Dear experts,

I am in need of advise on the problem at hand now.

The car was running fine for the longest time without any errors or hiccups. Yesterday out of sudden the engine just die on the traffic light. I managed to restart and got home safely.

Today I went out on a very short trip (less than 5 km) away from my resident to get some groceries, on the way back the engine again give way but this time is when i was on the throttle. I have to wait for 15 mins then it restart and i managed to get home. After that unable to start anymore.



Year: 2009
Model : Mini R56 fJCW
ECU : from day one
CAS : from day one
Mileage : 150700 km

with the ISTA I am getting the error below :

002FD9 DME: Interface EWS(immobilizer) - DME

002E1C DME: No BSD message from alternator

00A0B1 CAS: Input, selector-lever position, implausible

00A0B4 CAS: Engine start, starter operation



I am not sure where to start with the error codes above, any suggestion and help would be much appreciate.

 

I’m not an expert, but I’ll try to give some feedback.

You have ISTA so you should run a test plan on your faults. Also, look at the descriptions of your faults. It’s quite revealing actually. In your case, the problem seems pretty narrowed Down to the CAS module, alternator, wiring in between, and least likely, the DME. You should pull up the wiring diagrams as well on ISTA.

The CAS module acts as the gatekeeper between the ignition switch and the starter. Its the Car access system that serves as anti theft. It’s been known to blow out a resistor or relay suddenly which causes it to stop function, usually burn marks or seen in the circuit board when opened up. There are examples floating around in the internet. If that happens, your car won’t start. Won’t crank either. This could happen I’d the battery voltage got too low too.

If your DME is telling you there is an immobilizer problem, it’s likely not receiving signal from the CAS that tells it it’s ok.

id say your first order of business would be to hook up the battery to a charger, preferably after an initial voltage reading, or to another car, as if you’re going to jump your car. If you have the ability to jumpstart your car, try it. If it runs, disconnect the jump cables and check your battery voltage again. If you’re not getting around 14 volts, you have an alternator issue. There’s also test the alternator by itself in the web and YouTube.

if all you have is a trickle charger, use that while running ISTA. Call up ECU functions for the CAS in the control tree to make sure it’s communicating. In there, you can also pull up the voltage signals in read state for your terminals R,15, and 50. Terminal R being active is when the fob is in the ignition. Its what allows you to play the radio and other minor activations when the car is off. Terminal 15 is active when the ignition is on but the engine is off.

terminal 50 is active when you’re cranking the car. It’s what is supplying voltage to your starter. You’ll get a CAS terminal 50 fault if your battery is too low

The most annoying and expensive problem would probably be a bad CAS. It’s right under the dashboard near the steering wheel. Makes it a pain to get to.

you might actually just have bad wiring somewhere.

I apologize if this is no help.

 

Many thanks Avarath, it is so kind of you to put everything clearly in diagnosing the problem.

Actually the first order of thing is to get my battery charge up, tho it is a new battery but it has been sitting there for a year plus due to covid lock down.

Once the battery installed will proceed with going thru as per you diagnosis.

Hopefully it is not CAS or DME, keep my finger crossed. Will update the progress later tomorrow.

Thanks once again.

 

Guys,

Issue solved.

It is unfortunate the dme give way for this case, managed to find a used dme and did a clone. Installed and immediately the car start without issue, previous dtc all gone.

Thanks for all the help.

 

Hi Edwkmho, congrats on getting your car running again! It sounds like you learned some things that might be able to help me. I'm having problems with my 2007 r56 mcs, I was having issues having to crank it many times to start it and keep it from stalling, and suspected it was a HPFP failure, as it has happened to me before. I stored the car for 18 months and recently bought a new HPFP to install. But after installing it and charging the battery, the car cranks but does not ignite. Could you tell me what I can check to troubleshoot my car? And how did you "clone" the dme?

 

I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing issues.

1. If you have ISTA-D + USB K+Dcan cable would be nice as it will tell you the DTC/error code to start troubleshooting. if you do have no choice but to try narrow down the problem, start with fuel, spark, dme relay in the engine bay, crank & cam sensor
2. check if low pressure fuel working?
a. turn on the car not cranking, go to your back seat to check if the low pressure fuel pump pumping. You will hear some humming sound coming from the fuel. If it is not then high it is the JBE relay K96 faulty. Need to replace JBE.
3. check for spark - take out spark plugs from the engine, and then connect with the coil and have someone crank and you place the spark plug close to car body which is negative to check for spark.
4. check dme relay in the engine bay

Locally in Malaysia we have people doing the dme cloning as new from BMW is very expensive. We can have used dme or oem (new board) too. The pricing is acceptable.

Hope you can find the issue. Do let me know how i can help.

 

Edwkmho, thank you so much for your list of things to check! I will start investigating them and hope to check back with you when I have made some progress. I don't have an ista, I was using an autophix 5900 obd2 scanner specifically for BMW & Mini, but with this problem I am not getting any check engine light or error codes. I may need to try some other scanner.

 

JJChien,

If you have android phone and K + Dcan usb cable or any ELM327 based bluetooth or wifi adapter can try Deep OBD app which is using the same library as BMW standard tools (ediabaslib). The app can give you error similar to ISTA-D.

Good luck.

 

Thanks Edwkmho,
As a first step today I used a voltmeter to check that I'm getting electricity to my spark plug wires, and confirmed I'm getting around 20 volts. Next I'm going to order a thin walled spark plug deep socket (I think it's 14mm?) to remove the spark plugs to see if they are bad. I have an android phone, can't find my old ELM327 bluetooth obd2 adapter so I will have to order another. The Autophix 5900 has so far not been useful, for some reason it connects to the car successfully for BMW/Mini basic and advanced functions and doesn't find any faults, but it does NOT connect to the car using OBD2 functions?!? Don't know if there is something wrong or if that's how it is supposed to be... ​​​​​​​

 

From your scanner it seems like your CAS is having issue. Just follow your scanner and proceed with CAS testing. Sorry i am not familiar with the scanner.