2001 X5 Won't start off own Battery - Help!!!

[JCL]

Originally Posted by Bargain Bucket

You can tell when it's "awake" - the orange LED by the auto gearbox shifter will be illuminated. It goes out again when the car goes back to sleep (standby mode) which should approx 15 minutes of inactivity (ignition off, no doors being opened or closed, etc).

That isn't a reliable indicator of sleep mode. It seems to vary by vehicle. On my 2003 3.0, the gearbox indicator stayed lit for 5 years. I never had a parasitic drain, and I could leave the vehicle at the airport for 3-4 weeks without any issues. Others have reported similar behaviour.

[wwpxd16]

UPDATE

The car started this morning for the first time without being charged overnight! We're getting closer....

Last night I pulled a heap of fuses out including the TV, sat Nav, CD player, air con aux heating, rear heating, blower. So the fault lies with one of these and my guess is the FSR as advised previous. I plan leaving them out this evening to see if its starts tomorrow then re-introduce one fuse a night until it returns.

Regarding the sleep mode I checked the car after an hour and the indicator on the gearbox light was off, so I'm pretty confident its going to sleep. My suspicion is the automatic heating thingy they have (where the car will automatically blow engine heat into the cabin if its under a certain temp,provided battery is good) is kicking in then not stopping, due to a faulty FSR.

[wwpxd16]

So the car started this morning for the 2nd night without charge but it was very touch and go, you could tell the battery was struggling. I switched it off right away then didn't use the car for the morning. When I came to restart it again later in the day it needed a jump from another battery. I'm assuming this means the fault is still there somewhere as I've kept all the advised fuses out for the last few days.

Would the fsr still have the ability to draw power with the fuse out ? Is it worth replacing it anyway ? I'm getting really annoyed with it now

[bastereo]

If the blower is acting up, yes the FSR is a super common problem and worth replacing. Even if its not the cause of the dead battery (very likely in my mind that is it) your fan will at least function normal.

[wwpxd16]

I've changed the FSR yesterday and although I've not yet plus see the fuses back in I'm hopeful it was this causing the fault. The plan now is to charge the battery full which I did the night before last, then leave it off charge last night to see if it starts, then plug the fuses in tonight and leave it off charge, let's just hope it starts after both nights then we can put this darn issue to bed!

[vandenham]

I have been struggling with my battery going dead in the morning the same as you. Fortunately I have found my problem with a relatively simple test on the fuses.

I removed each fuse (one at a time) and put my multimeter between the contacts to see what the current draw was on each fuse. This test was done with the key out of the ignition, but the door open as it was the only way I could get at the fuses in the glove box. I also tested the fuses in the rear with the hatch open. Most of the fuses were showing a draw of under 100 m amps, but three were significantly larger indicating a large battery drain.

The three fuses were:

• #27 - interior lights. These were on during the testing so that seemed okay.
• #43 - instrument cluster. Not sure about this one.
• #60 - window lift rear. This fuse includes the rear hatch release. It should not show a large current draw.

In my case, the rear hatch release was the cause. I had fixed it a week ago and the license plate lights and hatch switch were working properly, but there must be a short somewhere inside the mechanism.

I have removed the rear hatch release mechanism and the battery drain problem has gone away. The X5 has been starting well for the last couple of days. I re-checked the draw on fuse #60 and it has dropped to under 100 m amps.

If you try this approach for your problem, watch out for fuse #14. When I removed it, the car alarm went off.

Good luck with finding your battery drain.

[Tymatk]

Sorry, slightly off topic

Is there a DIY on how to change the starter motor? Mine has been making screeching noise every now and then.

[TerminatorX5]

Fuse 14 is for the General Module - without GM most car functions can't work, including a command to go to sleep... nice approach, vandenham, i am glad you caught your gremlin...

wwp - you still may have to get a new battery after the issue is resolved - these batteries have a nasty tendency of not holding the charge if they were discharged once... just keep an eye on it...

[vandenham]

TerminatorX5 - I'm afraid I haven't caught my gremlin yet. The rear hatch wiring was bad and it is now fixed, but the battery started to die again.

I am now working through the power drain caused by fuse #43. The clock display on the MID does not go out when the key is turned off and this seems to be preventing the car from going to sleep (if I pull fuse 43 the car does go to sleep). Once I figure it out (if I can), I'll start another post to describe how I fixed it (or ask for more help). These battery drain issues are really hard to figure out because of all the signal lines that tell the car's computers to fire up stuff.

[TerminatorX5]

do you have access to WDS wiring diagrams? type in search field of WDS "F43" and look to see what circuits are fed through that fuse... might give you some ideas...