Even though I got 50% off on this BMW M Car, it's extremely unreliable. A much better deal would've been 50% or MORE off of a Simplisafe Security System during their biggest sale of the year. Visit SimpliSafe.com/samcrac to learn more!

Great to see how it all started with the x6, Sam! I'm honored for the mention, and am looking forward to showing off the X6 in my channel in the near future as well!

The Paddle shifters on the steering wheel are not stock. There is a bunch of wonky after market junk on that car. I am thinking its a short or loose wire.

Hello Sam, too bad you live on the other side of the continent as an electrical engineer could identify the source of your problem. I have some comments based on my observations. Since the center display goes on and stays on when the relay is removed, but appears to be resetting due to apparent power drop when the relay is installed, I would be looking for a module that is pulling too much current when it is activated. Now on the canbus system. Canbus is a multidrop system meaning that all the modules share the same pair of wires for communication and they each have a unique communication address. Mario is correct in that the canbus signal could have a problem. Canbus is a differential pair twisted wire which means both the wires have the same impedance to ground or +12v as this gives the signal better common mode noise immunity. The canbus also has a 124 ohm termination resistor at each physical end of the bus (one is at the master device). You can verify the presence of these resistors on any location in the canbus network across CAN_L and CAN_H - make sure power is off or disconnect the battery. The measured resistance should be about 62 ohms. If the termination is present, the next thing I would do is put an oscilloscope on the operating canbus to make sure the canbus signals are the correct amplitude (about 4V peak to peak). If the canbus checks out, then you can start pulling fuses to find out which module is loading down the +12V distribution bus. If you need more advice, just reach out to me.

Hey Sam, I had the same issue as this on my 2008 BMW E70 X5 (same platform). Water was pooling behind the engine partition/cowling near the brake booster and on the other side near the blower motor. It seems to be a common issue with these. You need to make sure those drains are clean (they fill with dirt and leaves) replace the partitions (such a poor design for waterproofing). Anyway, there is a ground cable inside one of those compartments and if it has been sitting outside and filling with water, the cable will corrode. On the other side there is the engine fuse box (another great design). Mine was doing the same headunit flash and no cluster. Hope this helps!

Sam that rear junction where you pulled that relay from needs to be taken out, opened up and inspected. That relay shows signs of water getting to it and if water got to it then it got in that box and I suspect it is moving around inside of there shorting out various things. I bet you if you open up that rear box and inspect the internals you will find corrosion.

I've had a German car develop a similar problem and we traced it down to the CAN wired being fed 12v from the battery. The fine folks at the dealer had sliced through the main harness wires to install a lowjack device and allowed corrosion to set in and eventually bridge a 12v wire to the canbus wires. It would be interesting to see what voltage you have on the CAN wires...

Sam continues to provide incredible content for the Bad Decision Making theater.

Driving with the relay removed shouldn't hurt anything. The systems affected are powered through the relay and are simply not active with it removed. My guess is that one of those systems is causing the problem when powered. I would pull all the fuses downstream of the relay and plug it back in. It probably won't chatter. Then, plug the fuses in one at a time to isolate the problem.

Someone kept the original wheels because they were probably more worth than the car itself… 😄 hope you can fix it and remove all the hideous (cheap) aftermarket sh*t… good luck sam! 👊🏼

198 issues found thats gotta be some kind of record

I had a similar problem when I was an Audi tech. I used an oscilloscope to view CAN bus communications. It should be a clean square waveform mirrored across the X axis, CAN-HI and CAN-LOW. What I saw looked more like an analog signal with no symmetry or pattern. I just started disconnecting and reconnecting all the modules until the waveform cleared up. It turned out to be the convince control module which was located under the driver's seat in that model. No visible sign of damage but I found out later the car was flooded at one point.

As a bmw channel, I just have to mention that you got the dream spec x6m 😍😍

A cracked piece of plastic Sam: "I've never seen anything like that"

Sam, you make me smile...I had the same car with the same problem! Needed to change all electric wire system (it took 3 years for BMW to understand ) ...and took 3 weeks to fix it!

The CanBus is a network with a plurality of subordinate microcomputers below. All the modules in the car talk to a master module and share segments of that network. One bad module can clobber the messaging of all the other good modules randomly. There are CanBus analyzers that will report when messages get corrupted and even say who was involved. Ideally the modules will identify their failure and just nicely code out but if something is really wrong (broken pin etc) then it can do this. IE: It can clobber a message if it does not detect the message is in progress. If the module you replaced is oscillating the cutoff relay then some stimulus to it specifically is making is do so. So I'd focus on errors coming specifically out of it. Of course if its the master the errors may be a subordinate. Okay - so what is coming from the subordinates that is of a magnitude that a cutoff would be necessitated? Since the relay is chattering ( which would heat it up ) then is it possible to pull easy to access subordinate modules and just see if the chattering stops? I'm surprised the shop manual does not have a flow chart.

"When other drivers see that I'm driving a BMW, they'll understand" 😂😂😂 good one, very good one 😂

Super Mario diagnostics is on point. Dude knows his stuff. Great choice to collab Sam.

Mario is an electrical genius! Electronics are a pain, so it's great to have him on your side!

As a car audio guy, I would swap out the relay to just make sure it acts wrong too,. It's a standard style relay, a simple 4 dollar one would probably do the trick but I would verify it with the relay pinouts on each relay. I would do this even though it's reading fine, just so I didn't run around pulling everything out of the car to fix a slightly bad relay, even though it is likely fine.

Fair play to Mario. Not many people want to help others anymore

I note in your video Sam that the car has clearly had an afermarket towbar fitted and coincidentally one of the things on that circuit was a towbar so i am wondering if when it was fitted they messed up the wiring?

Relays are so simple and even though yours passes a test, it may fail under load. 85 and 86 only activate the coil. 30 and 87 (the big ones) need to be jumped to test this.

I had a 325xi that had similar issues. Took 1 year and multiple different garage visits but in the end I fixed myself. Turned out about 30 pins of the engine ECU had minor corrosion on them(almost impossible to see). Figured nothing to lose. Cleaned them up with a mild mini brush and cleaned the socket side by inserting and pulling out the main plug about 100 times(also used some contact cleaner and di-electric) and VOILA. Car ran great for another 4 years to be sold later and the same owner still has it today.

We had an X5 do that. A detail shop used a pressure washer in the engine bay and caused the electronics to go wonky. It took the dealer a week to sort it out and cost the detailer a few grand to repair it.

I had two E71 X6Ms and loved them both. Racechip on one that made it bonkers. One was wrecked, the other traded in for a newer X6M. I can tell you the battery coding was a bit of trouble. Both my cars had all the options and the only defect for real was the windshield strip peeling back off at high speeds.

I learned that BMWs are awful vehicles. And I love them 😍

I had nearly the exact same thing happen to my 135i. In my case, water had gotten into the trunk and soaked the keyless entry module, parking assist module, and I think the comfort access module. When I unplugged these, the car worked fine, just without these features.

Im intrigued on this one. Hurry up get that next video up bro!!!

I worked on a magnum that had the exact same electrical problems. It was running, loud fan, no cluster, the works. It turned out to be a faulty key sensor antenna and key switch.

I love the collaboration of both channels helping each other out.

Pretty ridiculous that BMW couldn’t solve these issues with “certified technicians” but a weekend warrior can. I love that. I’ve thoroughly enjoy diving into any troubles myself and fixing them. Save a hell of a lot of money too !!

I wonder if it is trailer wiring. I've seen that go pretty bad on all kinds of cars on multiple occasions just due to the elements and location.

Looking at the aftermarket tat - make sure it doesn’t have cheap LED bulbs in any of the lights, they can take out the K-line - I have seen this sort of weirdness on a 2011 M5

I took the week long training course for BMW body electronics and it was brutal, less than 50% pass rate. Removing modules to check CAN communication is not what they want you to do....Y-cables and break out box

I may not the greatest fan of the X6, but I love these troubleshooting stories, I'll be looking forward to see if you can fix this one

super mario is a fantastic source to learn about trouble shooting electrical issues in cars

This is why I like insurance auction cars, usually they were working properly before they were crashed and auctioned off.

I wonder when this will finally be not finished.

K-can is used to talk to power windows, door locks, radio, sunroof and those kinds of accessories. It is different than the can bus high and low that the pcm and tcm use to talk to eachother. K-can simply uses something like Morris code to move your windows up down, lock unlock doors etc. Every command had a different pattern to tell the body control module what to do. Since there is a junction box that means that a module that runs through the box is freaking out. Get a diagram and disconnect one by one every module that runs through that junction box until everything starts working besides the module you disconnected.

Sam I use a flir thermal camera . It can be helpful to diagnose electrical issues .

Calling it now - Oct 2025's video "I've finally sorted my BMW X6M".

I had a similar problem with my wifes Peugeot, it turnet out to be a faulty aftermarked Yatour bluetooth adapter connected to the radio, shortening the canbus connection that ran instrument cluster, climate control, radio and some other stuff. It took me months to finally find the fault, once the Yatour module was disconnected, the car worket perfect again.

That puma track suit should be your new permanent uniform Sam Edit. The lemon Lincoln was one of my favorite series!

I fixed an 06 Mini Cooper with similar goofiness. Water corroded a junction plug that the sole function if was to connect the two halves of the car harness together at the factory. Bypassed it with solder and heat shrink, fixed 100%.

That looks like a car that has been wrecked and pieced back together by a shotty rebuilder like rich rebuilds.🤣🤣

I was just thinking as I was watching this that mario would be the perfect person for the job

Brings back memories of my auction BMW and the Christmas tree of warnings and errors that I had to clear through various means. It took a couple weeks to get them all. Good Luck Sam.

I almost bought an identical X6 a few years ago. So glad I didn’t. BMW has allowed themselves to forget what made them a producer of great drivers cars, sacrificing this for profits.

a friend of mine had one of these..it drove great and the seats were amazingly comfortable... but the front end was partially removed by a crossing car at an intersection. The estimate to repair was $42,000.

Shame that they stole the M wheels off of it.

Great video! My 2013 328i had an issue turning all the lights on on the dash! Simple repair! Replace the left rear wheel sensor and drive away. I replaced it months ago and all is good!

I have that car it likely going to be the central CAN bus module, or other module on bus, or corrosion in harness, as had similar issue. Thankfully got it cheap for very reason and did trace it down and fixed it. You have the right idea process of elimination pretty much? Find what circuits those relay are on and trace it out. Look at schematics it help you break down the individual systems and you can trace easier and find the fault or bad module quicker. That relay being melted something likely drawing excessive current, or from kicking on and off so may times as for cutoff? Yep costly and unreliable but smooth when it works. Had to put 4K in parts as had other issues as well and many days of labor to get it right. Pretty sure something else will break like any BMW I owned over the years? I would inspect that rear junction as well for signs of corrosion?

A firearm is the right tool to keep your home safe.

One of the better guys on electrical issues is Mr.O from The South Main Auto Channel. Guy is a master when it comes to chasing down electrical issues.

18:00 from what i learned from during window tinting is that usually water gets into those parts of the car if people dont place a towel on it.

Sam created a new tool. The “Allen head Torx” wtg Sam.

My first thought was just go try to disconnect each module separately.

Put the relay back in, and remove the fuses one by one. Once you remove the one causing the relay to trigger, you'll know where your problem is.

Yeh what I learned from that was to start pulling fuses from that panel ..... and see if eventually you find one where the dash etc all comes back up working then you'll know what to look at to fix it.

Super Mario seems like a genius - I think a more in depth collaboration with him would be a very interesting video.

Hey Sam I love your channel I've been subscribed for the past three-and-a-half, 4-years! keep up the great work!👍 I especially love the lemons that you get!!😂😂😂

BRAVO not being afraid to tackle this Electric problem!

Closed circuit cutoff means there is a short somewhere. Look at the radio system or anywhere else people look to tap into the factory wiring. My money is someone has fed power back through the ground. Either accidentally wired or shorted. Check your grounds. When you find one that’s hot, figure out why. The relay was preventing something from frying. You’re lucky you didn’t let any smoke out.

Get a Klein wire tracer and trace the cables that stem from that relay back to the terminal and so on. You will find your issue in no time. 🤓

Always great to see Sam using the parts cannon on these BMWs

I have a german car which developed similar issue with electronic flickering on and off, at the end we figured out that all the fuses where the original one from the company and as the car was 10 years old there were corrosion over the pins of most of the fuses, after cleaning them...the car runs completely fine.

40 seconds in, and I'm getting flashbacks from an E34 I used to have that would give me the same problem. It turned out to be the grounding wire connected to the chassis. I also had somewhat of similar issues on an E38 which turned out to be a worn out voltage regulator.

Best looking paperweight I ever saw

Having spent more than my fair share of time working on car electrical systems, this is screaming "grounding issue" to me.

So the way I would go about this would be to first look at the canbus network. For each network, there will be two terminating ends. Each one of those has 120 ohm resistor. Every other item on that can bus system Will not have any terminating resistors. I would first meter to make sure the resistance of the can network is 60ohm. Then move on to depinning one module at a time from the system until we find the module that is causing the issue.

I have owned a BMW in the past and after 5 yrs of ownership, it cost me over $18k for the services and maintenance from the BMW dealer. I had had enough of constant costs of time and money to bring it in for services. Driving was very nice, exciting, and enjoyable, but the headaches were non-stop on the long-distance driving with a reliable issue, a major worried for me. I am glad, those days are long gone and over.

I noticed water intrusion on the junction box itself when he pulled it out. How did you miss that?

Thanks for being my eyes and ears in the European car market! I'm gonna stay with Japanese cars lol

Having access to a good schematic and being able to use it is priceless. The gremlins are clues.

My brand new Elantra did this to me a few times. Almost the exact same issue. pulled the battery terminals for 30 seconds reattached. Then changed the key battery and it fixed it for now.

that track suit is fire AF son!

Not quite another outright "L" for Sam... but I fear we'll never know what actually happens with this X6M..#60%completeislife

1:30 no trunk button…. And it’s right their!

I had a 2006 Honda civic diesel that devolped a simular problem @ 6 years old and 100,000 miles. Had the car from brand new serviced on time no other problems throughout it's life, just strated to not start one day, could be for 5 seconds could be for 50 minuets. Then one day it didn't start any more, 6 grand car ended up being sold as a parts car for £1500. Turns out that the main ecu had lost it's programing, it cost the guy I'd sold it too £100 to get the ecu reflashed and the car was working perfect again. Good luck in finding the problem, god I miss the older cars that you could take things off then to find the problem instaed of plugging something in.

I bought a lemoned out Nissan Titan XD with a Cummins diesel in Wisconsin that came from Florida. I've owned it a year now with only very minor problems.

I dont really like suv's but man, that thing is beautiful

I fixed one of their 12 cylinder models from the 90's, pre obd 2. The dealer did the top end then couldn't get it to pass smog. They wrote on the receipt "abandoning project". They claimed animals must have gotten to the wiring but there was nothing like like visible. I was asked to get it to pass smog. Owner had taken it 50 miles north to an independent pecialist, got nothing. Took it 50 miles east to another, still nothing. When it finally came to me it running only on the left side. I Switched computers, air flow sensors from left to right. No change. Put it on the rack, pulled the oxygen sensors. Passenger side was fouled along with passenger side plugs. Cleaned the plugs and sensor with brake cleaner - fixed although the passenger side catalytic converter needed replacement due to over rich mixture. I couldn't believe how it lifted when it was floored at about 50 mph on the freeway. Owner thought it ran fine while it was running on six cylinders. The plugs and the sensor were both new, installed during dealer attempt.

I’m sure you’ll fix it sam, between you and your support network it’ll happen 🇳🇿

Cheap M car with electrical issues? How hard can it be?

My 7 series had a fuse behind the dash that was shared across numerous computers. Want to say it was #3 or #5. The comfort access handle wiring would short and cause the fuse to blow.

I can’t watch your videos before bed, I had a terrible nightmare. I owned a BMW With electrical issues. It was horrible worst nightmare I’ve ever had. Thanks Sam😀

A possible guess is a damaged ICU, due to water entering the control box. Or some aftermarket tuning map , that messed up with the factory one.

I guess Samcrac is starting a German junkyard. 😂

People like 'Super Mario' are so inspiring - and so talented. What a gift he has to understand all that. Like a neurosurgeon...

1:40 it was literally there in the rows of buttons but new cars have electronic trunk lock so you need to use a key when battery goes flat

Carly dongle will come in handy with this!

Yea that lemon is going to be a difficult one

Canbus line grounded or shorted might be water ingress into a component or wiring harness connection. Check for water under carpets, I'm sure i saw a drop from the glovebox screw at 9.40. If itwas water check evaporator drain clear, if windshield has been replaced that bonding is correct and check scuttle panel drains aren't blocked with leaves etc as water will cascade into car through heater air intake.

It's a common issue with a lot of cars where car manufacturers with poor design placement for module sometime the TCM, ECM etc is located in an area where it's going to get too hot or it's going to get wet

Automotive masochism at it's finest.

Would it be possible to replace the ECU, each module and rewire the harness to fix the problems? My feelings are if it could have been done then BMW NA would have paid to get it done. Or maybe once a car floods then it’s toast?

Yes, the problem Mario had my 550i had the same problem on same DME 2 and even the same transistor, this dude it by far the best at what he does.

battery in trunk, check the gutters that drain the water from the top, check the battery for water damage. Fixed 5 different things on my old volvo, was a cable under the battery that had water damage.

Just literally seen your IG post 😂👌🏼