New Member: Having intermittent starting issues. Please help
 

As you can see I am a new member and generally an Audi guy. I just purchased this 2004 X5 4.4 for my wife to replace her aging jeep grand cherokee. About 50% of the time when we try to start it, it takes about 10 or more cranks until it fires up. The other 50% of the starts are perfect. I have not noticed a differance of wether it's a cold/hot start and such. It just seems to be the luck of the draw and it's really embarassing if someone is around. I'm hoping this is an easy and not so costly fix as I like the vehicle and was that it would be somewhat reliable. I had a friend who is a bmw tech update the software, cause he thought that would be the problem but it started back up after a couple days. Thanks in advance!

welcome to the forum... we want pics!!!

as far as troubled start - this is the battery... the BMWs and X in particular is super sensitive to battery voltage. if the voltage is below a predetermined threshold, a lot of weird electrical things start happening: windows go up and down, lights turn on and off on their own, you get notices from the on-board computer...

the car is equipped with start assist, and it does not need several clicks to start the engine - usually it fires up from a half-a-crank...
the battery is in the trunk, under the spare tire - it takes some effort to get to it. dealer battery is $200-300, you can get an autozone or whatever battery and put it in, just make sure the vent hose is correctly connected. the third party battery is about $100.

there are many threads out here talking about the battery...

I agree, most likely the battery.

yes it does have start assist. I meant that once the start assist is activated, it takes like 10 or more times of the starter turning to where it actually fires up. It does always start though. Is there a way to check if this battery is the problem. I already paid to have the ecu updated and some new relays. I don't mind spending a couple hundred to fix the problem, I just hate dumping money in a bunch of parts without having a good way to diagnose it and give me a better shot and narrowing it down. Thanks for your help and to me it honestly does sound like the battery could be the problem, cause althought my worker has a differant vehicle (powerstroke diesel) he did have the same issues and were resolved after a new battery.

Former Audi owner also.

If you wanted something reliable should have brought another Jeep Cherokee. :rofl:

No such thing as a easy and cheap fix on a BMW. :rofl:

Since your X is 9 years old we can assume that the battery has been replaced at least once. Battery last an average of 5 years so the battery in your X could be coming up on that 5 year replacement cycle.

With the extreme cold temp that we have been experiencing I have taken to putting a maintainer on my battery. I put it on in the morning after the car had sat out in the cold over night. My maintainer has a digital read out that give me the health of my battery. For the past week, the readout has been anywhere between 60% to 70% capacity, lowest reading was 58% when we woke up to 5F. After a hour connected to the maintainer, the read out is back to 100%. I have also added distilled water to the battery because the electrolyte level was low and could account for my low capacity reading in the mornings.

I have posted about the battery on this forum

http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...ance-free.html

Welcome to the world of BMW (It's pronounce BM V not BM double U) :rofl:

ok, i will put it on the maintainer to see if that helps. I texted another tech today who see alot of german cars out of warranty and he said it could be the battery but it would generally throw a low voltage code on certain year models. Also he said that the straight six is known for there cam sensor issues, didn't know if this was true for the 4.4 .
The original tech who worked on in it was so sure it was a software issue but now feels its a fuel pressure regulator. This seems like an expensive way of diagnosing the problem. Thanks for all your help guys and I still am a current Audi owner and hoping not getting another Jeep was a bad idea.

Please can anyone else chime in? I'm going to check the battery tomorrow, but I'd like to hear some feedback from some more of you. Thanks!

I had same problem on my 04 4.4i. Ended up being the starter... I initially thought it was the battery also.

OK, So far it seems the issue has been solved. A week and half a ago I replaced the fuel filter because a couple friends thought it was the FPR and supposedly this model has it built into the filter. And since it's been replaces it has been starting perfectly. I'm really happy. The Mahle filter was $70 and my buddy changed it out for me for peanuts.

Thanks for posting the solution to your problems. There are many postings on here where people post their problems but never post back a solution so the thread is worthless.