front and am getting 12v. Tested with the ground at the connector (car side) as well as touching the rotor. So to me that rules out an issue with the wiring, no?


Does anyone know which pins correspond to which wheel?

I tested for an open circuit on the abs module harness and this is what I found.

Resistance x 1000

Pins 42-43=200
Pins 37-36=60
Pins 33-34=3
Pins 46-45=50


But I think 46-45 corresponds to the left front because that was the first pair I tested and got no reading at all. And then I realized I forgot to plug the connector back in at the wheel.

When I did I got a reading.

Anyone know which pin set corresponds to which wheel? The scan tool I have says error code 5d90 left front wheel sensor and I can see the mph is all over the place when monitoring the front wheels and the wheels aren't even moving.

Confused.

 

Just tested my wife's 06 MCS for resistance at the DSC module harness:

Pins 42-43=200
Pins 37-36=100
Pins 33-34=200
Pins 46-45=100


Compared to mine, it would seem that I have issues all over the place. Hm.

Could a bad hub be the cause of this? I can't imagine it would cause the sensor to read speed when not moving unless it was magnetized somehow.

Not getting error codes for any other wheel either.

 

Another thing I noticed was that after putting everything back together to test, the minute I started the car I saw the wheel speed sensor going haywire.

I also noticed that it would all of a sudden go back to 0mph...and if I turned the wheel...this seemed to cause it to go haywire as well. Not 100% but perhaps the connector is bad.

So on that note I ordered these three parts according to realoem:

13 Universal socket housing uncoded 2 POL. 2 61131392246 $5.53
only in conjunction with
-- Bushing contact 0,2- 0,5MM² 2 61130005199 $1.88
-- Bushing contact 0,75MM² 2 61130006665 $1.97

I'm also getting a replacement wheel hub but I doubt it is that.

 

Was on vacation and busy on other projects. Here's what I did today:

1. Car has been on front jacks this whole time. Started up and got the lights right away. Left front wheel speed is wildly incorrect.

2. Cleared codes, shut off car, and disconnected the driver sensor (Febi aftermarket). 0mph, no readings.

3. Decided to cut the oem harness on the car side, replace with oem harness and leads. Soldered and shrink wrapped, then black tape.

4. Started the car again and same problem. Not the harness.

5. Plugged in the original oem sensor and installed in the hub....and got perfect results as the car was on jackstands. I'm not sure why I didn't do this before I cut the harness but I guess I'm losing it a little.

6. Got super excited figuring that I had it all figured out...but alas, after putting everything back together before I backed out of the driveway the lights came on again.

7. INterestingly, I noticed the oem sensor was not wildly incorrect in real-time wheel speeds. Instead, it would go from matching the other three wheels at say 16mph....and then the driver side front would drop to 0mph or 1.5mph....and then jump back up to the exact correct speed of the others.

I had previously swapped the left and right front sensors (both aftermarket) and the problem still persisted on the left side...which I thought meant the sensors were good......and that the wiring harness or further up was bad. But for the oem to behave "better" than aftermarket....it's probably a combination of both.

So now I'm thinking it's got to be some other issue with the wiring and also maybe the oem sensor is not good. This is the wheel that had the whirring sound and I had replaced the hub.

So just to cross my t's and dot my i's I had ordered another hub...NTN (oem manufacturer) and proceeded to replace it. Same problem. So it's not the hub.

Anyone know how the wheel speed sensor actually works? Does it read that dark area on the inside of the hub or does it read the wheel speed from part of the axel? I see a dent in the axel shaft but I'm not sure how it got there since I didn't remove the shaft at all on the driver side.

Any ideas?