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After 4x4 message car feels wishy washy all over the road and steering wheel is off

3K views 10 replies 6 participants last post by  MrAbbs325is 
#1 · (Edited)
I have a 07 335xi and last night here in Michigan we had a bit of snow end up on our roads and I was driving home in it and I received a "4x4 !" message across the OBD followed by some terrible handling and my steering wheel is off about 3 inches to the right. This message continued to stay on. Now I checked underneath the vehicle to see if it was just some snow packed up in my wheels or something but nothing that should be causing my vehicle to drive so terribly. I am at a loss. I stopped the vehicle last night and started it back up to see the same thing. This morning I have no error message but it still handling like hell and my steering wheel is still off. It doesn't even feel safe to drive, I have driven it in snow and it handled wonderfully, now, not so much. Last night we had some terrible weather including 100 car accidents in one area resulting in them shutting the interstate down. It was certainly the worst weather I have driven in thus far so when I seen the message I presumed it was my DTC not being able to fully handle the weather which is fine with me but don't make me vehicle worse off. Any help would greatly be appreciated as I literally live out of my vehicle between work and college and whatever may be the problem I need fixed asap. Thank you in advance.
 
#2 ·
Just a guess, but I used to off road a jeep wrangler, and whenever I would nail a rock too hard, the sensor that tells the steering what is "straight ahead" would get out of wack, and then the stability control would start fighting with me for about 30 seconds, and then it would shut down and give me a warning message. The cure was to get the front end (toe-in / out) aligned, and then all would be good again.
 
#3 ·
This is still an issue. I have done some extensive research to find it may a combination of two things. The steering angle sensor and the transfer case servo. It is surely something I haven't experienced before driving the vehicle. This literally wants to throw itself off the road if hitting the most minuscule of bumps. I have disconnected the battery to clear the codes. I am under the presumption you cant do the steering wheel trick unless the lights are on but they are not on anymore because doing it doesn't do anything. Somehow I need to find the time to take it to my nearest dealer which is roughly 60 miles away. It is out of warranty so if anyone has had these problems
 
#5 ·
I had this error for 2 different reasons on my 335. One was a complete failure of a part in the transfer case which was replaced under warranty. Another is when the tire store put the wrong size tires on the back and completely pissed off the system.
 
#7 · (Edited)
You're never going to believe this!


Through my research I thought it would either be the transfer case servo or the steering angle sensor being way off which was causing my transfer case to act indifferently because it thought my vehicle was turning when it was going straight or vice-versa. To my amazement, it wasn't.

Here's was it was. Like stated above, I was the victim of some nasty Michigan weather the night this happened. I took it to an indy shop expecting the worse and I told him what it may be and told them to run the codes. Come to find out the camber and toe were so off it was throwing driveline codes and all sorts of nonsense making my drivetrain act completely insane. I came to find that the previous owner must have bumped a curb pretty hard causing the right rear suspension to be bent about a degree but it was maxed out as far as alignment and toe go thus making the vehicle feel fine. In the nasty weather my traction control was going nuts on all the ice and I guess through spiritedly navigating through the weather I completely threw all of this off with the aggressive use of my traction control. They had to "grind" my right rear to get it back to where they could set the toe, camber, and finally align it.

Toe was off on right rear -1.7 and camber -2.3

$66.00 1 hour book time
$99.00 alignment
$33.00 diagnosis fee
Total bill= $217.49
 
#10 ·
In the nasty weather my traction control was going nuts on all the ice and I guess through spiritedly navigating through the weather I completely threw all of this off with the aggressive use of my traction control. They had to "grind" my right rear to get it back to where they could set the toe, camber, and finally align it.

Toe was off on right rear -1.7 and camber -2.3
Wha? Grind what, exactly?
 
#9 ·
I had this same thing on my E36 when I tired to replace the rear trailing arm bushings. Long story short the first time I drove it in snow it was down right scarry, the rear end would just keep scootting back and forth at highway speeds. This weekend I readjusted the rear trailing arm to get the toe as best I could with other side that hadn't been moved now everything is solid in the snow and ice.

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Bimmer App
 
#11 ·
They had to adjust my strut tower to be able to adjust my toe. "Grind" must be some sort of mechanic term for it because I have two master techs for friends and they said the same thing.
 
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