[brad850csi]

I'm not sure if there is a better sub-forum for this, but my wife's F11 starting making a weird plastic ticking noise when turning the wheel a few weeks ago.

After that all of the buttons stopped working and the airbag light came on as well. I did a quick search and found that this means the clock spring in the wheel has failed, I pulled it apart and confirmed that is the case.

I bought a new one from a wreckers from an N52B25 (badged as a 523i here) with my car being a N52B30 528i. The donor car was an msport with paddles whereas this one is a non-msport without paddles.

I swapped the cables into my old housing with the indicator and washer stalks simply because the one on the donor car had a mark/scratch on one of the stalks and I didn't want to use it.


On startup the car wouldn't turn right very far at all, only about 5 degrees of steering, instead of the 45 degrees or so normally and the reverse camera thought the car was at near full lock.

It also turns the steering wheel about 90 degrees to the left upon startup. The limitation to the right is roughly when on centre. What is super freaking weird is that the car drives straight while the steering wheel is at 90 degrees to the left, then after a minute or two of driving around normal suburban intersections it corrects itself.

If you push past that 'false' limitation to the right, it will steer normally and at that point in time the dash throws up a bunch of steering and stability control errors.

If you don't push past that limitation and just drive forwards, the car gets up to about 15kmh or so then the ABS kicks in as if it thinks you're sliding, then the same warnings come up on the dash, after that the steering works just fine.


After experiencing this I pulled it all apart and spun the clockspring around 360 degrees so that it'd correct the car thinking it was nearly at full lock when going straight. When doing this the car instantly throws all of the warning lights when it is turned on and the reverse camera while thinking that the car is now reversing straight, the indicator green lines kind of wiggle and bounce left and right about 5 degrees either way and when the wheel is turned the lines don't change in direction.

I also spun it 360 degrees the other way and it does the same as above. Also when it is the way that I think it should be, the steering lockout works on-center. So that makes me think I do have it in the right place.



I've done a bit of searching online and it seems like some people have had some DSC issues on E90s and needed to code the central steering wheel location, but not on F10/11 cars and not quite the same issues either.

Thoughts? Is it a weird coding issue that can be fixed in software or some incompatibility perhaps?

I did post this in the suspension sub-forum but after a few days there hasn't been a reply so I thought I'd try here. It is booked into a workshop on Friday but it'd still be great to know what I might be expecting.

[StradaRedlands]

There is a procedure for calibrating the steering wheel angle sensor that needs to be done whenever the clock spring is pulled out. ISTA/INPA will be needed, but maybe Foxwell or another app will do it. Give that a try, better than naught chance that it's the problem!

[brad850csi]

Originally Posted by StradaRedlands

There is a procedure for calibrating the steering wheel angle sensor that needs to be done whenever the clock spring is pulled out. ISTA/INPA will be needed, but maybe Foxwell or another app will do it. Give that a try, better than naught chance that it's the problem!

Great, thank you - the workshop I'm taking it to has the ISTA software so hopefully it'll be an easy fix

[StradaRedlands]

Originally Posted by brad850csi

Great, thank you - the workshop I'm taking it to has the ISTA software so hopefully it'll be an easy fix

If that's the issue, yes, a 3 minute fix!