Hi I have a 1997 e39 and have a few problems with it here goes:

1, Air bag light is on but goes out when you press the horn but horn dont blow.

2, Rear wash/wipe dont work.

3, Cruise controls and stereo controls dont work.

4, The tale tale light on gearstick is on all the time

5, The two sun visor mirror lights dont work bulbs ok but when you push the slide over the oyher inside lights come on and radio goes off and wont come back on until you switch engine off.

please can any one give me any light on this before I take it to main dealer to have a look many thanks. Henry

ZING lots or errors there ... wow! lol

To be honest it seems like multi function steering wheel is on the fritz, Id say have a look at all the connections behind the steering wheel make sure theyre OK.

How long have you owned the car.... I have seen most of these issues happen on previous cars because the connections got wet or damaged usually from a careless driver spilling coffee down the steering column and onto the shifter ruining everything under them.

sun visor lights / radio i have noooooooo iead lol i would expect them to be on the same loom but have seperate wiring???

I was told it could just be a very bad earth some where I have had it for 3 weeks now and now the after market radio has just stopped working you can still eject a cd but it wont turn on

could be a bad earth I have seen hundreds of different issues from bad earths but having so many might lead to something a but more serious tbh

Cheaper option would be an auto electrician from the yellow pages rather than main dealerships

might be able to find the source of the problem much quicker

that is what i was thinking for the price of my local dearler ship @£130 ph i can get 3 hours for that

Just took the radio out again and put a volt meter on the accessory wire and no power is coming out all fuses is fine I am now thinking along the lines it could be the wires on the back of the ignition switch as the original radio stopped working that is why I fitted an after market one and got all the iso leads so no wires was cut

hi is this what I might need to sort the electrics out on my car.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BMW-E39-5-SERIES-IGNITION-SWITCH-2000-523-/270645180937?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item3f03b5ba09#ht_500wt_922

Hi I have got the dash in bits steering cowling is off all side panels in boot off.

First thing I traced all stereo wires back into boot and found the relay put a voltage check on each wire on relay got life come to relay but when relay pluged back in it dont work. so i bridge two wires and everything works how they should so was thinking it must be on the switch side so i took the plug from the ignition put a wire in one of the reds and into the purple wire and all works plug it all back nothing works so it looks like the black plug on the switch is blown

yeah all sorted now changed the ignition switch block and all works fine now

good stuff

Nice fix, I'll keep you in mind if I ever get in the thick of it :D