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      08-11-2019, 05:32 PM   #1
ViperBoy2
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Drivetrain malfunction - dealer needs help

Just bought a 2015 X5M with Dinan stage 1 + exhaust and 22" wheels. Car drove great for 400 miles but needed tires so I replaced all four with alignment (Toyo Proxes that do have a 1.3% size diff but are used by several people on various forums). A day or 2 later we noticed a pull from side-to-side under medium-hard acceleration a couple times but didn't have time to get it checked out before a trip

In the hills this happened several times (fairly hard pulling and then the engine felt like it was between gears and sounded a loud mechanical whine, before a hard clunk shift up). I limped it down the mountain. Disabling DSC lessened the side-side but not the power problem. Tried getting on the freeway and it wouldn't pull over 60MPH and so took side streets to the dealer in Chico, CA where by the time I arrived was constantly cutting power. The check engine light is NOT on and one time I got the power cut screen error but restarting the car cleared it (but not the power cut)

However, the dealer cannot hook his diagnostic tools up because the Dinan ECU seems to be interfering with the system (even though the reason Dinan charges 3k is to allow BMW techs to work on it!). I noticed that Bimmercode app with an MX adapter also couldn't sync with the ECU so I believe their problem is possible. E-Sys with a enet adapter was able to read various ecus though (never tried ISTA)

Any ideas on what this could be or how to get the Dinan system to behave? The dealer tech hadn't seen any piggyback problems before, but wasn't an expert on them and so didn't know what step to take next. I'm thinking it needs either a bmw or dinan flash upgrade or remove the dinan (which they don't know how to do) but if this problem sounds familiar, maybe I can have the problem solved.

I'm now 200 miles from the car and would like to find a way they can fix it in Chico - otherwise I need it towed to back to Bay Area (mega $$) to the Dinan dealer here

TIA...
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      08-11-2019, 05:39 PM   #2
desertfox73
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Oh man, Im sorry to read this. I hope this gets fixed in Chico.

I'm not super familiar with Dinan, but can they just remove the piggyback and see if that works?

I also assume they could call your dinan guys tomorrow and trouble shoot remotely as a next step?
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      08-12-2019, 08:30 AM   #3
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so the error on the screen lcd is DRIVETRAIN malfunction, loss of power? well i had that error right after taking the car. the odd thing was i had a coolant leak , a rock broke one of the two rads, and the error was drivetrain malfunction with reduced power, it would come and go but sometimes have power cut up to 50% of the sports display, (the one that shows the hp and torque), there was no obvious drips though of coolant.

so there is a chance that the error is masked or just throwing a silly message that has nothing to do with the actual issue. just my two cents, but until the dealer dug into it they couldn't tell me what the issue was.

when i brought it in it took them about 5 minutes with their tool or codes to figure out i was dry on coolant etc. then they had to look at it for about 1 hour or so to find the hole in the rad.

so basically if they can't find the issue and need the tools you might have to do a dealer visit.

gd
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      08-12-2019, 03:45 PM   #4
ViperBoy2
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Looks like I'm going to have it towed down to the "premium" dinan shop so they can fix the dinan interference and then deal with the actual problem

I only saw a reduced power msg once even though it happened across several restarts. Hopefully easy to diagnose once standard BMW tools work, but a cascading set of problems...

I'll follow up if dinan has any firmware updates to enable normal analysis
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      08-14-2019, 06:17 AM   #5
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I have a 2015 with 22s and exhaust. I did the Dinan install myself. It's a basic job to remove it. Or you could simply use the Bluetooth interface to return to stock tune and diagnose from there. Good luck
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      09-09-2019, 10:43 PM   #6
ViperBoy2
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Unfortunately I didn't have the info at the time to disable the Dinan, so I had it hauled home. Turns out it had a bad ignition coil and the power cut then drove DSC crazy. Chalk it up to BMW reliability...
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      10-03-2019, 03:23 PM   #7
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Turns out there was a bad ignition coil which caused the engine power problem, but the pulling issue was caused by the tire shop ordering the wrong aspect ration tires. A 5% front/rear diff causes XDrive to go bonkers, even on straight smoothe road

As for the Dinan, I had them do a software update on the piggyback, but it still interacts in some ways - even when disabled. Bimmercode still fails to connect, but E-Sys and Rheingold do work ok for coding
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      10-03-2019, 09:14 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ViperBoy2 View Post
Turns out there was a bad ignition coil which caused the engine power problem, but the pulling issue was caused by the tire shop ordering the wrong aspect ration tires. A 5% front/rear diff causes XDrive to go bonkers, even on straight smoothe road

As for the Dinan, I had them do a software update on the piggyback, but it still interacts in some ways - even when disabled. Bimmercode still fails to connect, but E-Sys and Rheingold do work ok for coding
This happened to mine. They ran 295/30-21's in front and the car acted like it had a slipping trans at 50-70 mph. The Xdrive doesn't like a difference in OD. I had the dealer replace the transfer case under warranty.

Not uncommon for boosted vehicles that run piggybacks or tunes to need plugs/coils at low miles. The plugs on my F80 were done at 14K miles.
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