550 suspension warning light issue

hi everybody

I left my 98 550 in a garage for about 10 days and when i started it today the suspension warning light (triangle below wheel in the display console) came on.

I've heard it's a common fault when cars have been idle for some time. Is there any way I can reset it myself ?

 

mine did that for about 15 minutes after i had it on the dyno. they dyno operator told me it would confuse the crap out of the computer.

but it went away. have you driven it a bit? i don't recall offhand what the manual says about that (you might not want to drive it).

my car has sat for a couple months overwinter and i never saw that from sitting.

doody.

 

I don't know what it is about Italian electronics. My seat belt light is possesed! I have looked at the back of the dash trying to figure out which wire to yank, but...

Good luck, DrTax

 

yep I drove it for about 15 minutes. The light was still on..... anyone has a clue ?

 

Check your actuators. They are little red cylinders on top of the shocks, and they control the valves which control how much rebound you get from the shocks (ie a little piezo electric motor inside spins the valve one way or another) - as per the manual, this is as needed for different conditions, and also sport mode (hence the stiffer suspension setting, which I've never been able to feel).

The actuators spin. This is not a faulty part, as they've been using it since the mondial or something. It only happens in the front of the 550 (not in the rear) and basically it's due to the geometryof the car.

What you're looking for is whether the cable is so spun up and twisted, that it's locked tight. *hopefully* the cable hasn't spun so much that the wires got pulled out. Both of mine spin (moreso on the passenger side), but when they're all tight and wound, nothing has ripped.

In my opinion, it's not worth spending the $500 / each to replace them, as so long as the wires haven't pulled out, you can simply unclip it, spin it back the other way (untwist the cable) and put it back on again. There is a little retainer clip which is a bit of a PITA to get off and on at first (I can now do it in ~30s after much rpactice, hot or cold - preferably cold ).

Remove the retainer clip (if you have large hands that aren't overly dexterous, you may want to try a pair of mechanic's foreceps to help pull them off), pull the actuator straight up, and then untwist the cable. When putting it back on, put it in a position where you'll remember (I keep them pointed "out" towards the outside of the car), so you can quickly look again to see if they are spinning.

I do not recommend removing the bracket on the side of the wheel well to give it more slack. I did this, and found one of the cables melted and shorted against the header, causing the same error.

Only once did a very spun actuator cause the light, but when I saw it I knew that's that the problem is.

If my explanations don't make sense, I'll take pictures for you.

--Dan

PS: If, in fact, the cable has been pulled apart and you do need to buy a new one, can you send me the old one? I've been meaning to get my hands on a broken one so I can crack it open and see why exactly it's torquing. Hopefully with some help I can engineer a real fix for it.

 

The light on our 2000 has come on now and again, though I haven't seen it come on in quite a while (knock on wood). One time during a drive it came on for a while but after shutting down the engine, it went away at start-up. I am not at all saying that it couldn't be signalling a real problem, but perhaps it could be just wierd things going on with the system. A few of the times we saw it come on though were after the car had been sitting a couple days in the garage, same as your case, but then it also went away when it felt like it. Perhaps it is the case that ours is having some issues, but the problem has not been so common or lasting that we have really looked into it. Hope it's nothing to troublesome. Good luck!

Eric

 

Guys, I'll say it again...check the actuators. Last thing you would want is one ripping out while driving...although Honestly, I'm not sure how much damage it would really do.

--Dan

 

Hey Dan,
Many thanks for the advice, I checked my car and the front right one is indeed very tightly twisted, will have to spend some time fixing that this week-end. Stunning design flaw ...

 

JC: I will take detailed pictures tomorrow to help first-timers. Which side is busted up? Front right meaning passenger side (on a LHD car) ?

--Dan

 

hi bobafett....

I think pics could be very helpful. It's always quit toough to figure these things and i do not feel confident enough given my limited mech. background

thanks for help

thibaut

 

Mine came on after about 10-14 days not driving it. I think it hardened the suspension but when the tires are rollin, the light went away.

I think it is just needing driving. No worries

 

Thibault: I will gladly take pictures this weekend when I have a moment's sanity. After all, I am likely the least mechanically inclined person here (believe it or not, even less so than the hugely inept Doody! hahaha) ... and so what little I can share I am more than happy to do so.

--Dan

 

hi hi hi

Just had another go at this warning light. I was aware that it may occur after the car had been unused for sometime.

So I turned off the main switch and turned it back on (left it off for 3 min as apparetnly there may be a kind of back up battery). Upon restart, the warning did not show up ! so problem is apparently is solved.

Bobafett : I am still interest by the acuator thing as i wanna check that too.

thibaut

 

My light comes on if I rush the start up before the check cycle is complete. Will stay on until re-boot/restart. Actuators have been OK. We'll see what happens when I drive it again...surgery recovery for 4-6 weeks min, shark looks forlorn in garage

 

Dan -
How do you untwist this cable ? I unplugged then unscrewed the connector, but it seems that the cable is twisted for life, if not since the factory. I don't even understood how the red actuator can rotate and twist the cable ?
Cheers, JC

 

Guys,

My sincere apologies. I have been extremely busy the past week. You can't untwist it from the connector. You have to physically remove the actuator from the top of the shock valve.

Let me go quickly take pictures. We'll see how they turn out.

--Dan

 

Ok. These pictures are a bit hard to decipher. So here we go.

The first picture is of the actuator sitting in it's place, all spun up. If you are inside the car, this is the right side. My cable is red because I replaced it (or tried to), but you can tell it's all pulled hard.

The second picture is from another vantage point (towards the front of the car). You can see the retention clip. I put mine this way because it's easiest for me to reach in and unclip / reclip it (prong ends facing to the front of the car).

The third picture is the prong itself. This is the actual clip that holds the actuator in place.

The fourth picture is an attempt to show the actuator w/o the clip in place. You can see "slits" where the prong fits in. You have to FULLY seat the actuator before you insert the clip. It's not hard, you just have to make sure it's down. You'll feel around fully to make sure it's inside again (as per first picture).

 

Ok, so now you simply pull the actuator off. You have to literally just pull it up. This is the actuator spun up, but removed a little. You can look on the inside to see the "teeth" which mesh into the crown on the top of the shock.

To unspin the cable, just twist the other way on the actuator. You rotate the actuator which (connected to the cable) should twist the cable th eother way.

The next picture is the top of the crown and the valve that the actuator moves. Looking at it, you can also see the same "slits" where the clip goes in.

Ok, so here's my actuator replaced and unspun. You can see the slits a little more clearly now. In order to make a quick check to see if it's spun, I point the actuator "top" (the part where the wire goes in) out - so that if we are looking at the right actuator (as viewed from inside the cabin), the connector point is pointed right also.

You need to reclip the prong now. Make sure the actuator is fully seated before you reclip it. It doesn't take much...

Don't ask me how these thigns spin. If yours has a cable that has been pulled (I am hoping not), please send me the old one so I can crack it open. It's not worth spending $400 if your cable is spun up and the outer housing is cracked. They'll do that, and the next one will too. It's stupid, I know.

--Dan

 

FYI, just a reminder, if you are at the head of the car and just unlatched the hood, this is on your LEFT. If you are inside the cabin, this is on the RIGHT.

I don't know about the Euro cars, but on the US cars, the opposite side is a PITA to get to. I have big hands, and I can barely get them inside. With experience, I can do it blind, but the first time it helps to have someone hold a large flashlight to help you see. It's hard to get a workshop light pointed down in the right place.

Any other questions, let me know. If you guys need more pictures, etc. tell me.

--Dan

 

i wonder what the strength of the torque force is that's spinning that. maybe there's a fix as simple as gluing some "wings" on the damn cylinder so that they get "caught" on whatever else is around and stop the spinning....

doody.

 

Well, this is what I was trying to figure out. Spinning the valve by hand is easy at stand-still, but under load, that thing has to be pretty damn tough to move. Nonetheless, it is still just a valve, and the little two-step piezo motor in there can't be all that strong. Plus, it's held in place by plastic on metal.

My thought was to see if it were possible to replace the teeth on the inside with something metal, but your idea is probably much simpler.

--Dan

 

here's an idea. cf. attached pic.

the top of the actuator has a nice thick, sturdy plastic extrusion from which the cables exit. circled.

there are four exposted bolts at the base of the actuator - i assume the shock assembly attaches on these four bolts. one marked with an arrow in the pic. there's even some decent amount of exposed, usable thread on each bolt.

okay - so if you pointed the cable exit of the actuator to be centered between a pair of bolts, you can imagine a relatively simple part (cf. sketch) that is V shaped (inverted) with bolting wings at the top of the V arms and a simple structure at the top which simply provides the resistance when the actuator tries to spin. it wouldn't attach onto the actuator at all - it'd just be there to keep it from spinning.

doody.

ps: if you wanted to test this , it would be relatively easy to hack this with some cable ties and a wing nut on those bolts - or some simple loop structure welded to a nut - actually, maybe that's the easiest solution. get some nut structure that fits on those bolts and has some way to attach or thread a cable tie through it - and then wrap a cable tie around the actuator wire egress and then wire tie the three parts together (wire-tied actuator, two bolts with some connector thing).

Mr. "I can fix anything with duct tape and wire ties" Doody

 

I'll give it a shot. This is why they pay you the big bucks!

--Dan

 

My 2000 occasionally did that if I parked it at an angle somewhere. Simply shutting it off and turning it back on worked every time.

Very BMW-esque.

Go figure..........

DL

 

My suspension light came on today. Tried turning the car off, leaving it for 1/2 an hour etc, nothing worked. I checked the wiresto the actuators, one was tight, but had not actually spun around, so I thought that it wasn't the problem. After trying for a while i decided i had nothing to lose by taking the actuator off and repositioning it so the lead wasn't being pulled tight.
Presto, suspension light off!
Thanks for the tip Doody, I would have had to take it in to the dealer to have it checked on the diagnostic computer if it wasn'tfor your posts.