Any offers on this problem please, I'm stuck:

'94 325i coupe- ignition will not turn off. After removing fuel pump fuse to kill the engine, put a switch in the ignition switch power line ... fuse 31 blew.

Leaving fuse 31 open, car works normally, apart from the units it protects e.g. Air Con / Clock / Instrument cluster

Put F31 back in temporarily and all units run off it appear to work fine .. with no warning lights ... and yes the car again will not turn off until the fuse is removed!

Any suggestions welcomed, or how good are BMW at finding this sort of thing - it's 10 year old motor so not keen to spend a fortune on replacing random units!

regards

there is a short somewhere, which will be extremely hard to find. i suggest following the ignition wiring all the way to the fuse. either that or just buy a new ignition wiring harness and pull the old one out.

Thanks for advice Colin, I'd also suspected a live to live somehwere ...good idea to explore cost of new ignition harness
best regards

Could Be A Bad Relay

Hmmm that's the kind of fault I would like, a good idea, I reckon I can bench test them fairly easily ... I had more or less concluded it had to be a short from live of a 'always on' connection as the fault persists on all settings of the ignition barrel ... but well worth checking, best regards

I think you may have a problem with the ignition switch itself, but you can easily prove me wrong. With a test light or voltmeter [you can leave F31 out for now] and the key in "0" or off, F43-F46, F21-F29 & F16 should have 0 [zero] volts. With the key in "R" or "1" or acces.[these three are the same first position from "0"] F43-F46 will have 12v but F21-F29 & F16 will have 0 volts. In position "2" or run [ign.on] all the listed fudes will have B+ voltage. Mechanical failure of these steering locks is fairly common and or F31 'run-on' condition could be due a 'backfeed' from a KL30 supplied control unit which could only happen though an ign. switch that wasn't open in the off positon, I think.......anyway, it's been nice throwing darts for you, BEST to you.jb.

Thanks for that Jeff, I should have said in my post the second thing thing I did is fit a new barrel switch - no change!
cheers for the suggestion though

understood, and I'm sure you checked the system by physically operatating the replacement with a screw driver before installing it in the sterring lock so I'll keep thinking..............................jeffb.