Imagine yourself driving peacefully aboard your BMW 5 Series and all of a sudden an engine signal shows up on your dashboard ! The most common kind of reaction is the worry of risking a severe trouble. To know what precisely this light corresponds to, you will have to learn how to read an BMW 5 Series fault codes, you may have already heard about OBD system, this is exactly what we are going to speak about. Our editors have decided to produce this article content to enable you fairly quickly find the source of this default code and to give you serenity. To accomplish this, we will first examine the nature of a fault code on BMW 5 Series, then how to read an BMW 5 Series fault code, and finally how to erase this fault code to be able to turn off the light on your dashboard.
What is a BMW 5 Series fault code?
A fault code is a universal or standard code which is identical to all manufacturers , they are also called DTC (Data Trouble Code), the purpose is to guarantee that any diagnostic OBD can interpret them. They will be represented by a standard format, such as example: P0255. Each info will have a particular meaning. Default codes are codes issued by the calculators of your BMW 5 Series. These ECUs will continuously monitor your vehicle’s exhausts, pressures, mixtures and when the values exceed the limits set by the vehicle’s ECU, the fault code will emerge. The advantage of knowing how to read a fault code on your BMW 5 Series is that you will have gain access to to specific statistics about your motor vehicle which will let you to understand what problem you are facing.
How to read a fault code on my BMW 5 Series?
In this second part we will now focus specifically on what brings you on the website, how to read a fault code on BMW 5 Series. To gain access to this useful info you will need to to purchase a diagnostic tool, also referred to as OBD 2, named after the socket on your BMW 5 Series to which you will have to connect. These diagnostic tools are freely available for purchase, you will be able to find some in Bluetooth version which connects to your phone and some standard versions with a reader associated to the socket, as far as price is concerned, you will be able to find models between 30 and 100 euros. Once you have bought an OBD2 diagnostic reader, you will need to locate the diagnostic plug on your BMW 5 Series, it is based on the left side of your steering column on the lower part of your dashboard, behind a hatch. It is easy to locate because it is triangular shaped and has 16 pins. All you have to do is connect with your diagnostic tool to read the fault code of your BMW 5 Series.
How to erase the fault code BMW 5 Series
Finally, to conclude this article content, we are going to demonstrate you the manipulation to execute to erase a fault code on your BMW 5 Series. Once you have navigated through the menus, you will access the list of active fault codes on your car. Nevertheless, you will have to ask yourself an essential question, is it really productive to erase this fault code on BMW 5 Series? Indeed, erasing a fault code without dealing with the trouble corresponds to burying its head in the sand. Furthermore, the computer of your BMW 5 Series is made to take resolutions depending to the data it records, if a significant fault code is present, it will actually modify the engine operation to protect it. So if you get rid of the fault code, make sure to fix the problem to which it is linked. Some OBD diagnostic tools do not allow you to do this. You have a dedicated navigation menu on most diagnostic tools that should allow you to clear this fault code on BMW 5 Series.
If you want more tutorials on the BMW 5 Series, go to our BMW 5 Series category.
