RE: Flooded Control Module

[Daniel Chenault <DanielC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Seems the car wash people knew beforehand of this problem; it would be
on their shoulders to fix it as they knowingly ran a car with a problem
through their car wash.

I've only taken my 98 E36 through one of these washes twice, but didn't
have that problem.

- -----Original Message-----
From: randall@domain.elided [mailto:randall@domain.elided]
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 1999 8:21 AM
To: bmw-digest@domain.elided
Subject: Flooded Control Module


I had a problem yesterday at the car wash. My 94 E-36 came out of the
automatic wash with the doors locked with the key inside. According to
the car wash people there is a problem with 92-98 E-36 models. The cowl
drain is not adequate to take the volume of water produced with a heavy
rain or a car wash. The water not drained overflows into the control
model and shorts it out. I can tell you my electrical system went
bananas. Even though I didn't have automatic door locks, I do now. The
windows won't stay open. If the doors lock before I start the engine,
the engine won't start and some one has to use a key to get me out
because the indoor handle won't unlock the door. (Yes I was trapped in
the car). I hope that this will all straighten out when the controller
dries out or it is going to cost a small fortune to replace the
controller.

Has anyone else experienced this situation? I understand that there is a
bulletin 41.03 93(3914) on the topic. Does anyone know where this
bulletin be accessed? I am way out of warranty.

The fact that I was trapped in my car scares the hell out of me. Had
that been in an emergency ,such as a flood, I could have kisses my ass
goodbye, as there was no way out without assistance from the outside.

Randy Jacobs
95- 325
96- 328
and Worried

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