Newbie alert!!! This may have already been covered, if so, apologies but I couldn't locate the answer.
I bought a 2000MY E46 330i earlier this year, great car but I have a perpetual problem with the RDC light, this is the tyre pressure monitor.
About 10 miles or approx 10 mins after starting up, the RDC light comes on, but only the amber not the red, i've checked pressures but they're fine, I've reset the RDC as per the manual and it makes no difference the light still comes on about 10 mins later.
When I bought the car, the specialist dealer had the alloys refurbished, the problem wasnt there on the test drive and as the car was delivered to me, i didnt get to see the problem until a few days later once i'd arranged road fund license, the dealer then disputed that there'd been a problem when it was delivered and as they had my money, i guess they didnt really give a damn.
I've lived with it for a few months because it doesn't actually cause any problems, but I've half-heartedly investigated it firstly by looking on forums such as this and by contacting my local BMW dealers who were next to useless, they wanted to charge me for plugging a computer in and would perform a software upgrade (for an extra charge) but couldn't offer anything else, i thought this forum offered a better technical view than the dealers, hence the post.
I understand there were two flavours of RDC, one where each wheel has a valve which transmits a signal based on pressure, and the second which detects the rotational circumference of the tyre through the ABS system.
I dont know which system my model uses (perhaps someone here does), but if it's the first, it would make sense to assume that the wheel refurbishers discarded the expensive intelligent valves and replaced them with regular ones, if so would the system take a period of time or distance to realise there was a problem, my view is different, I'd assume if a valve is missing you might get an immediate warning, probably the red RDC rather than the amber one, however if I'm wrong, the logical question is how can I check if i have the correct valves or where can I get the correct ones?
If its the second system, where do i start? The ABS is working well, I've tested it a few times and there's no problem with its operation which suggests that the RDC should also be working well.
Finally, does anyone have any idea how i might find which wheel is giving the error?
Apologies for the long post, but I thought it best to include all info?
Many thanks in anticipation.

• RDC problem - e46fan 2006-12-02 15:01:15 (531 views)
  • Re: RDC problem - 49452 2007-09-17 14:47:25 (79 views)
  • You can tell what system you have... - kiwijochen 2006-12-06 04:35:21 (478 views)