Orange parking brake warning light on

[RobR]

Hi, having a problem with my electronic parking brake. I have the orange warning light on constantly. I’ve done a lot of searching around and can’t find an answer

the parking brake was working as should be up until the point I did some work on the car and had the battery disconnected. Once I’d finished and connected the battery again the warning light instantly came up and the parking brake will not work.

I’ve pulled the error codes which are as follow

6031 emergency release detected

6034 actuating unit mechanical fault

now at no point have I performed the emergency release, the parking brake wasn’t stuck on.

then it gets a bit strange. With my scanner if I perform a steering angle sensor reset the parking brake will work as it should and I can hear the actuator unit working but as soon as I turn the car off the handbrake releases and the warning light comes back.

also if I put the car in drive and just let it roll on its own then pull the handbrake switch the handbrake will come on and stop the car but as soon as I release the switch it goes off again (all while the warning light is on still)

this all says to me that mechanically it’s working and it would be more electrical or software problems, although I could be wrong

i have tried a reset (holding brake pedal down then holing parking brake switch up 5secs then down 5 secs) with no joy

ive performed a hard reset of the car  (disconnecting battery and holding pos and neg together to drain all power) no joy

checked fuses and all are good

ive cleared the error codes only for them to come back as soon as the car is started

any help would be greatly appreciated 

 

 

[Greydog]

Morning Rob

Welcome to the Forum

First I would work backwards over everything you have done just in case you disturbed something.

Then what scanner are you using? I have seen this on my own E70 and on one of my Brother inlaws 5 series, BMW said new actuator was required for both cars.

With my E70 I cleaned and lubricated all the mechanical parts from the Hub to the actuator, one cable was very sticky so I changed it. No issue since. My brother inlaw called the Recovery as he was in an Hotel in Belgium they couldn't reset it and advised him to talk to BMW his Dealer said "sounds like a failed actuator" he came here and using ISTA we reset it and he didn't have a reoccurrence over the next 3 years.

Good Luck

Dave