Flat Battery - How best to avoid ?

[alexmish]

keep your car locked ! while unlock, computer is running and draining the battery.

[E61Silver]

I have a 2004 X5 and it sits for about a week some times, never had a problem.

My friend has a X3 and his battery did go low, turn out that the GPS system was not shutting down and was causing the drain.

[RougeTrooper]

Interesting about locking the door, I once went on a 3 week vacation, unlocked the doors, popped the hood and backed up into the garage 'just in case'. When we got back, car started in a heartbeat, no errors.

The other day the daughter left one of the doors opened wide, I did not see this until about the 3rd day. I shut it and forgot about that until the next day when I noticed 'excessive drain' error when I started, drove for about 15 minutes to run some errands, parked re-started and the error was gone.... nothing since then. Not bothered for now :-)

[Muz]

Well the X went into have the front active anti roll bar replaced last week, because I was getting a lot of extra front suspension noise, and I told the dealer about the flat battery, which happens every weekend now, despite the battery getting a good charge after a long drive.

So he kept it in over night to check it, and he said he could find no fault, and says he put it on charge overnight - 'great' - I could have done that, and guess what , another flat battery this weekend, why dont these idiots listen to what you are telling them !! ? Grrr.. So now I'll need another dealer visit to get the battery replaced !!