Hey all. Great site you have here! I just got a 98' 740i and am already having some electrical issues with it.
1) When the passenger visor mirror is opened up the steering wheel will move up, this really freaked out my wife because she was driving at the time.
2) When all this steering wheel stuff started the radio started intermittenly not working. Sometimes it's on when I start the car, but mostly it's off. WTF?

Any help on this would be great.

Ouch, these problems would confuse and annoy the hell out of me. I think I somewhere on here before that a dead or dying battery on the E38 brings out some weird unexplainable electical gremlins. Maybe someone can confirm this here im BF.c?

Update: It ended up being a voltage supply problem in the ignition. On one side it was getting the required amount (12.5 volts?) and on the other side it was only getting 8.5 volts. The Service manager said that this is common enough that he suspected it from the start. Now the damage, $60 for the part, $350 for the labor. DOH!

Hmm, thats the first I have heard of that. Can you offer more detail? What was the part # of the piece they plan to replace?

Yeah, I'll get it for you. They already did the job and everything is up and working. I'll have to wait until the wife gets home to get the info though, the paper work is in the car. Have you heard of these types of problems coming from some thing else?

I had a seat/steering wheel fuse popping issue recently. Turned out to be a short on the harness under the seat.