Hi all,

First warning light on my (relatively) new to me 540.

Ignorant question: Is this the same as my e30 "Service Soon" light, which essentially means nothing since I change the oil/fluids without a reset tool, or is my e39 smarter, and there's actually a problem?

I just hit 100K--the car should be in good shape.

Any help would be appreciated--I know how to turn a wrench, just don't know much about my e39.

Thanks.

Hi all,

First warning light on my (relatively) new to me 540.

Ignorant question: Is this the same as my e30 "Service Soon" light, which essentially means nothing since I change the oil/fluids without a reset tool, or is my e39 smarter, and there's actually a problem?

I just hit 100K--the car should be in good shape.

Any help would be appreciated--I know how to turn a wrench, just don't know much about my e39.

Thanks.


SES light normally indicates a problem w/ vehicle emissions and is an indication that error codes are present in the computer. You need to get the codes read to figure out what error the car is reporting.

Most autozone type places will read codes for free these days although if you have the high-obc you can read them by going into diag mode on the dash cluster.

although if you have the high-obc you can read them by going into diag mode on the dash cluster.
How do you do that?

If the vehicle has the high board computer option (you can tell if you have a BC button on your radio/MID display) you can follow the instructions in this article to enter test mode: http://www.ideaphile.com/bmw/540-obc.html

Running TEST-NR. 14 will display the first 5 stored ECU fault codes. This list of 5 entries should be all 0's if no fault codes exist.

Thanks,