Cigarette lighter power stays on indefinitely
 

Hi Guys,

Where do I need to check to get my cigarette lighter power to start cutting when key is off?

Thanks

BTW, that is how they're supposed to work. So if you change that "feature" you'll be making a modification rather than a repair. I'd like to get rid of that too. I've seen other postings on here about it - something about jumpering a relay in one of the fuse panels if I'm remembering correctly. Obviously it has never reached my threshold of actually doing something about it ... yet.

Good luck, and let us know what you find.

Also BTW there are about 5 (more?) of those ports in these cars, including a hidden one up high in the passenger footwell. I would like to (maybe) have some wired to stay on, but most wired to shut down when ignition is OFF.

If i left my USB phone charger plugged into 1 of the sockets would it drain the battery?

I use a solar charger connected to the footwell ciggy outlet to keep the battery maintain since I rarely drive the BMW these days.

I am clearly remembering my GPS asking to stay on or power off once I used to turn the key to 0. That is what bugging me now,because my dashcam stays up regardless,and I would rather have it off.

I don't know much about these sorts of details, but ...

Just a USB charger would not likely be able to drain the world's largest car battery just by itself in a matter of days. BUT, in my early days of owning this car, happened one time, so not a very solid data point, but ...

I accidentally left the GPS (a real handheld one, not the 20th-century equivalent built in to the dash) powered on and plugged into the 12V port in the upper passenger footwell. Next day the battery was deader than dead. So low that my "smart" charger I had with me that will automatically decide if you're charging a 6V vs. a 12V battery, decided I had a 6V battery, which made charging a little difficult. BTW, it really is a nice charger except when it's not quite as smart as it thinks it is.

My guess is that having the GPS plugged in somehow convinced the intelligent agents living inside the BMW's brain that the car should not go into sleep mode, so the car's GPS, CD changer, and all kinds of other crap stayed on all night ... and that's what drained the battery. So it was not that the GPS took all the power, but it kept the car awake and that took all the power.

I never followed up with any experiments to verify this theory. I just am careful to never leave anything plugged in.

If the USB charger is in the socket, but not actually plugged into anything (like a phone or GPS), that may or may not eliminate this type of problem.

Could it be that when the key goes to zero, there is enough of a (perhaps temporary) voltage drop to make the GPS think it has been unplugged?

That sounds like an easy test to repeat. Also I have not researched this issue, and everything I'm reporting here is based on actual experience with my unmodified 2001 3.0i.

Yes, those solar chargers are great.

My Porsche 911 cig outlet stays alive when the car is powered off. And my old VW Vanagon camper had the same "feature" which I used to connect a solar powered battery maintainer which I left on the dash - very successful application. (so maybe it's a German thing with the outlets staying alive when the car is off) I even modified another (Japanese) car of mine to have an outlet stay alive when the car is powered off so I could do this solar powered trick.

Glad to hear it works well even on the X5, not fooling the sleep management into doing something foolish like I mentioned above.

If you're handy with a soldering iron...you can convert the old glovebox torches (flashlights) into a 12 volt receptacle...that connector is switched and turns off when the ignition is off.

There should be DIYs if you do a google search for BMW glove box aux power connector. The actual accessory that used to be a few bucks...blew thru the roof price wise when BMW stopped making them...but again, there were DIYs on how to convert the flashlight into a 12 volt cig light receptacle with a little bit of soldering skill.

EDIT: yep...my first google search got several hits:

Well that sucks... Because mine is off unless the ignition is on. I'd like it to run on accessories, and not ignition.