Dead battery, a matter of time....

[briandwlee]

Last winter, I had complete battery discharge twice. I had to hear same old arguments that I could have heard in the 1960s; Did you drive long enough? Did you leave your lights on? and Did you leave your vehicle parked longer period of time sort of things.

Hey... How long is long enough? Do they want me to drive 100s of miles every day? No... I always shuts off the system by pushing Enging Start button twice(comfort access). Yes.. I leave my vehicle in airport parking for a few days. I left my ex-Honda Civic back parked outside in the winter in 1980s, but it started after one month of no movement.

Battery issue with X5 is ridiculous, and so are BMW's(or dealers' service departments) arguments.

[Craig]

Originally Posted by briandwlee

Last winter, I had complete battery discharge twice. I had to hear same old arguments that I could have heard in the 1960s; Did you drive long enough? Did you leave your lights on? and Did you leave your vehicle parked longer period of time sort of things.

Hey... How long is long enough? Do they want me to drive 100s of miles every day? No... I always shuts off the system by pushing Enging Start button twice(comfort access). Yes.. I leave my vehicle in airport parking for a few days. I left my ex-Honda Civic back parked outside in the winter in 1980s, but it started after one month of no movement.

Battery issue with X5 is ridiculous, and so are BMW's(or dealers' service departments) arguments.

They told me the same thing, I didn't drive it enough and had to leave mine on a battery tender every night. The X5 was neither reliable or durable in my opinion.

Craig

[3Series]

My E60 and other E60's also have similar problems. I've also heard that the 7 series also has the same issues.

1.) The dealer can run an energy diagnostic to determine if its a driver/user issue or if there is drain in the system. If it is a drain in the system, they will fix it.
2.) If the computer determines it is a driver issue and you disagree, my personal opinion is that a lot of the batteries are damaged during shipment/sitting on the dealer lot. By damage, I mean the battery loses its charge, the dealer charges it back up but the battery now can only hold a 70% charge becuase some of the cells are permanently damaged. So, the car will operate fine with a full 70% charge but if you "leave teh door open" for a couple minutes, your margin of charge is so low that the car battery dies.

BMW doesn't want to give a you a new battery so they tell you to "plug it in".

Yout next option would be to buy a new battery that hasn't been sitting around and hope that it is a good battery.

[bracoX5d]

I had been getting the excessive battery discharge warning for a few weeks, at my last regular service I mentioned it to my SA. They did some sort of a diagnostic and determined it was not able to hold charge correctly, so they replaced it. This was couple of months back, so far no issues with new battery. We'll see if it starts to happen again...

[briandwlee]

Originally Posted by bracoX5d

... They did some sort of a diagnostic and determined it was not able to hold charge correctly, so they replaced it. ...

So, can service dept check the health of battery by some sort of a diagnostic? I should talk to them then. Last winter, car just didn't start with a blink. Before warranty expire, I might talk to SA to replace my battery.

[Craig]

Originally Posted by briandwlee

So, can service dept check the health of battery by some sort of a diagnostic? I should talk to them then. Last winter, car just didn't start with a blink. Before warranty expire, I might talk to SA to replace my battery.

Yes, any auto parts store or battery store can load test your battery. Even the dealer can load test your battery...

Craig

[AzNMpower32]

Got a call this morning from the SA, who said they ran the diagnostic overnight and determined that the cause was "the parking lights were left on"

What a load of BS.

My dad completely lost it on the phone this morning and is going to speak with the manager, as he repeated that he did not do anything as such, and I don't think he would. More than likely a fault with the system- any help on this?

We're not going to pay $600 for a new battery. If this means hiring a lawyer, so be it.

[X-cellent]

Got mine back late yesterday..new battery was installed..we'll see how it goes for the next 4 months (lease ends in April).

[3Series]

"Got a call this morning from the SA, who said they ran the diagnostic overnight and determined that the cause was "the parking lights were left on""

My theory on this is that the battery is weak and doesn't charge to 100%, but it charges high enough to not be "defective" or "dead".

So, if you leave your car door open for literally 5mintues, it will drain the battery enough where you will have problems and the car will say "parking lights left on". Unfortunately, I don't think it tells you how long they were left on.


The E60 forums has an actual PDF of the Energy Diagonostic procedure and the possible results that the tech reads.

"So, can service dept check the health of battery by some sort of a diagnostic? I should talk to them then. Last winter, car just didn't start with a blink. Before warranty expire, I might talk to SA to replace my battery."

Yes, but I bet they won't. They will run an Energy Diagnostic on the entire car. It will say if Comfort Access is draining your battery, the car isn't going into sleep mode or you don't drive enough to recharge the battery.

You can check the health of a battery yourself using a volt meter seeing how much voltage the battery if putting out when cold and also when the car is running with all the accessories on.

[AzNMpower32]

Originally Posted by 3Series

"Got a call this morning from the SA, who said they ran the diagnostic overnight and determined that the cause was "the parking lights were left on""

My theory on this is that the battery is weak and doesn't charge to 100%, but it charges high enough to not be "defective" or "dead".

So, if you leave your car door open for literally 5mintues, it will drain the battery enough where you will have problems and the car will say "parking lights left on". Unfortunately, I don't think it tells you how long they were left on.

So if the battery was weak, what would bring it down to that low voltage in the first place? The vehicle was driven on the highway as part of his commute on Mon-Tue-Weds and his commute isn't short-distance. He's the kind of person that probably didn't even switch on the heated seats or any other strong-draw equipment.

I imagine that he arrived at work, got his rucksack out of the passenger seat, got out of the car, and locked it. Simple as that.

The vehicle is a lease, less than 8 months old with about 8k miles on the clock.