U0446: Invalid Data Received From Body Control Module E
What to do
Expect some of the car's optional equipment to have stopped working — a panoramic roof, a powered tailgate, ambient lighting, seat memory, a towing socket, or similar.
A fifth body computer only exists on large or well-equipped cars, and it usually looks after exactly that sort of optional kit. So the missing functions are often ones you can live without for a few days.
One thing genuinely worth mentioning to a garage: whether anything has been retrofitted or any module replaced recently. Cars are built with a shared wiring loom across specifications, and each computer is told what equipment the car has. If one has been told about a module the car never had — which happens after a second-hand part is fitted from a better-equipped car — this code appears and there is nothing physically wrong at all. Correcting the coding is the fix, and it is far cheaper than chasing a fault that does not exist.
The car is normally safe to drive. Check the lights and indicators are all working before a night journey.
What this code means
A body control module is broadcasting data that cannot be accepted as true. See U0443 for why these modules are lettered and what that implies about where to look.
A fifth body module is unusual, and that is itself the useful information. Only large or heavily optioned vehicles distribute body electrics this far, and on that kind of vehicle a high-lettered module is frequently the one that carries the options — the panoramic roof, the powered tailgate, ambient lighting, a towing package, a roof console, seat memory, a load-space power supply.
Which leads to the check to make first: is the module actually fitted? A body shell built for several markets and specifications shares a wiring loom, and configuration data tells each module what should exist. A module that is coded as present on a vehicle that never had it produces exactly this code, and no amount of testing finds a fault, because there is no hardware to test. That is a coding correction rather than a repair, and it very often follows a module replacement, a retrofit, or a used part fitted from a better-equipped car.
Where the module does exist, everything in U0443 applies — the fault is usually its supply, its connectors or something feeding it rather than the module itself, and the symptoms cluster by location.
Likely causes
Start here
- Module not coded to the vehicle · specialist
- Retrofitted equipment not configured · specialist
- Corroded or loose connector · easy
Less common
- Water ingress into module · moderate
- Damaged data bus wiring · moderate
- Faulty body control module · specialist
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Community experience
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What makes one worth reading:
- The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
- What you measured, not only what you replaced.
- What actually fixed it — or that nothing did, which is worth knowing too.
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