My experience trying to enable Traffic Jam Assist on my i3 (5AR)

BMW i3 Forum

Help Support BMW i3 Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

osunick

New member
Joined
Feb 10, 2017
Messages
4
Some background, I looked at the parts listing for 5AR (Traffic Jam Assist) on etkbmw:

https://www.etkbmw.com/bmw/EN/search/optionAppliance/58170/S5ARA

Basically, three are listed- a wheel with capacitive touch sensors, a new switch cluster with the Traffic Jam button, and a new clockspring/stalk assembly with wiring for the touch sensor. (note that 5AT is a required option for 5AR, which is the adaptive cruise and pedestrian detection option)

I ordered the parts and waited months for them to arrive. After getting them, i installed them, which was largely fine except for airbag removal, which is by far the most annoying part of the process. After installing all the parts, I VO Coded the car to add 5AR and then coded the right modules. (BKOMBI, BDC, KAFAS2). Then I ran rheingold to calibrate the touch sensor. One error- Missing LIN Slave on the Touch Sensor. Basically the touch sensor wasn't getting power. I looked at the schematic and looks like touch is powered by fuse 58 in the box, which had no fuse in my US car. I put in a fuse, no joy. I finally took everything apart and turns out there is an 8 pin connector on the back of the clockspring with 4 live pins on the clockspring without touch, and 6 live pins on the touch enabled clockspring. The harness on the car side is an 8 pin connector but BMW did not include the extra two wires for touch in the harness for non TJA cars. At this point, I'm not going to mess with the vehicle side harness, but thought this information might be helpful. Car is back to stock now, no issues.

If anyone has ideas, wants to buy my parts from me, or wants to borrow them to see if they can figure out the wiring, PM me. Hope this helps.

-n.
 
You seem very close assuming that power is all that's missing. Compared with what you've already done, running a couple of power wires from the fuse box to the clock spring connector seems trivial. I hope that you decide to complete what I hope would be this final step.
 
I'm pretty sure it's power and data that are missing, so just adding power to the touch sensor probably won't cut it.
 
osunick, did you also purchase 32 30 6 875 202 the 'touch control module' for your installation? It seems odd that the 6-pin car-side harness needed for TJA wouldn't be listed on BMW's part list?
 
Thanks for the reply osunick. I just PM'd you but I don't think it went through.

I want to give the retrofit a shot and am (so far) open to potentially rewiring to make it work. I tried purchasing a touch controller from BMW but they are on backorder for like a month. Is it possible to purchase the extra controller from you (and any other TJA parts if you aren't planning on the retrofit)?
 
Where you guys located at? I'm in the bay area and I'm currently working on enabling TJA too. Maybe we can work together.
 
wlsmith12 said:
Do you sell the module? or is it software?

The module is a hardware piece with software on it. I will include any needed wiring, fuses, and tools needed for installation. Right now, I'm having a PCB house build up the circuit boards and will hopefully have modules ready sometime late next week.
 
shehadehd said:
wlsmith12 said:
Do you sell the module? or is it software?

The module is a hardware piece with software on it. I will include any needed wiring, fuses, and tools needed for installation. Right now, I'm having a PCB house build up the circuit boards and will hopefully have modules ready sometime late next week.


Are you still manufacturing the TJA Comfort drive modules? I was browsing your online site but noticed every product is sold out. If you are still offering these parts I would like to purchase the Comfort drive module, key fob holder and phone stand mount.
 
Back
Top