Quick Fix for Cold weather Gremlins

I seem to remember seeing an article on replacing the capacitors in the general module to fix this problem.

I think that our cars are falling into the failing large capacitor stage that the E32 has been going thru for years. Theirs were concentrated in the instrument cluster.

I might be having the same issue here.

Today I could not get the alarm off, when unlocking (from the door) and opening the door the alarm went on. I could hear that the remote unit was working as the relays were clicking inside when pushing the remote (not original BMW).

After couple of hours of keeping the interior heater inside the car all started to work.

Our temperatures here have been from -15 to -25celsius this year so far.

Sounds wery much like an capasitor issue.

An old capasitor often looses it's capasity when cold, have seen 100uF capasitors measuring 25uF when cold and heated up with the soldering iron getting back to it's stated value.

Old trick used in Radio/tv repair buisness is heat guns and freezing spray to locate Cap's that has lost it's capasity.
This problem is actually quite common for all types of electronic, specially swith mode powersupplies where it's the problem number one.
( have made a lot of money on that )

Have seen several post's on this issue , here's one http://www.8er.org/forum/showthread.php?t=9527

Regards
Terje

Just curious.. can this issue affect the instrument cluster?

I've been going over a lot of the wiring and connectors this winter, and while it has been really cold here I've not been much in the garage. Probably been down to -15c/5f in there for a couple of weeks. Now that it's milder again (0c/32f) I have connected everything back together, but now I got a problem with the instrument cluster lights.
Left turn signal makes the background lightning blink on and off as well as the turn signals, and there's a slight buzzing noise coming from the cluster. This gets louder if I increase the background lightning with the adjustment wheel to the left.
Also as soon as the car starts there's always a slight, very dim light in the left green cursor (when the lower lights are lit).

I've been thinking that I've probably made a short somewhere while working on the car, but if the capasitors or general module can cause this I have an easier place to start looking.