Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Non Starting BMW 1 Series

This afternoon I drove about 30 miles to arrange to get my Morgan Alloys refurbished I parked the car and was away for about 10 minutes when I pressed the fob the doors unlocked and I jumped in but when I pressed the started a message came up to press the clutch which I had done. Locking and unlocking a few times made no difference and I noticed the wing mirrors hadn’t unfolded and only limited dashboard display.
Getting nowhere I called the AA (other options are available) who attended in about 1 hour which I thought was pretty good, he checked the battery and a few bits and pieces but was generally stumped so decided to try a battery reset, (Cnt Alt Delete for cars) disconnected it and left it a few minutes. On reconnecting we noticed the wing mirrors had opened and lo and behold the car was back to normal.
We don’t know what the cause was and wonder if any other BMW drivers have had a similar experience?

Only a very rough guess.. If you had pressed and held the clutch and the press clutch message was displayed it seems it is possible that the clutch switch or it`s input to the ECU may have an issue... But then confusing digital electronics or being confused by digital electronics is not too unusual..With a bit of luck it may just be that it may only happen once.. Fingers crossed..

This is only a second hand comment with no proof to back it up but I was chatting to a breakdpown recovery chap the other day and he told me that in his considerable experience, BMW's were the most likely to fail due to electrical issues followed by Volvos. Modern cars are great until something goes wrong.

As per the usual thread drift... I remember reading of a Ferrari that had similar non-start issues, breakdown specialist attendance no fault found was then removed by flat bed to the dealership where it started without issue.... Only when the owner drove and parked up at the same location did the same refusal to start issue return....Apparently the brakedown service eventually found out a local transmitter seemed to be causing similar issues on a variety of cars...

Yeah digital electronics are wonderful when they work as intended but as for the reasons for failure...

From you description it does feel like a voltage/sensor issue.
Could it be due to the alarm/immob in some way?

Thank you for replies, with regard to the clutch switch the AA man did think of that and had a quick look however the fact the wing mirrors didn’t reset makes me think it isn’t that as they usually reset immediately on unlocking the car not when it starts.
Ran the car no problem this morning, I’ll get a diagnostic check after the festive season.

Yeah I can see where you are coming from on the mirror positioning on initiating the entry sequence. The issue for me is that without access to accurate information on the programmed sequence of operational steps on pressing the fob to seek entry, it is down to matching ones own logic against the logic of the programmer as to the individual steps or stages of logical operation.... All of which complicates any fault finding process, add the variables of corroded terminations of which there can be many and even those who are "professionals" can fail to resolve issues and start swapping expensive component parts in the hope that a seemingly simple issue might be resolved...

With luck your issue might be one the BMW guys have come across many times before and can go straight to the usual source.