why does my dsc light stay on, on my bmw 528i (e39)?

Question

i can turn it off but when i push the dsc button the light stays on.

Answer 1

STOP! DO NOT LISTEN TO THE PERSON ABOVE!!!

There is nothing wrong with your car. You just don't know what you are doing. The DSC stands for Dynamic Stability Control. The device is very, very advanced, it detects wheel spin on the drive wheels (on BMWs, usually, but not always the rear wheels) and distributes power to the wheel with the most traction.

If you are on an icy surface or slippery surface, this will, I guarantee you, save your life. I have driven my BMW on skid pads and with the DSC on, you can floor the accelerator in any gear or transmission and have very little power going to the wheels, because the car is limiting the power.

Now, when you push the button you are turning DSC off, which means it will allow wheel spin. This allows you to slide and "drift" the car because there is no power cutoff. This is why you cannot do a burnout in a modern BMW very easily. There are many benefits to this system but if you are inexperienced it is very advisable to not turn it off until you are comfortable with the handling characteristics of your car.

For example, say you are executing a high speed turn entering the corner in 4th gear, with DSC on you must down shift to 2nd to exit the curve, whereas with DSC off you could downshift only to 3rd and be OK. This is off course dependent on your speed entering.

So, when the car begins to slide, the computer manages the power, if you turn the DSC off, you are sending power to the wheels with no limitations. This is recommended for aspirated driving (aggressive.) I have done this many times and it is very inadvisable to do unless you know how to recover from a skid, to control it and know the way your car reacts to skids.

There are two modes to disengaged DSC, the first which turns off the DSC and LIMITS Dynamic Traction Management and the second (if you press and hold) turns off both DSC and DTM. The second mode is very inadvisable as it really makes your car dangerous to maneuver if inexperienced. I rarely turn off the DTM on my E60 5-Series. on my E46 328i, I turn DSC off frequently.

Keep in mind that when you do you make your car more unsafe in the hands of a novice. You may and probably will spin out or even lose total control.

There is nothing wrong with your car; the DSC light is just telling you that stability is off. Do not take it into to get checked unless the DSC is on, all the time, without ever turning off, even after pressing the button. I have never heard of that happening. I hope this helps.

Answer 2

So if there's nothing wrong, why does the light stay on after you press the button to turn DSC on.

Answer 3

Your fan isn't working appropriate. the reason it overheats in park is which you're actually not shifting and air consequently won't flow previous the radiator to relax the antifreeze down till now being pumped back with the aid of the motor. whilst the motor reaches a definite temperature the fan will kick on and funky the motor down, that's possible not occurring. once you're driving the vehicle the fan does not would desire to kick on because of the fact the air is circulating previous the radiator and cooling the motor down. this is my prognosis that the fan motor is undesirable. If the coolant sensor is undesirable, on maximum autos the fan will run each and all of the time, yet whilst that's overheating the fan of course isn't working so i've got faith the perpetrator is the fan motor. it would desire to be the coolant sensor yet unlikely.

Answer 4

Something is wrong in the system somewhere, take it to a BMW mechanic and have them hook it up to their diagnostic computer. It's the same with a check engine light, could be a ton of things and it almost impossible to diagnose without the use of a diagnostic computer.

Answer 5

Sam is correct.

When it's ON the light if off.

When it's OFF the light is on.