BMW E39 Third Gear Hard to Disengage

For BMW 540/M5s with 6-speeds produced to 12/99, there is a BMW Service Bulletin regarding Third Gear Difficulty from Disengaging.  BMW SI 23 04 99.  Installing a Rogue Engineering OCTANE SSK will NOT resolve this issue.

If you vehicle is still covered by BMWs warranty, this can be fixed as the transmission does NOT need to be replaced.

The cause for the increased force on the shifter lever is due to the slight wear in the shift rod detent ball housing, located in the transmission, which houses the detent ball.  By replacing the detent balls with the updated detent sleeves, shifting out of third gear should be the same for the others.

This correction has already been done on E39 540/M5s produce from January 2000.  The BMW P/N for the repair kit is 23 31 7 506 947.