Dead 2004 X5 4.8is...

[Roadhouse]

ok, draw test done today and of course the truck behaved impeccably

Max draw was 0.02A, which is within acceptable limits.

So, there for another overnight stay and some more testing. Why can't she just gimme a break?! I want to help you m'lady!

[Turbo_Bimmer]

Do you have bluetooth in your X?
If not, forget the following.

I had a problem where sometimes my phone did hang up but the bluetooth module decided to remain active. That was draining my battery overnight.

If you have bluetooth and NAV, check to see if the green LED on the NAV turns OFF after you finish a conversation.

[Roadhouse]

Originally Posted by Turbo_Bimmer

Do you have bluetooth in your X?
If not, forget the following.

I had a problem where sometimes my phone did hang up but the bluetooth module decided to remain active. That was draining my battery overnight.

If you have bluetooth and NAV, check to see if the green LED on the NAV turns OFF after you finish a conversation.

Thanks mate will check it out tonight.

Just got the truck back and have "a" diagnosis - they reckon its the battery.

diagnosis.pdf

Issue was happening with my 3 year old BMW battery, so swapped that out for 800CCA battery ($300) 2 weeks ago. They reckon the battery I bought isn't good enough for the X5's - good enough to start it but not good enough to cope with all the electronics in the 5.

They wanted to sell me another battery - a "varta" brand - for the princely sum of $450... Putting that into perpsective, BMW charge $600 (a kingly sum?)... Yes, we get torn a new one quite often here in oz...

Anyway, could they be right - my decent (or so I thought) new battery can't cope with the X5 'tronics (and nor could my 3 year old BMW battery just swapped out?), or are they telling porkies because their testing came up with nothing?

Went in with high hopes but yet another dead end it seems...

[SlickGT1]

Can't you find a good old school electrician to look at this. I know a pro will find your issue really fast.

[jbny]

Hi Roadhouse -I had something similar where the car was sleeping but it was still drawing power causing the batteries to die, we had to test by taking some fuses off and keeping the truck overnight and see if that helped....in the end we took out the fuse for rear trunk lights and that stopped the draw, the truck has been fine for 2 years now...it was fuse 17 or 18 from the glove box....not saying thats u'r issue but thats another way of looking at it , maybe it might help.

[Roadhouse]

Originally Posted by jbny

Hi Roadhouse -I had something similar where the car was sleeping but it was still drawing power causing the batteries to die, we had to test by taking some fuses off and keeping the truck overnight and see if that helped....in the end we took out the fuse for rear trunk lights and that stopped the draw, the truck has been fine for 2 years now...it was fuse 17 or 18 from the glove box....not saying thats u'r issue but thats another way of looking at it , maybe it might help.

Thanks mate - might give it a try as one of the symptoms was flickering internal trunk lights. Only a slight flicker every 5 seconds or so but was a bit weird.

And Slick - had it at my auto-electrician for 3 days a couple of months ago and he found nothing. He is good too... And the other guys had it last 3 days and found nothing wrong (except my 'crap' battery). Not sure how many more auto-electricians I can take it to!!

[JCL]

The flicker every five seconds or so is consistent with a bad connection or bulb out (wrong resistance in the circuit) and the LCM checking the circuit at that frequency. It can often be seen when you hook up LED trailer lights, and the resistance isn't as the truck expects.

Any small draw like that can prevent the vehicle from going to sleep, and thus cause a much higher draw than the issue itself, since all the systems are still up and running.

[TerminatorX5]

Originally Posted by JCL

The flicker every five seconds or so is consistent with a bad connection or bulb out (wrong resistance in the circuit) and the LCM checking the circuit at that frequency. It can often be seen when you hook up LED trailer lights, and the resistance isn't as the truck expects.

Any small draw like that can prevent the vehicle from going to sleep, and thus cause a much higher draw than the issue itself, since all the systems are still up and running.

also, there could be a chaffed wire in the rubber sleeve that goes from the main body to the hatch lid, and that wire is shorting...

[Roadhouse]

Sounds plausible, so will yank the fuse and see if that cures the ills. But, also my radio is still not coming on sometimes when I start up the truck. Maybe it is a symptom of the trunk light issue in that because the battery is not in full charge due to a draw, it might shut down the radio to save power? Heard others on here say the truck does this when charge is lower than it should be.

But.... if the faulty bulb/chaffed wire/whatever is keeping the truck from sleeping, wouldn't it have shown up on the oscillator? They did a sleep test and she was fast asleep all night... Also did a draw test and no draw apparent . But I guess if the issue is intermittent, and it wasn't happening when the tests were being done, it wouldn't show any problems.

Oh the joys...

[Roadhouse]

Originally Posted by jbny

Hi Roadhouse -I had something similar where the car was sleeping but it was still drawing power causing the batteries to die, we had to test by taking some fuses off and keeping the truck overnight and see if that helped....in the end we took out the fuse for rear trunk lights and that stopped the draw, the truck has been fine for 2 years now...it was fuse 17 or 18 from the glove box....not saying thats u'r issue but thats another way of looking at it , maybe it might help.

Went to yank no.17 fuse but there isn't one!! Explanatory legend in the fuse box cover says passenger compartment and luggage compartment are fuses 17 and 27. Took out 27 and passenger comp lights went off, but luggage area lights stayed on. So, must be no.17 me thinks. Went to pull it and there is an empty space there, and not even any female terminals for a fuse to go into. Strange...

Any thoughts? I mean I could yank fuses until the luggage lights go off but maybe someone else can shed some light before I kill her permanently?!