Dials

Morning, I have a 730 auto. Now the cold weather is setting in, I seem to have gained a new problem with the car. The dashboard dials have stopped working. They just occasionally twitch/move. Also the lights on the instrument panel for the indicators etc are out as well. I think this might be affecting the engine also as it seems a little rough all of a sudden, but i might be making that up!! Its like there is a plug to an ECU with a dirty conection but I do not know where they are hidden. Any thoughts welcome....

Many thanks.

I'm pretty sure the signals to Mr. Computer don't depend on the dashboard guages so I doubt they are causing your engine to run rough. There was a problem a while back from a guy in Spain and his question was in Spanish, so it should be easy to find. He apparently had a short to ground behind the radio.

www.roadfly.org has extensive archives and you may find your answer there. Like this forum, it's free to join but you'll need to be in the right forum (E23, E32, E38) for a decent search. A quick check says you may need to replace some capacitors in the instrument cluster.

I'd guess your rough running is due to the colder weather. One recent poster, Kirti, found that he needed new intake manifold gaskets. You should read your fault codes for hints though. This link tells you how to do that via what is known as "The Stomp Test": http://www.pelicanparts.com/bmw/techarticles/Mult-Code_Reading/Mult-Code_Reading.htm