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Codes say gear sensor reporting problems..

The tech thinks the clutch is going. Hence related thread from me.

Thanks

It is NOT the same

I'd get someone with a GT1 or at least autoenginuity tool to read codes.
On M3 forum dot net, there is a good stickie on SMG problems, and if you search you can find a pdf on the SMG that is deeper than the owners manual stuff.
No expert here but sounds like pump to me, but I'd get codes read before I spent money on a pump.

I'd love to try to rebuild one of these, bet the internals are common hydraulic pump parts, but there's no way to look that up.

Good luck
ADS

Is that the same as the 'gear sensor'?

I heard a similar story from others - a gear sensor went out.

My car seems to work for about 5 miles/10 minutes on city driving then goes into limp mode. I thinking there's a slow leak in the pump o-ring that then causes it to loose pressure. When I park the car and restart an hour later the pump pressurizes fine, the car works as usual even in S5 mode, and then 5 minutes later, limping. So I think I have a bad pump - at 7.5 years and 138K miles I can't complain too much except for the price of the part!

Changing the relay *seemed* to have helped but I'm not sure.

We'll see tomorrow. Thanks for the help.

I had a similar problem.

Indie mechanic diagnosed as clutch sensor - replaced for around $600. All's well now.

$20 to buy and DIY to install - we'll try first

I think it's the pump O-ring bleeding into the 'accumulator'. If so, it's $2500 for me!

I'll see what the relay replacement does.

Allen

Could be SMG relay. I think that's only few $100

Indy shop wants about $2500 for replacement

Says part iabout $2000 from BMW. Ack! And 6 hours of labor.

We'll see what the problem is. They didn't think it was realy since that failuire just doesn't start the pump. And my pump starts but has problems.

Not likely to be clutch either since while in gear clutch seems to engage nicely.

Ack! $2500 repair at Christmas. Oh well, there are plenty of worse problems in the world.

Allen

His was pump, but he replaced it himself

So I'm not sure what he paid for the part alone. The problem with the SMG error light is that it's too vague so you don't know what exactly is wrong without talking to the dealer or taking a shot in the dark if you're going the DIY route. The slippage might be fixed by doing an SMG reset.

bad SMG pump or worn clutch?

Any idea how much that cost him?

This morning it reset itself and the car worked fine.

Then about 20 minutes into my morning drive I tried to shift into 3rd and the clucth seemed to slip, i.e., not engage in the S% mode speed shift. Then the light came on again and it started limping in S1 or S2.

Argh.

A couple times now it seems to be slipping as it engages.

So the question is: bad clutch or bad pump? The car has 138K miles so could be either. Looks like I have an expense coming up...

Coworker had same thing happen

Turned out to be a bad SMG pump.

Re: SMG warning light just came on - help!

I have had the SMG light ('03 M3) come on on two different occasions. Both times the light reset itself when the car was restarted and I did not observe any change in shifting or vehicle performance, so your current experience is different than mine. I did not have a code reader at the time.

In my case, at least one of the two incidents appeared when I got in the car and immediately started it. At the time I thought that I may have started it so quickly after opening the door that the SMG pressure pump had not had time to get full pressure in the SMG system prior to that startup.

Good luck on the outcome.

This board is not very active any more, but I still enjoy visiting it.

SMG warning light just came on - help!

I just got an SMG warning light. The car seems to go into a limp mode where the setting is set to S1 or S2. Is that supposed to happen?

The warning light just came on unexpectedly. Maybe just needs to be reset - I hope. I'll take it my garage soon to find out what's up.

Any idea of what could have happened? Car was running fine until the light came on.

Haven't posted in a while - hope someone is out there :)

Allen