Started road trip. Brake and Service Lights come on.

[mikemulkern96]

2011 e93 M3 with 60K miles. So, Im now 2 hours into my 20 hour drive south for a wedding. Very soon I will have to travel 20 hours back north.

I was on the highway, figuring out the car. Ive only had ~4 weeks in it, mostly city driving. Brakes and tires are supposedly pretty fresh from the dealer. They claimed "new". I have no idea what im looking at but the front pads are nice and the rear are not too much older looking. Plenty of pad left.

Ive been doing some pulls. Some bad shifts here and there. Im quite sure my trans mounts are pretty worn at 60k miles.

Im going along at 90 with cruise control on when i accidentally hit something on the cruise control knob and all of a sudden my parking brake indicator turns yellow and the "A" with a circular arrow around it lights up yellow. Now my cruise control, traction control, and my EDC refuse to work.

Ive got a Blue Reader OBDII with me but I cant use it till I'mout of this Boston area Mall. What can I do?
Help a brother out?

Extra Notes : I recently took the rear driver side tire off to have a hole plugged. I torqued the wheel back to spec.
Ive always wondered why one rear wheel is so much further in than the other. The stance of the rear tires in relation to the body panels are different. This IS normal right?

[osukf09]

Check the manual? Not sure what the yellow indicator light is but sounds similar the dsc off icon.

Re the wheels, def should be symmetrical. Unless issues with fender? Is there a spacer on one side and not on the other?

[roastbeef]

your car is getting to that age where the battery starts to take a dump. on these cars, weird electronic stuff and random codes start to happen. might be time to take a look at the battery.
thats just my knee jerk reaction, you may actually have an issue as well.

[mikemulkern96]

I searched the issue up for awhile, tried a few things. What ended up working was resetting the error code with my blue reader, then turning my wheel from left full lock to right full lock to recalibrate.
Im going to try to hold myself back from anymore fun while I'm so far from home. I'll check into the battery.

[Agent-GHQ]

If your brake pads are worn or bad you can visually see it. Plus if they are that bad bad you will feel the vibration or hear squeaks.

Sounds more like a dying battery. I’m still on my original first battery since Aug 2013 delivery brand new. I’m getting these funky lights but it went away when I restart the car.

Better get yourself a Duralast battery just in case

[Helmsman]

Originally Posted by mikemulkern96

Ive always wondered why one rear wheel is so much further in than the other. The stance of the rear tires in relation to the body panels are different. This IS normal right?

No idea whats going on here mate but NO, stance should be identical between left/right (while there is a slight diff between rear/front). Forgotten spacer on one side..?

[roastbeef]

if you take the wheels off and don't have a spacer, check the wheel width in case you have mix matched wheels or somehow have a front wheel in the rear.

[Helmsman]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

if you take the wheels off and don't have a spacer, check the wheel width in case you have mix matched wheels or somehow have a front wheel in the rear.

Good point! Staggered mixed up in a tire shop may be it.

[mikemulkern96]

I wouldnt be surprised they put the wrong wheels on the back or forgot a spacer....The dealership I got her from is....goofy is a nice way to put it.

[CjM3]

Probably a front wheel on the rears if no spacers. is the front wheel sticking out more than the other?

[SDPLV]

Sorry but...lol.

How could you possibly think two wheels on the same end of the car are okay being uneven?

I would be neurotic about it.

Why we have no answer yet when the original post is from yesterday is astonishing.

[scrammer]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

your car is getting to that age where the battery starts to take a dump. on these cars, weird electronic stuff and random codes start to happen. might be time to take a look at the battery.
thats just my knee jerk reaction, you may actually have an issue as well.

I agree ... here is my 3 minute solution.

If the car is in my garage... the charger is on!

[mikemulkern96]

Originally Posted by SDPLV

Sorry but...lol.

How could you possibly think two wheels on the same end of the car are okay being uneven?

I would be neurotic about it.

Why we have no answer yet when the original post is from yesterday is astonishing.

The OP explains it, I'm on a road trip so I have no torque wrench...or even a jack. Im far from any BMW dealership and I'm not sure what one will be able to do for me if I pop in with a couple hrs to spare.

The local shops I asked (about the stance) said it was likely performance related, but an E93 M3 isnt something any local shop wants to deal with in Maine. So i trusted the dealership knew their stuff and sold me an M3 properly serviced.

Now I'm excited to get it fixed and I'm left scratching my head as to how this happened. Tomorrow morning Ill take down the rear tire specs, for now its off to bed. There doesnt appear to be a difference or extra spacers on one compared to the other.

[osukf09]

So is the car driving fine at this point? assuming the warning lights are gone and codes cleared based on your 2nd post. As other have said, it's likely battery age related.

As far as wheels, you can pretty easily visually see if there is a spacer between your wheel and the hub w/o taking the wheel off or jacking the car up. Can also feel with your finger just behind the face of the wheel. Another method in case no spacers and concerned the wheels are diff sizes and improperly staggered: it shouldn't be too difficult to use a piece of paper or something as a measuring reference for width of your tires. Also, perhaps tread pattern is slightly different if there are two diff sized wheels/tires on the rear. And in that case the wheel/fender issue shouldn't be isolated to the rear only, it should be on both front and rear (unless they really goofed and totally messed up the wheels you received w/ the car). Just my $.02

[mikemulkern96]

Ive been driving through these mountains doing great. Best driving of my life. No tire squeel, no drama, plenty of speed.

So, my tires are off it seems. I also would have expected four of the same tire on here. What should I do from here guys? Keep in mind ill either have to travel to a tire shop or all the way to a dealer.

Rear : I'm looking at Continental ContiSportContact 3 265/35 ZR19 on my drivers side.
Continental SportContact 245/35 R 19 on my passenger. Damn them.

Front : Continental SportContact 2 245/35 R 19 on the drivers side.
Continental ContiSportContact 3 265/35 ZR 19 on the passenger.

[6ixSpd]

Originally Posted by mikemulkern96

Ive been driving through these mountains doing great. Best driving of my life. No tire squeel, no drama, plenty of speed.

So, my tires are off it seems. I also would have expected four of the same tire on here. What should I do from here guys? Keep in mind ill either have to travel to a tire shop or all the way to a dealer.

Rear : I'm looking at Continental ContiSportContact 3 265/35 ZR19 on my drivers side.
Continental SportContact 245/35 R 19 on my passenger. Damn them.

Front : Continental SportContact 2 245/35 R 19 on the drivers side.
Continental ContiSportContact 3 265/35 ZR 19 on the passenger.

Oh wow... What kind of complete clueless moron tech doesn't even notice the WRONG wheels on the wrong axles?!

You need to swap your wheels around ASAP. The DSC and related warnings came on because the car's DSC/stability/driving systems freaked out with getting mismatched wheel speed readings across the front and rear axles. Go to any wheel and tire shop ASAP and have them swap the passenger side F/R wheels.

Look at the sticker on your driver's side door jamb. It clearly shows the fronts should be 245/35/19 and rears should be 265/35/19. The tires are not the same front to back on these cars...

Dynamically, I'm surprised you couldn't feel something seriously off with how the car felt to drive. The steering should be off center, the response turning into one side vs. the other should be off as well...

[SDPLV]

And this is what I'm saying...

As an M3 owner - the bare minimum I would have done is check what tires are on the front and back, within 5 minutes of my doubt, not 2 days later! Has nothing to do with where you were on a trip. Its as easy as checking if your gas cap is on correctly.

Go buy a jack, some stands and swap em yourself if you can. Otherwise find the nearest Jiffy Lube/auto-shop and tell them to rotate your tires to the right spots and NOTHING else.

No chance I'd be driving on that. Uneven tires for potentially 40 hours (!) on an M3 is asking for trouble.

And if you're somehow happy driving a car that has a gangsta lean, wait till you drive your M3 with a proper wheel setup!

[mikemulkern96]

Ayyy, give me some credit. I checked the condition of the tires before buying the car, but I trusted they were set up correctly. The day I got her home, I visited 3 of maines best alignment shops, they all told me the same thing, "Trust the BMM New England dealer" "Its probably stanced that way for performance." The professionals didnt even bother to look at the door sticker

The steering is as tight, straight and true as the two other sports cars I have experience with. Granted I'm not used to Ferraris, but I am used to Z06 Vettes, which arent known for their steering.

No way I'm buying another jack to use once and carry around. Off to Jiffy Lube I go!

After about half an hour of searching for local tire shops on a saturday...I may go buy a scissor jack and a torque wrench.

[mikemulkern96]

Now another question, How do I go about resetting all of my sensors for the new setup? I know I've already set them for this incorrect setup unfortunately.

[dparm]

Originally Posted by mikemulkern96

Ive been driving through these mountains doing great. Best driving of my life. No tire squeel, no drama, plenty of speed.

So, my tires are off it seems. I also would have expected four of the same tire on here. What should I do from here guys? Keep in mind ill either have to travel to a tire shop or all the way to a dealer.

Rear : I'm looking at Continental ContiSportContact 3 265/35 ZR19 on my drivers side.
Continental SportContact 245/35 R 19 on my passenger. Damn them.

Front : Continental SportContact 2 245/35 R 19 on the drivers side.
Continental ContiSportContact 3 265/35 ZR 19 on the passenger.

Oops. Just find an indie mechanic or tire shop and have them do a swap. Shouldn't be a huge deal.

[dparm]

Originally Posted by mikemulkern96

Now another question, How do I go about resetting all of my sensors for the new setup? I know I've already set them for this incorrect setup unfortunately.

The TPMS reset button is on the dash -- right by the hazard lights switch. Or, you can do it in the iDrive menu.

[TrueToBMW]

Did you ever verify if it had wheel spacers installed?

Since the previous shop mechanic wasn't capable of verifying the correct tire size on the front & rear of the car, now I would be worried if he also couldn't tell 15mm spacers from 20mm spacers.

Throw up a few photos for us to marvel at, that might alleviate potential problems later, and guys might be able to chime in before you get to a shop.