Battery Discharge

dublindave · Post by **dublindave** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 12:59 pm

I have had a problem with the battery in my X5 for two years.

Canâ€™t use any heavy duty component (heated seats, rear view demister, even Bluetooth) without running the battery down.

BMW have told me that I do not drive the car enough, or that you could describe my usage as â€œUnfavourableâ€.

There are 83,000 kms on the car in just over three years, or 25,000 per annum.

Has anybody tried to deal with BMW on this issue.

BMWâ€™s own parts catalogue now lists two part numbers for my car, with the following note with respect to fitting more powerful batteries

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do ... g=61&fg=30
----------------------------------------
A more powerful battery may be installed
during retrofitting operations.
Standard batteries can always be
replaced by AGM batteries with the same
specifications.
Following either type of replacement,
the vehicle registration process in
ISTA/P must be supplemented by a vehicle
coding procedure, which is carried out
as follows:
----------------------------------------
Read out battery size and registration
from onboard electrical system:
ISTA->Service functions->Body->Voltage
supply->Register_battery replacement->
Test plan
---------------------------------------- 01

Original BMW battery (Warranty only)90AH16121838176801
Original BMW AGM-battery90 AH161216924023

phill · Post by **phill** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 3:33 pm

I only do about 5000 miles a year in mine and never had a problem, I have just fitted the Bosch silver battery from Halfords think it was about Â£130 ish it has a higher amp rating for starting the car than the standard battery.

Phill

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Don Coffey · Post by **Don Coffey** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 5:20 pm

[quote=""dublindave""]I have had a problem with the battery in my X5 for two years.

Canâ€™t use any heavy duty component (heated seats, rear view demister, even Bluetooth) without running the battery down.

BMW have told me that I do not drive the car enough, or that you could describe my usage as â€œUnfavourableâ€.

There are 83,000 kms on the car in just over three years, or 25,000 per annum.

Has anybody tried to deal with BMW on this issue.[/quote]

Unless you are doing a lot of mileage in short periods and the car is sitting unused for long periods in between I would say the Dealer is trying to fob you off. Is the car still under warranty?

If the car is starting okay then why would you be unable to use heated seats etc as the battery should be topped up as you drive and output from the alternator should be higher than the output of the battery.

Don

bullethead · Post by **bullethead** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 5:29 pm

Mine goes flat after a week if I don't drive it or if I don't give it a run of at least 10 miles.
Fine if I lock it with the key and not the remote. Amazing how much juice that poxey flashing light uses, and ultrasonic crap.
My Porka used to switch to a standby mode after a few days of non use to save the battery.

ITBarbie · Post by **ITBarbie** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 5:32 pm

Hi Dave

That statement from BMW sounds like rubbish to me. As stated before unless you leave it for long periods and then run it plenty there should be nothing prohibiting you from using your toys. What kind of periods is it left for?

Penny

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phill · Post by **phill** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 5:37 pm

Have you thought about using a solar battery charger? I think that the 2 12V sockets in the boot are live all the time and you can connect the solar panel to these to charge the battery.

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535dboy · Post by **535dboy** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 5:54 pm

Had this problem too and BMW told me the same thing despite me telling them I'd done 1000 miles in the week leading up to that visit!

Havent had it this year though touch wood

Somebody on bmwland did fit the bigger battery though which solved the problems

X5Sport · Post by **X5Sport** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:55 pm

A few questions.
How old is your X5?
Is it still the original battery?
Has it ever gone completely flat and had to be recharged for more than 8 hours to get it back into use?

It would be interesting to know what your battery voltage is at least fours hours after last use (any remnant charge will have cleared) and after you've done a run and still got the engine running. Fully charged and engine off it should be around 12.2V. Engine on and fully charged around 14.4-14.7 volts. If it's below 11V, or quickly falls there then you may have a cell dying, or a parasitic draw.

With a big enough ammeter (at least 50A surge) you can check the latter by switching everything off and then connecting it between the body (meter's +ve lead) and the negative terminal on the battery (meter's -ve lead) and then carefully remove the negative battery cable whilst keeping the meter connected. There may be an initial higher draw but after 16 mins the car goes to sleep. The easiest way of checking the sleep state in the orange LED on the auto shifter goes out. Without disturbing the connections or opening a door, you should be able to step the meter's range down and end up with a reading of around 50mA. You can do this by leaving the upper tailgate open - yes the lights will go out.

One of the problems with modern 'starter' batteries is that they are far less tolerant of being deep discharged than a lead/acid wet battery was 20 years ago. Once a modern battery has been deep discharged then its life is shortened considerably. You may get a couple of years more out of it, but with increasing instances of it being flat after short periods of standing. Mine gave about two years of problems and we kept charging it. This winter the cold finally got to it and a new Bosch Silver Plus was put in. Mind you the original battery was 6 years old by then so about to fail anyway.

ChewingBacca · Post by **ChewingBacca** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 11:56 pm

My usage is 7 miles to work and 7 back with everything on without issue. Usually not much else, so I doubt the advice you were given by BMW is correct.

My guess would be either something else is discharging the battery or a problem with the charging circuit.

Search 'battery drain' on some of the other forums. I read something about this some time ago.

AlexC · Post by **AlexC** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 8:14 am

I had a problem with my 05 plate 3.0 D last month - starter motor was putting an exessive drain on the battery, I only do a short trip into work and back and it did not have enough time to charge back up - made even worse in the cold weather. Worth checking the drain on cranking as the new starter motor has solved all the problems of iffy battery! (and all at BMW expense too!) Check out some other threds on here - common problem.

X5Sport · Post by **X5Sport** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 10:13 am

[quote=""AlexC""]I had a problem with my 05 plate 3.0 D last month - starter motor was putting an exessive drain on the battery, I only do a short trip into work and back and it did not have enough time to charge back up - made even worse in the cold weather. Worth checking the drain on cranking as the new starter motor has solved all the problems of iffy battery! (and all at BMW expense too!) Check out some other threds on here - common problem.[/quote]

I had mine changed three years ago for exactly that.

NOTE If you are going to check the starter current draw, get/borrow/long term loan a 'current clamp' as the starter motor draws some serious current (600A ish) and your average Maplin meter will self destruct into a pool of bubbling plastic.

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