2008 528xi won't start, starter issue?

[ron_edm]

Hello guys,
Thank you for your advice in advance. This forum has been a great resource whenever I have trouble with my 2008 528xi. This is my first post and I really hope you guys can shed some lights.

Anyway, my car couldn’t start two days ago in the morning when I was trying to rush to work. (My wife drove the car the day before but I couldn’t blame her for that. ***61514 I pushed the start button but the engine did not start. Everything else however seemed fine. The radio worked fine; the windows worked fine and the engine warning sign was on. The dashboard also said “ignition switch on”. So I shut it down and tried to restart it. Then I found out the brake pedal was also locked and I couldn’t depress it at all – I couldn’t recall whether it was like that the first time I started the car. This time I pushed the car key in and restarted the car again, but unfortunately, the engine still did not start. I could hear a “click” sound and it seemed the car tried to start, but somehow couldn’t.

So I bought a carly adaptor from amazon and ran a diagnosis a couple days later (the car was in the garage all this time and I tried to start the car quite a few times during this period, but no success. ). It found a handful of fault codes and I could eliminate some of them because I know they wouldn’t be the cause of the problem (e.g. five tire pressure control related codes mostly because my snow tires do not have pressure sensor). I cleared the codes and reran the test, but a few codes remained. I think the source of the problem is very likely among them. Here are the codes:

1. Power management, Battery Monitoring (002DEC) – Since I haven’t driven the car for a week and I have tried to start it quite a few times, my battery is running low so that cause this code?

2. Immobilizer System
Error engine start starter operation (00A0B4)
Driver KL50L KS (00A0C1) – I was able to clear this later
Driver KL50RS KS (00AOC2) – I was able to clear this later
I believe this is the source of the problem. Does this mean my starter is dead and I need to replace it? Is there any other test I can do to verify it or any other symptoms I should look for?

3. Instrument cluster/Kombiinstrument
Klemme30g f shutdown (00A559)
This may be also an indication of my battery running low?

Another thing I want to mention was that a few days before this happened, I drove the car for about 3 kilometers without the key (long story short, I dropped my wife off when she had the key in her pocket)! This probably had nothing to do with the car issue, but may be worthwhile mentioning…

So do you guys have any idea what may be the cause? I am guessing it is the starter, but I want to be sure before I go ahead to buy a replacement since it is quite pricy in Canada. I also hesitate to replace it myself because it seems to be quite a daunting task and I am not very confident in my mechanic skills. But in the meantime, I don’t want to send it to the steallership to get it fixed because I am sure it will cost hundreds.

I look forward to your advice and tips. Thank you again!