Door chime troubleshooting

[bignslow]

The door chime on my 91' 318IS is not working. Are there any common areas I should be checking? There are 2 connectors going to my chime and both are plugged in. I swapped a chime from another car in and that one isn't working either.


At what point should the chime come on? Headlight switch on and door open with key in ignition?


Is the chime tied to any other component in the car that would be on the same circuit so I can try to isolate it?

[earthwormjim]

It can be triggered by 1 of 2 sources. The first is if the key is in the ignition, and you open the driver's door. The second if your car has seatbelt warnings, is if the key is in run or start position, and you haven't fastened your seat belts.

Use the ETM, it shows you how things like the chime are wired to work:

http://wedophones.com/BMWManualsLead.htm

[bignslow]

Thanks for the info.

[bignslow]

I've been trying to figure this out without much success. Either both of my chimes are dead or there is a wiring issue. If I wanted to bench test the chimes which pins require 12 volts and ground? The diagram linked above doesn't show the pinout for the 2 connectors.

When I measured voltages I am getting constant 12 volts at the red/green and 12 volts with ignition off on brown/green. Not sure which one should be ground. I am guessing the brown one.

Supplying 12 volts and ground to those pins doesn't do anything to the chimes.

Are these the right pins?

[earthwormjim]

The wiring diagram does indirectly tell you the voltages for the pins. Look at the color of the wiring on the connector that goes to the chime.

If bench testing this, Brown Green would be ground, Red Green would be +12V.

I think you have the door chime and speed limit chime variant. One set of connectors is for the speed tone, the other is for the door. So trying to test across the different chime tones isn't going to work. Test the bottom set, and test the top set independently.

[earthwormjim]

I figured I'd debug this issue too, since my gong never seemed to work either.

Your pinout drawing is correct, I was wrong. If you look, the pinout is labeled on the chime itself. 12V goes to the top left (+), GND goes to the bottom right.

The control signals are on T1 and T2, if you short either of them to ground, you should get a sound.

My chime is a little different than yours, I have a T3 instead of T1 and T2, but if I do short T3 to ground, I get a gong sound.

I also double checked my wiring going to my gong, it didn't match the ETM. Then I checked the OBC section (6581), and saw the wiring which matches my car. Turns out my gong only has the speed sensing warning from the OBC, and doesn't have the key or seatbelt warning connections. Hence why it never seemed to work..

I plan to mod mine to act as a headlight warning if I leave my lights on when I open the door. Will connect the +12V to illumination, and use the door switch for the trigger point.