BMW E36 Blog

Yesterday, I’ve taken my car to run a full-diagnosis for it. The diagnosis came back to me with two problems. First, the knock sensor which apparently needs to be replaced, but it seems like a hard job and I need to do some research before jumping into it. The second problem was with my airbag sensor. Actually, the right sensor was not running correctly and that what was causing the airbag light to keep flashing in my dashboard. So, if your airbag light keeps flashing for like 5 minutes after starting the car and then goes away, it’s more likely to have one of the sensors damaged and needs to be replaced. Of course, this doesn’t mean that this is the only reason that can cause the airbag light to keep flashing, but I guess this is one of the most common causes. Just run a diagnosis for your car and replace it if it was reported. After all, your safety is the most important thing, right?

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 information source.

Hi Guys, One of the issues that were annoying me about my car is the OBC (On Board Computer) check button. Whenever I press that button, I was receiving this row of orange squares that I didn’t know what they meant. After a while, I thought this meant the car was ok and that there’s nothing wrong to report until today when I found an article that’s talking about this exact problem and how to unlock the check functionality. It turned out that the row of orange boxes (which looks like a full battery) meant that the check functionality is disabled in the car and that you have to enable it simply by following some easy steps.

Disclaimer: Use this info at your own risk!! I’m not responsible if this didn’t work for you :-).

To unlock your car’s check button functionality:

1. Hold down 1000 and 10 to get access to the hidden menus. [TEST –]

Note: please notice that this may not work if you didn’t unlock the hidden menus in your OBC using TEST 19. If you don’t know how to do this, please refer to my previous post BMW On Board Computer (OBD) secrets!.

2. Enter 11, and press Set/Reset. You will notice this on the OBC screen [EINHEIT 1: xx] (xx will be a number)
3. Change this EINHEIT 1 value to 71, using the 10 and 1 buttons, then press Set/Reset.
4. Press the 1000 button once to move to the next value which is [EINHEIT 2 xx] (xx will be a number)
5. Change this EINHEIT 2 value to FF, using the 10 and 1 buttons, then press Set/Reset.

Note: I’ve found that this value was already set correctly on my OBC.

6. After that, just press your "check" button.

I’ve tried this on my car and I have to admit it didn’t work completely as expected. Now, I receive this "Check Control Inactive" error which apparently trying to tell me that I’m one step short from making this work on my car.

Video of my car OBC after unlocking check functionality

So, if anyone can help with this, please let me know.

If your car is:
325i 1994 or 318is 1993: Set EINHEIT 1 value to 71
320i 1994: Set EINHEIT 1 value to 7B
328i 1995: Set EINHEIT 1 value to BA
M3 1997,1998: Set EINHEIT 1 value to B3

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 information source.

Hi Guys, I’m glad to announce that BMW E36 Blog has hit the 100 subscribers mark (well, actually 101 mark) … finally! I’m very excited about this new progress as it indicates that many readers are enjoying this blog. Here’s a screenshot that I’ve taken when I saw the 101 subscribers, although I see 59 🙁 now, but I’m sure that’s b/c of the week end and that it will catch up later today or maybe tomorrow.

And here’s another screenshot of the subscribers change through this year. You can see how it’s building up I LOVE IT!.

Of course, I want to thank all my faithful readers who are reading this post and also want to welcome my new subscribers and please guys, if you have any notes or suggestions, please do NOT hesitate to drop me a line.

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 information source.