e36 Battery Disconnected 2 hours, now instrument cluster alarm blaring!

[gylleto]

Sooo...... Yesterday i finally got my new ABS sensors and decided to get my ABS back to life... I unhooked the battery just in case, and changed all the sensors in about 2 hours. When i plugged the battery back in, an annoying alarm started to sound from the instrument cluster. (My car doesnt have any kind of alarm system). None of the gauges move, and the digital display does not light up. However, all of the other lights work, like abs (which now finally works!), foglights, left/right blinker, etc. But there seems to be some kind of anti-theft alarm triggered by having the battery disconnected. Does anyone have any experience with this? The car is completely driveable, i just unplugged the instrument cluster so that i dont have to listen to that annoying sound. The sound is the same as when you turn the car off and leave the driving lights on, like a beeeeh-beeeeh-beeeeh, and plus a bliiiiiiiiing on top of that. If anyone knows anything, please help me out!

Thanks,

-toni

[OshatRMS]

Sooo...... Yesterday i finally got my new ABS sensors and decided to get my ABS back to life... I unhooked the battery just in case, and changed all the sensors in about 2 hours. When i plugged the battery back in, an annoying alarm started to sound from the instrument cluster. (My car doesnt have any kind of alarm system). None of the gauges move, and the digital display does not light up. However, all of the other lights work, like abs (which now finally works!), foglights, left/right blinker, etc. But there seems to be some kind of anti-theft alarm triggered by having the battery disconnected. Does anyone have any experience with this? The car is completely driveable, i just unplugged the instrument cluster so that i dont have to listen to that annoying sound. The sound is the same as when you turn the car off and leave the driving lights on, like a beeeeh-beeeeh-beeeeh, and plus a bliiiiiiiiing on top of that. If anyone knows anything, please help me out!

Thanks,

-toni

that's not the alarm. something is keeping your warning chime on. Try doing a forced reset on the car. It's done like this...

Put the cluster back in.

disconnect the battery. both terminals

KEY OFF AND OUT OF THE IGNITION

Touch the positive and negative terminals together for about 5 minutes. using a jumper cable makes it easier so you don't have to sit there holding the cables together.

What this does is reset all the memory in the computers. it will NOT hurt anything. We do this when cars do funny things that make no sense :-)

good luck

[gylleto]

Problem Solved!

Called around to a few bmw fanatics and almost right away one guy was able to tell me my biggest mistake. When i disconnected the battery, i removed the positive cable. Somehow, when i reconnected the battery there was some kind of electrical peak which damaged the instrument cluster. Even though some of the lights were working on the instrument cluster, none of the gauges were, and this "alarm" and flashing light would not stop, no matter what i tried...... So I was able to find a used one for 80 eur, and with big doubts in my mind i went over to try it out.....and now everything works great!

So the moral of the story:

WHEN YOU DISCONNECT A BATTERY REMOVE THE NEGATIVE CABLE!