Will it start or won't it
 

OK. Its supposed to be -22*F here in Omaha on Saturday morning. Anyone want to put in a bet on whether my diesel will start and whether or not the fuel will gel?

Is that the wind chill, or actual temp? I think it's going down to -10 here Saturday morning. I'm going to take my diesel out, but I keep it in my garage at night on a battery tender. Let us know either way.

Craig

That would be the actual temp. :thumbdown Wind chill is -35 or so.
The garage in my condo building is covered but not heated and open to the wind from one north and west.

It should start.

Might run a bit rough, but my bet is it will start. It doesn't need much heat to bring the fuel up to prime operating temp.

The fuel filter is heated, and anything in the fuel line should instantly liquify if it had gelled.

Does anyone know of any 35d that actually has refused to start outright. I've heard of some running a bit rough until they're up to operating temp, but that's not the end of the world?

My 2-cents, but If I'm wrong I will not be surprised.

Might want to consider an engine block heater. You're pushing the envelope there (engine blocks do still crack, believe it or not) The battery tender is not needed, as long as you drive it once per day for a reasonable distance. I won't hurt, but it's really not required unless you're seeing those temps for a week at a time, and only driving the car 1 or 2 miles per day.

We were at -6 yesterday morning, the truck ran like a champ.

Coldest weather I've seen was -18 in my 335xi last year. Ran fine.

It was -4 here the other day, mine ran a little rough until the engine warmed up. One of the worst things, the X5 does not have a temp. gauge.

The dealer and BMW both told me to keep mine on a battery tender. BMW said I need to drive it on the highway in order to keep the battery charged. I find it unacceptable, but have taken their advice...

Craig

Wind chill does not affect machines.

Craig, your dealer is mistaken and probably knows nothing about what chemical reactions take place within a battery.

Keep your RPMs above 1k for over 10 minutes per day, and you'll be fine. If you're at idle or not above 1k for more than 10 mins. per day, maybe consider the battery tender.

Most modern vehicles cycle their alternators on and off at specific RPM ranges to lessen the load on their engines, creating smoother idle performance.

I have no idea what BMWs set their alternator to start at, but specifically driving on the freeway, is no different to the battery than idling the car at 2k rpms in the driveway for 10 mins.

The issue at hand is the amount of time spent driving the vehicle at a speed in which the alternator is charging the battery; that's it.

Find a new service advisor...

IMO Craig's SA gave very practical advice. About the only time a 35d engine is normally running at or above 2k RPM is on the highway.

BTW a 35d idles at under 1k rpm. In fact, mine idles closer to 600rpm and is rarely above 2k rpm for more than a few seconds unless it is on the highway. So suggesting that a 35d owner could IDLE their engine in their driveways at 2k rpm for 10 minutes to keep thier batteries charged is not very practical.

Funf Dreisig

10mins won't even replace what is used by one start!

BMWNA also told me to use either a trickle charger or battery tender. Not just my dealer.

Craig

Not true. The starting systems of most vehicles have capacitors which increase the amperage of the 12v battery within the X5.

10-mins. will replace what is used.

It's same technology that's used in a stun gun, whereby a 12v battery, only powerful enough for a smoke alarm, can incapacitate a large human, in fact a few dozen large humans, before requiring replacement.

Steady driving, at a steady speed, will kick the alternator on, hence charging the battery. At idle, the alternator may not be charging the battery.

I have owned my 35d for less than one month. I do not know what RPM range that BMW set the alternator to kick-in at.

I'm by no means suggesting one idles their 35d in their driveway, I was merely using that as an example to demonstrate that the car does not know if it's being driven or simply idling high, nor should the alternator care.

The reason the alternator does not operate or draw a load from the engine below a certain RPM is to allow the engine to idle smoothly. If the alternator were drawing a load from the engine at 600 rpm, it would be putting much more stress on the engine, creating a rougher idle.

Customers demand vibration free idles, these days, hence most cars run strictly off their batteries at idle, with some exceptions.

Anyway, if a battery tender is needed, what's the big deal. You guys are operating your X5s in some pretty harsh climates, and it's a $30.00 purchase.

If it bothers you that much, just buy Optima 12 Volt Performance Battery - Sealed Batteries by Optima an Optima battery and call it a day. There's no harm in spending $150.00. I'd spend that just to avoid having to take my X5 into the shop. The time and annoyance is worth far more than $150.000.

So what if BMW equipped their X5s with crappy batteries. Big Deal. It's pretty minor, and there are no perfect cars out there. Every car has it's bugs.

Going back to my secondary vehicle: my Honda Civic, it's 1-year old with 27k miles on it, and it left me stranded in a parking lot the other day due to a dead battery, probably caused by the fact that I park it outdoors in the 40-degree Bay Area winter weather.

Solution: Optima 12 Volt Performance Battery - Sealed Batteries by Optima

I had a red top Optima in my Infiniti QX4. I never had to plug a battery tender on it, or any other vehicle I've owned. I did have one on a Harley Davidson motorcycle, but it wasn't used much and was installed by the Harley dealer before I took delivery...

Craig

ABMW:-

10 mins running (at any RPM) will not replace the discharge caused by one start. There are no capacitors in a vehicle starting system.

A bigger battery will not help if the running time in insufficient to charge the battery.



90% of the info you have posted above is just plain wrong, maybe you would like to post some links to support your capacitor statement for instance.??

Sorry, but that statement makes no sense whatsoever.

Capacitors are built into many starter motors within automobiles today. They assist in the initial rotations of the motor. If BMW left this out from their design, so be it. But, many companies use this technology and if anything that bit of my thread is incorrect.

As to 90% of my thread being incorrect, I beg to differ. But, this is about solving a problem with our cars, not between your knowledge bank vs. my knowledge bank.

As to 10 mins. of alternator charging not being enough to recharge the energy taken from the battery during one (1) start cycle, that info is entirely incorrect.

Do you believe one must run their vehicle for 30-mins. in order to recharge their batteries to the state that they were at prior to 1-start cycle? That's only the case, if the battery were on the verge of discharge-in the first place.

A healthy battery should need no more than 10-mins. of run time/charging from an alternator in order to recapture any lost capacity from starting an X5.

"Trickle Charing" is FAR different than the "Peak Charging" that takes place when a vehicle is running. A trickle charger could take hours to replace what peak charging can perform in minutes.

You're free to google the terms I've used. There's no need for me to do the work for you. I've already provided you with the information here. This is first source info.

I'm factually aware that it's on google, as it's widely known, to anyone who is in the battery or electricity storage industry. But, with due respect, I am not wrong.

I will admit that I am new to BMWs and their starters may not use capacitors. So if they don't I will retract that individual statement, but that's the limit of my apparent misinformation.

No, they are not.

Capacitors are used on AC motors, not on DC motors. An automotive starter is a DC motor.

If you are thinking that the lump on some starter motors which looks similar to the capacitors on large AC motors, it is not -- the lump is the starter solenoid.

Do you have a link or reference to capacitors being built into engine starter motors? If so, I will gladly admit I am in error. But in 44 years of working on engines, I have never seen a starter motor on any engine which used a capacitor.

That's absurd. I've parked 3 different X5's outside 24x7 in the NY/NJ weather since '01 (and '01, '04 and '08) and if 40* weather for a year causes a battery to die there would be a big business in battery jumping in the area, which there isn't.

So, did it start? Because I've heard that 40* weather can really kill a battery :bustingup

I think there is some confusion. In ALL electronic modules used in any vehicle, there are capacitors called "mov's" which have the sole purpose of protecting modules against surge currents when the starter is cranking. During the crank cycle, its at this point where the harshest spikes are generated. You'll note that when you crank, nearly everything goes dead during the crank and then come alive once started.

Add my 42 years to your 44 and that's 86 years that's seen no caps in starter motors on cars. :D :rolleyes:

MOV's...(caps) are put across coils (solenoids).... they are used as surge supressors. Some starters do have them, and is a common practice.

London Lad,

See above. They are built into the caps of the motors. Although, some are external.

If you ever get bored and feel like rebuilding a DC motor you'll come across them fairly frequently.

I'm well aware of what a solenoid is.

In any event, getting back on topic, this is my first BMW product.

I decided to do some exploring in the battery compartment. I didn't bother noting where the battery was made, because I'm sure it's internals are sourced from China, not that that is a bad thing.

I don't know if there is space to fit a Optima battery without modification or removal of the storage compartment (I have third-row seats).

Though, it did take me all of 5-minutes to open the compartment up.

Someone mentioned that using a battery tender trickle charger was not an easy proposition? What's the difficulty?

There's certainly room for a second battery to be installed, if the storage compartment were to be removed, but you may run into issues with keeping it charged if there alternator were not upgraded.

I suppose one way to figure out if the car is drawing power from the battery is to simply disconnect the battery or install a temporary kill switch. If the battery is still discharging, there's a possibility the problem is strictly confined to the quality of the battery.

If the battery is no longer discharging, there's a design flaw wherein one electrical component is not shutting down.

What I'm personally aware of that runs when the car is unattended in a parked state:

1) The internal motion detector for the alarm system.
2) If my iPod is connected to the glove compartment USB port, it will continue charging after the car is turned off. I do not know how long this continues. Perhaps it shuts off after a period of time.
3) Some on the board claim the car performs a self-diagnosis every 15 minutes for a period of time, and then switches to a self-diagnosis every hour.
4) We're missing something. Does the BMW keep a connection to BMWNA via a cellular network? Does it continue to listen for incoming messages?

In any event, I agree the car should start. I've not had any troubles whatsoever, thus far. I do not drive my vehicle on the freeway EVERYDAY by any means, and there have been periods of 4 to 5 days whereby I've only driven the car to and from the office (2-miles round trip).

When I looked at the battery indicator it was green, which indicated a fully charged battery according to the code marked on the battery.

Who knows? On the face of it, the battery did not seem all that impressive. I didn't bother looking at the ratings. Maybe I'll look tomorrow, but I'll just replace it with a higher capacity battery, if it gives me trouble.

That is, if there is not a charging issue going on with all of our vehicles.

Either way, if this is truly a widespread problem, BMW is going to have to address it rather quickly or they're going to be finding quite a few buyers using lemon law protections to obtain buybacks.

I certainly don't want to take that route, but I won't hesitate it need be. These are $65 to $75k SAVs. They should be more reliable than Hyundais. Then again, the 2000 Hyundai Santa Fe I bought for a girlfriend back in College (I was dumb and in love), is still running strong, or so I hear and it has never had a single issue.

German automobiles can be, and generally are somewhat finicky vehicles, especially when it comes to the notoriously crappy electronics that they seem to be producing, but keeping a battery charged is about as simplistic as you can get.

I'm very interested to see what takes place if someone installs a kill switch, and leaves their car parked for a few days. If the battery still dies, it's obviously a bad batch of cells, battery cells that is.

Anyway, these are not Toyotas for better or for worse. There are some things you give us. In 2010 I expect my vehicle to start each and every time I turn the key or push the starter switch a 95% reliability rating is unacceptable. I want it to start 100% of the time. If it doesn't that's unacceptable to me, and to most these days.

Hopefully we'll sort this out or it's limited to certain vehicles. Keep the info coming, the more the better.

OK. Now that this thread has completely gotten off topic, I'll answer whether the X satrted or not.

Oops. I decided not to try since I didnt want to get out in -22* weather anymore than the X probably did. I sat by the fire all day.;) It started fine on Sunday in 15*.

I agree there is some confusion. We are talking about what is in starter motors, not misc electronic modules in the vehicle.

Yes, there are capacitors in the electronic modules in vehicles.

There are not in starter motors.

FYI, the original statement was "Capacitors are built into many starter motors within automobiles today. They assist in the initial rotations of the motor."

I have rebuilt many starters over the years, including motorcycle starters, and have never seen a capacitor in aqny of the starters/

To be accurate, the first mention of capacitors is above: IN the staring system, to INCREASE the amperage...in "the X5"



All the rest of the discussion of MOVs and what not ("Metal Oxide Varistors, and NOT capacitors) is due to this poster and others needing to win an argument.

:thumbup: let's lock this thread up. it's ridiculous.

You are correct, that was indeed the first mention.

Although it's boring and going off topic I think it's important that when someone joins a thread and starts writing reams of information which is blatantly wrong, that it gets corrected, otherwise forum members may read and act on the erroneous information.

I have over 40 years experience in the auto electronics world and although ABMW obviously has some electrical knowledge he completely misunderstands the systems on a modern car.

Now for the last time (then I'm out of here)

1. There are NO capacitors in car starter motors on ANY car. There are also no capacitors in a cars starter system that "increase the amperage of the 12v battery"

2. Fitting a bigger (or extra) battery will NOT help a car start from cold IF the original problem was the battery is not getting fully charged. In fact it may make things worse as you will now be trying to charge two batteries when you were not running enough to even fully charge one.

3. No car will charge it's own battery enough to recover from a cold start in 10 minutes of running.

4. FWIW and IMHO only, I think that some of the problems that people are encountering with starting and low battery with modern BMWs are caused as follows:-

An alternator places a physical load on the engine; the more current you draw from it the harder it is to turn. For better fuel economy, once the battery is 'fully charged' modern BMWs disengage the alternator while the car is accelerating or hill climbing and re-engage it when decelerating or braking. Now, if BMW set the 'fully charged' point on the low side this will result in better fuel economy whereas if they set it a little on the high side it will result in slightly more starting capacity.

My guess is the point they have set works well for drivers in 'normal' climates who are reasonably conservative with the use of electrical consumers in the car, BUT for cold conditions and for drivers who are less careful about use of electrical consumers maybe the charge level is insufficient ?

My suggestion would be that drivers who are having battery problems first give their batteries a good overnight charge with a trickle charger / tender to ensure they are fully charged. Then ensure that they avoid switching on consumers such as lights or heated screens / seats etc until the engine is running and also make sure they are switched off before the engine is turned off.

The E70 has a massive amount of electronics on board and if you only do short runs then a trickle charger in the winter may be something you just have to live with.

Exactly my point. Now that the bad info has been corrected, let's lock it up and shut it down.

Thanks for the clarifying post.

FWIW I originally thought this part of the Efficient Dynamics system, which BMW calls "Brake Energy Regeneration" was a key culprit. But it is not clear that X5s sold in the US have this technology.

It would be nice to have solid evidence one way or the other. Perhaps via a recording voltage monitor.

Funf Dreisig

How dare you interrupt a massive hijack with information pertinent to the topic of the original post :stickpoke:D

Funf Dreisig