DSC/DTS Malfunction in BMW N54: Repair Options. You’ve probably had this caution light come on in the past, and if you haven’t … you will. It typically will set off when you’re making a turn. If you’re at all a stickler for having a tidy dash like I am, it will drive you nuts. It can likewise cause your turn signal to not instantly reset after your turn.
This is also extremely frustrating. The dealer, and a lot of repair shops, will inform you that you need to replace the instrument cluster in your steering column. The part will run you about $600, take or provide. If you have them replace it for you, tack on about another $200 in labor. Those prices are nothing to shrug at, at least for me, so I did a little research to see if there were any other choices.
Now, it’s entirely possible that you might require a new instrument cluster. But why not check out this repair initially? Simply to sum up, the issue is that the optical disk within the guiding column is not reading properly. For me, and a lot of others on forums that I read, this is because of the formation of some residue on the disk. Note that I did not have to do all the steps in the guide. Particularly, those near completion that need re-soldering of electrical components on the electrical board.
Related: Failure of the BMW Professional Head Unit Display (E90-E93, E82, E88)
After you take apart the guiding column and get to the optical disk, some rubbing alcohol and q-tips is all you need to clean it up. I did this fix about 2 months back and the problem has not returned. So with this fairly basic do it yourself, I saved (re-purposed to a new FMIC) a lot of cash and got my sanity back.
( For your convenience, I included the above post as a PDF: Guiding Angle Sensing Unit Fix).
