Less Than 1,000 Miles And Already In The Shop!

[bergs]

Hi All:

So I have an '08 that was delivered in November. Everything has been great until last weekend when I started the car and the dreaded "car on the lift" symbol appeared. It was soon followed by an SOS failure message and a high battery drain notification.

Took it into the dealer on Thursday...they ran some tests and told me that the communication system had failed and it was draining the battery. The best part is they needed to order a part that won't be in until Tuesday.

They did give me a loaner, but it's a Saab convertible and the best part is I live in Chicago! I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

Could hooking up a non-compatible bluetooth phone (which happens to work great) have anything to do with my communications system failing?

Ugh.

[drod]

don't think your phone had anything to do with it...

the X5 has alot more electronics than most other vehicles...but i'm not sure why it's so sensitive...

many here are reporting unusual behavior...

i have 500miles on mine and i'm in the shop till Tues but it's just to replace faulty DTC and PDC switches...

hope i don't experience anything else....

[brian5]

Well, I guess I'm one of the fortunate ones (so far anyway). I've had my 2008 4.8i for 2.5 months now and there is not a SINGLE problem that I could report to the service department if I took it in.

I thought there was some issue with the right rear window opening but have attributed to user errors. I guess it's easy to put one's elbow on the window button. Have disabled rear window operation by rear occupants.

And I would still a better rear-view camera but I guess that's just normal...

[swesson]

I do remember reading a post on these forums where an iPod could drain your battery, but BT shouldn't be able to do that. I did make a mistake the first week I had my X5 and didn't shut down all the electronics before going in for the night. It didn't drain it all the way, but it didn't have its full power in the morning. I've never seen a car that was so easy to leave the electrical 'on' than an X5. Since then, I always check that everything is off.

[Outrageous]

Originally Posted by bergs

Could hooking up a non-compatible bluetooth phone (which happens to work great) have anything to do with my communications system failing?
.

Maybe after they fix it you should try your hooking up your phone again to see if it happens again.

[alexmish]

Bluetooth is just the type of communication protocol, it can not drain the battery if your phone is not on the "compatible list". Mine isn't, so far no problems. But a component failure, such as one leading to the component being always "ON", will lead to the problem you've encountered. Let em replace it, I'd would not worry much about it after that.

[BGM]

I have an '01 E53 and put in a Dension Icelink iPod integration a couple years ago. A few months later I was driving and every dashboard light went on, radio controls wouldn't work, turn signals would work on the outside but not show on the dash, etc. It was like Poltergeist. I took it in and they said that since my model year is not supposed to have an iPod integration for it (that was BMW approved) that the iPod sent a bad signal to the R-BUS (the electronic gateway for the whole car) which sent everything haywire. They disconnected the iPod and reconnected and everything was fine. And I still have the iPod to this day. Just be careful with what you hook up on the car as far as external electronics.

[oredart]

First, I hope your repair is swift and painless.

Second, does anyone know much about the FlexRay bus?
It's hard to suspect the phone affecting the entire system. The FlexRay bus was introduced in the E70 and has four main application categories executing along this new generation high-speed databus.

I would suspect that there are programmatical walls set in place to negate anything like this from happening.

This is a good read > http://www.redorbit.com/news/technol...alk/index.html

[Penguin]

> I've never seen a car that was so easy to leave the electrical 'on' than an X5.

I thought it was suppose to automatically shut everything off after about 20 minutes? I know my Z4 does this with the radio, trunk light, etc. e.g., if you leave the trunk open, after about 20 minutes it shuts the trunk light off.

Maybe there are still some software bugs in the system.

[chonko]

It sad to hear what you are going through, I hope they fix it.

I took delivery of mine last December with 750 miles, and so far so good.
Just paired the phone to it and it works flawlessly.