[Sprinterman]

I’ve heard of people changing their gearshifter just because the LEDs fail, in most cases it’s not necessary, as I discovered, the central fault memory in the ECU over a period of time fills up with all kinds of lighting/LED faults. I lost all my interior ambient lighting, and the ability to switch from classic to sport ambient. My fix was to clear the central fault memory with ISTA, my shifter LEDs returned without any issues, so did my ambient lighting. So before any of you think the LEDs have given up, try this first

[fortythirtyfive]

The reason these usually fail are because of the 4 pole chips going bad.

Common symptoms are the LEDs go off after changing from park to drive/reverse or into manual gears. This happens because one of the poles is faulty, it doesn't trip the rest of the circuit until it's required to be in use (i.e illuminating another LED nearby).



All you need to do is pop the circuit out and do a quick continuity test using a multi-meter on each pole to decide if this is the case. I ended up desoldering all my chips and recoloured them individually whilst I was replacing the broken one

FYI I would imagine you had another fault code relating to the gearstick that required clearing before it would operate again. The ambient lighting is controlled separately and runs from the HU, where as the gearstick is usually DME/EGS.

[Sprinterman]

Thanks for this, I’ll keep an eye on it, I find clearing the fault memory every now and then does rectify my lighting issues, the shifter LEDs went off about a year ago, so I cleared the fault memory and they’ve not had a fault since. Only takes a few minutes with ISTA, cleared the fault memory again today and they’ve come back on.

[Billfitz]

You should check for error faults and clear them as part of normal regular maintenance.

[Sprinterman]

Totally agree, ISTA is your friend, solved many an issue for me, without having to spend any money. Well worth investing a few hundred pounds for a laptop with all the pre installed bmw programs, I plug it in once a week to keep things clean.

[Billfitz]

You don't necessarily need ISTA. I do all my coding with Bimmercode, and most of my diagnosis and fault clearing with bimmer-tool Lite, which is a free app.

[Sprinterman]

That’s for android I think, I can’t access that, but I have bimmercode, BimmerLink and ISTA, tool 32 and more, which is enough, and it helps my mates also if they need anything done. If the gearshifter led circuit board has given up the ghost, and ISTA won’t clear it, don’t pay silly money for a new shifter, buy a used shifter from EBay for £30, remove the led circuit board from the one you just bought, and swap it over to your cars shifter, it’s a simple plug and play option