Dead battery, a matter of time....

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by AzNMpower32

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.

BMW has a know problem and, in typical BMW fashion, they are denying it and blaming it on the customer. Eventually they will fix it, but they are a stubborn bunch most of the time.

Case in point. BMW motorcycles were having the same problem of inadequate charging resulting in dead batteries in the early 1990's. BMW NA took exactly the same approach, i.e., you are not riding at high enough engine RPM, too many short trips, etc. It got to the point that they were giving a free BMW battery charger with every new BMW. BMW never admitted they had a problem/flaw, but somehow it disappeared.

Well, oddly enough, after about three years of this, they stopped giving the free battery chargers and nobody was having problems with dead batteries any more! I guess it was just magic that suddenly the battery problems disappeared.

Either the BMW charging system is flawed, the batteries are flawed, or there are flaws that cause excessive battery load when the vehicle is shut-down. It is absolutely ridiculous to even suggest that a vehicle with a 250+ HP engine cannot be designed to generate enough electricity to recharge a battery in a vehicle on short trips. My old 1992 Ford Explorer was driven one mile to and from the coffee shop every day for at least one-year and it never had any battery or starting issues. Sure the X5 has a lot more electrical load than a 1992 Explorer, but then shouldn't they design the charging system to match the increased load?

It has reached a point where the local newspaper "Problem Solver" even got involved in one of these excessive discharge issues.

BMW NA should be ashamed of how they have been handling this obvious flaw... or should I say NOT handling it.

P.S. Articles like this in major newspapers like the Chicago Tribune should do wonders for BMW sales:

Battery drain gets a charge out of BMW owner - chicagotribune.com