Doug427

I did a search on this issue and turn up mixed results. It's hard to describe what's happing in few words, I'll try to describe it as best I can. When you turn on your cruise control, the round display in the center of the speedo illuminates with a segmented circle that looks like a bunch of teeth that surround the circumference of the center display unit inside the speedo. When I'm driving the car (it's a 2006 E55), about once per minute on average a very brief flash lasting about half a second will occur when random segments of that circle will flash and immediately disappear. It's always different segments, there is no rhyme or reason as to which segments will flash. Sometimes it'll go 5-10 minuts without a flash, sometimes it'll flash 2-3 times in a minute. There is no consistancy to it at all. The cruise control works perfectly in both function and in the display when it's on. There is nothing that happens to the car when it does flash - the car doesn't stumble or anything nothing at all happes along with the flash, it's just the annoying flash itself.

That said, in searching this forum, these seems to be no consensus on what's causing this, and what the remedy is. Some say bad dash display. Some say tire size. Both these make no sense to me. If it was a bad dash display, wouldn't it display improperly or flash with the cruise control on? It does neither. With the cruise control on and the segmented circle displayed, it's perfect, there is no problem. That would seem to me to indicate that the display is ok. Anyone have any thoughts on that? As far as tire size, nothing has changed in my tires before and after the flashing began. I can't see what tires would possibly have to do with any of this.

Has anyone found a definitive cause and cure for this issue?

Thanks!

M5 LOL

post a video of it, I can't quiet grasp what your talking about.

machild

Does your car have Distronic too?

Doug427

No Distronic on my car. Thanks for the response.

Doug427

I understand, it's hard to describe. Makes it tough to search the forum for too. I'll see if I can figure out how to get a video on here.

E55Greasemonkey

It's an internal electrical fault in the cluster itself.

bobgodd

This happened to me as well. I don't have a lot of time where I'm able to use CC in my driving, so I didn't notice that it had apparently gone bad. I tried to set cruise, and it just turned itself off and flashed. I just assumed my cruise control module in the steering wheel stalk was failing, but sounds like it could be the instrument cluster? I'll be following this thread, hopefully you can get to the bottom of it!

87geeinn

OP, I know it's hard to explain but I know exactly what you're talking about because it happened to me in my '07 E63. It would flash once or twice on me and return to normal. About every third time I used cruise control, it would just flash the entire time. I chalked it up to a glitch in the dash cluster. Had no issues with any systems either, just the annoyance. FWIW, I'm on my second E55 and it's never happened to me on either of those cars once. I think it's safe to rule out tires. I've always run standard size tires on all three of my W211s.

kevm14

I said that out loud while reading post #1. Seems right.

kevm14

Does anyone have Distronic as factory? Rare as hell apparently...in fact I stopped searching when I learned this (in my original search last year).

M5 LOL

ive got it, and I absolutely adore it.

machild

I looked at adding it to my CLS but saw a few posts where members that had it said it was becoming more and more problematic becasue it is an older system that does not filter much of all the other freqeuncies spewing out from newer cars that have similar and other systems. Those cars create havoc with the system in our cars and the posters said they ended up turning the system off most of the time. Have you not had issues like this? How much traffic do you have in your area - fairly rural or more urban?

M5 LOL

hmmm, mine works perfectly. I use it everyday or every time I drive the car. never had a single issue.

machild

That's good to hear. May have to revisit this upgrade. Thanks

kevm14

I guess you'd have to piece together a system from used parts as many of them are long out of production from what I gather. I swear, the next car I buy will have adaptive cruise. It kills me because I bought one in 2017 that an option for it but it was so hard to find so I skipped it. Ended up skipping it again on the E55. So I have a chip on my shoulder now. Even if these early systems are nowhere near as good as the current stuff (or even Distronic+ from the W220 that comes to a full stop which almost anything will do these days).

machild

Yes, as I was looking at the components needed it was clear that used was pretty much the only path. For me the bezel around the shifter where the Distronic controls are located was one of the difficult items to find. The only one I had found was in Europe and included and entire interior wood set. Also, the wiring harness is pretty much no longer available and getting one off a part-out car is also difficult because in most case the carcass was crushed long ago and that little wiring harness was never removed.