[Svanliew]

I have an 03 bmw 325i automatic,my cousin gave it to me since he's going away over seas and it's pretty clean. The car has about 186.000 miles on it with a new engine with original tranny. He drove it through a flood but, the water dident go up very high at all. Everything engine wise runs perfect and oil is good nothing milkey, oil in water, etc etc. the transmission is in fail-safe mode and he took it to 2 shops and they said you need to take it to a bmw dealership and they can reset the computer. Would this fix my issue? The car downshifts really hard going from 3rd to 2nd and from 2nd to 1st. Every other gear is fine. Thank you much

 

[marcozandrini]

Transmission in safe mode

The first thing to do is to have the transmission control module AND the engine computer (ECU) scanned for codes. A car goes into limp mode when either the TCM or the ECU something amiss. This is done to prevent damage to the engine and/or tranny.

You'll need to find a reputable shop that specializes in BMWs. Try www.bimrs.org. Also, contact the local chapter of the BMW Car Club of America and ask for recommendations. Google "BMWCCA #####" where "#####" is your zip code.

Driving a car through anything deeper than a puddle is a crap shoot. Also, I bet that tranny needs a fluid + filter service.

 

[tim330i]

Welcome to Bimmerfest! I moved your question to our E46 3 Series forum, you'll get more help in here.

 

[Svanliew]

A little update just incase somebody has the same issue. I bought a code scanner on amazon for like $80 and it gave me a mass air sensor code(I forgot the number of it) and the transmission was also throwing a CAN torque interface and CAN torque reduction. After doing research about it I found out that probably my MAF sensor is bad. Bought one on Amazon and my "red cog of death" light is off and everything shifts fine and runs smooth. Hope this helps somebody and thank you for everybody's help as well!

 

[marcozandrini]

Fantastic!