Concern - Two Out of the Triads Came On

So this morning as I turned on the car to go to work my BRAKE and 4X$ lights came on and stayed there. I turned off the car and turned it on back again and there they are again. Well, I backed up the car a little bit to get her out of the garage and turned the car off. Now the wife comes and sits in the car and I turned on the car the third time and bingo! No lights !! I bet she has more good karma than me.

Now I have read about the famous triads of lights that can lead to BIG $$$ repairs. In my case like I said I just had 2 lights that came on and not the "ABS" that came on so far. Anyone else who has experienced this before? Anything alarming??

My biggest issue is that the dealer is 190 miles away from me and not a BMW Indy shop in town either so only guess work is all I can do about the issue. Any help from you all would help!

Originally Posted by swapsafari

So this morning as I turned on the car to go to work my BRAKE and 4X$ lights came on and stayed there. I turned off the car and turned it on back again and there they are again. Well, I backed up the car a little bit to get her out of the garage and turned the car off. Now the wife comes and sits in the car and I turned on the car the third time and bingo! No lights !! I bet she has more good karma than me.

Now I have read about the famous triads of lights that can lead to BIG $$$ repairs. In my case like I said I just had 2 lights that came on and not the "ABS" that came on so far. Anyone else who has experienced this before? Anything alarming??

My biggest issue is that the dealer is 190 miles away from me and not a BMW Indy shop in town either so only guess work is all I can do about the issue. Any help from you all would help!

Yup. We had the unholy trio of lights that put the X3 into the limp mode. My mechanic found the alternator was going south after a warmup drive.
The vehicle has been great now since June.

Had the same problems with my '07 X3. First, the yellow BRAKE and 4x4 lights came on about 50% of the time, car drove fine, no noises.
Battery was about 5 1/2 years old, black light was on, replaced battery.
Lights still came on, however the car drove fine, no grinding noise.
After about 3 weeks the red Air bag light came on one morning in addition to the other two lights. Took the car the the dealer, they traced it to the ignition switch. Replaced switch, picked-up the car today, no MILs so far, will update if anything changes. $450.00....ouch.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I guess in my case as I haven't seen the trio after that day, I just plan to wait to take it to the dealer until the car shows any more signs. Meanwhile, I am still going to check the battery charge just in case if that's the issue.