Comfort Access Issue

[nbhms]

I have searched various BMW forums, and found similar issues, but couldn't find any that sounded exactly like my issue, so posting here, hopefully someone has some ideas.

1. Doors won't lock or unlock by touching the handle or pulling the handle. Same for all doors and both keyfobs in range. Was working fine, then suddenly quit a couple days ago, for both keyfobs.
2. Doors will lock and unlock from keyfob buttons on both keyfobs.
3. Replaced keyfob battery on one keyfob to elliminate that issue.
4. When unlocking from keyfob, the "find your way" lights in all doorhandles activate, so they have power.
5. No handles are warm (issue I've seen posted regarding a short in the handles).
6. Push button start works without keyfob inserted in dash, so at least *part* of comfort access is working.
7. Checked fuses, they were all good. I think I checked all the relevant ones, but there's a chance I missed one.

Other notes:
There are two error codes I can see in ProTool, they won't go away when I clear them, not sure if they are related:

DME/DDE | 2E3D: Interface EWS-DDE
CAS | A103: Immobilizer bus fault

Anyone have any similar experience or ideas on what's going on?

Is there setting(s) in ProTool to enable/disable the "touch doorhandle" part of the comfort access that I could check?

[mirob]

Originally Posted by nbhms

I have searched various BMW forums, and found similar issues, but couldn't find any that sounded exactly like my issue, so posting here, hopefully someone has some ideas.

1. Doors won't lock or unlock by touching the handle or pulling the handle. Same for all doors and both keyfobs in range. Was working fine, then suddenly quit a couple days ago, for both keyfobs.
2. Doors will lock and unlock from keyfob buttons on both keyfobs.
3. Replaced keyfob battery on one keyfob to elliminate that issue.
4. When unlocking from keyfob, the "find your way" lights in all doorhandles activate, so they have power.
5. No handles are warm (issue I've seen posted regarding a short in the handles).
6. Push button start works without keyfob inserted in dash, so at least *part* of comfort access is working.
7. Checked fuses, they were all good. I think I checked all the relevant ones, but there's a chance I missed one.

Other notes:
There are two error codes I can see in ProTool, they won't go away when I clear them, not sure if they are related:

DME/DDE | 2E3D: Interface EWS-DDE
CAS | A103: Immobilizer bus fault

Anyone have any similar experience or ideas on what's going on?

Is there setting(s) in ProTool to enable/disable the "touch doorhandle" part of the comfort access that I could check?

Did you check fuse #132? That's the main one...you'd know if that one was out because a ton on ish stops working in the vehicle (Bluetooth, door gong, etc.)

[Huz-Z]

I had something similar on my 2012 X5 two years ago. Turned out that the comfort access "guts" (for lack of a better word) in one of the door handles had become faulty. Dealer replaced it with a new door handle under warranty and that fixed the issue.

[aligoodn]

I suffered from battery drain issues that I eventually traced to the comfort access door handles. One of the features I discovered from reading the service manuals is that the power distribution module keeps track of the battery state of charge and will start disabling certain features to conserve battery power with the goal of ensuring enough battery charge to start the engine. There are like 30 features on that list and comfort access and remote access are separately enabled/disabled based on how much charge the car thinks the battery has left.

Comfort access never worked right on my 2011 X5M, which I purchased used. The keyless entry would work sometimes and not other times, which I eventually traced to the feature described above. After reading about comfort access issues, I ended up unplugging each of the door handles (my wife wasn't really interested in the feature anyways) and my battery drain/keyless entry issues disappeared. The courtesy LEDs in the door handles are powered separately, so all of that still works perfectly fine.

I never had the warm door handle symptom. It seems if one door handle fails, then the entire system doesn't work. If you're willing to live without the feature, I'd recommend just unplugging each handle.