This seems to be the problem. I put my battery on a charger once a week. Takes 12 hours to charge. On a tester the battery indicates "weak" about 9 volts. WTF? It's either

- bad batteries (probably not)
- bad alternators (seen some comments pointing to that)
- electrical drainage when car is off (also seen comments)

I just came back from a trip between Washington DC and NYC and the battery was still low, so wasn't from not driving it much (a favorite dealer excuse).

Thanks for posting these details 70Sixter.

Hmmm... Real OEM doesn't recognize that part number. I wonder which fan is controlled by that 'fan cutout relay 9137'.

Maybe that fan does not 'cutout' (e.g. turn off) when it should which runs down the battery.

Perhaps others could post their repair ticket info so we could see if this is a commonly replaced part when X5's 'melt down'.

Funf Dreisig

Sorry. I futzed the part number. Should be 61-36-7-661-503

The fan was probably not running at all since previous day the at idle temp produced a "drive moderately, engine hot" type warning.

I suspect that when the relay failed it shorted a circuit.

According to Real OEM that's an expensive relay that is described as being "For deactivating electric fan...". This is a odd wording for a relay. Most relays 'control' something. IOW when power is applied to them they turn on something (e.g. often called a normally off relay). It sounds like this relay does the opposite. When power is applied to the relay, it deactivates the electric fan (i.e. it is normally on). If that is the case, there must be some other switch/relay that 'activates' the fan when the engine is running.

Funf Dreisig

I'll try to post some details on pin to pin testing tomorrow. I'm mystified personally and am also amazed by the attention to technical detail on the site.

Even RennTech rarely gets this technical in the devil's details.

By the way I've also been mystified by my GE icemaker which defaults to crushed ice and requires a solenoid to route uncrushed ice to the door dispenser.

I'm impressed. Go Xoutpost! :thumbup:

The problem with all the electrical issues has its root in a bad alternator. After several high battery drain warnings and then an electrical meltdown, the service department did amperage checks on the alternator output. Seems it was not putting out enough amps to charge the battery. With all the electronics on the X5 (even with locking the doors) when turned off, the battery slowly drains of power till warning and then flicker, flicker, dead. Go to your service department and have them check the alternator. I think this is the smoking gun many have been looking for over the past few years.

We should simply take a common voltmeter and measure:
1. Vehicle sitting over night (measurement 1st thing in the morning): XX.X V

2. Vehicle then started and running (same time): XX.X V

This may tell us something. A good alternator should yield 13.X V and up with the car running. The 1st measurment I'm thinking should be somewhere in the 12's. Maybe a good exercise to do to see what type of variation there is. Will also need to know 4.8 / 3.0 (gasoline) or 3.0 (diesel).

The owner's manual says you can manually release the rear hatch from the inside without battery power using a screwdriver (Page 33 of the 2008 manual). I don't know if it works if you have the power tailgate.

So if you have inside access and a screwdriver, you should be able to crawl back there and open the rear hatch for access to the tool kit under the floor.

Of course, the screw driver provided by BMW is IN the tool kit under the floor. So now we know of two tools in the BMW "tool kit" that should NOT be stored under the cargo bay floor, unless of course you don't actually need them :rolleyes:

FWIW BMW had this tool kit thing down right decades ago, when they put the tool kit in a place were it was accessible even when your cargo area (AKA trunk) was completely full and all you had was a physical key. The tool kit for our late 70's 530i is stored in a molded plastic drop down tray on the underside of the trunk lid. But that was pre Biff & Buffy. The design and engineering talent that was previously lavished on the tool kit, is now consumed making sure that Biff can figure out how to open the protective cover and that Buffy doesn't break a nail pressing the BMW Assist button :yikes:

Funf Dreisig

Got the car back from the stealer today. Here is what they found and said in the invoice:

CUSTOMER STATES VEH IS DEAD AND WILL NOT START CAUSE:
INTERROGATING FAULT MEMORY IN DIAGNOSING SYSTEM
PERFORM BATTERY ENERGY DIAGNOSIS
CHECKING BATTERY WITH TESTER
REPLACE BATTERY/REGISTERED BATTERY
WARR USED ISID TO CHECK FAULTS
RAN THOUGH THE ENERGY DIAG TEST PLAN AND CAR SAYS THE KEY WAS LEFT ON TOO LONG :wtf:
CHECK THE BATTERY TO BE BAD
REPLACED THE BATTERY AND CLEARED FAULTS
MIDTRONICS WARRANTY CODE: B8E10-S4KF7

Taking to the service advisor he said it is a very common issue with 2007 and 2008 (built before October 2008) X5s and X6s. He said every other week he gets X5s and X6s in the shop with the same issue. According to him the original battery was too weak for the car and the new batteries being installed seemed to correct the issue. He said BMW knows about the issue, but has chosen not to recall these vehicles.

I wonder how much money BMW has saved by used a cheap battery in a $70K car and not announcing a recall...:yikes: Is it saving dollars more important than their customers leaving and coming back home safe??? BMW shame on you...

I will write a letter to BMW this week. I will keep you guys posted.