Dead battery out of nowhere?

[sometorque]

Hey guys, wanted to run this one by the forum.

Saturday, while driving the car, I noticed my cigarette USB adapter that I use to charge my phone was not plugged in correctly. I plugged it in, heard a very quick pop, and the outlet was dead. Figured I'd blown the fuse and didn't think much else of it.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon, I get in the car and low and behold, the battery is completely dead. Car had sat about 16-17 hours since last being driven. Thinking that the blown fuse had something to do with it, I pulled the glove box out and was greeted by a mod left behind by the previous owner. A wire jammed into the cigarette lighter fuse (presumably for a radar detector since the wire near the dash defrost vent).

I removed the wire, replaced the fuse, jump started the car and everything seemed normal. Let the car sit for 8 hours, got back in it and fired right back up, albeit with the increased battery discharge light. Had it on a battery tender all evening into the morning and just took it for a long drive a short while ago. Everything works and no more warnings

Kinda stumped. Even with a blown fuse, would that wire being jammed in there run the battery down?

Curious as to your thoughts.

-Steven

[Eyeman]

Cold and hot are most likely times battery will suddenly fail, maybe more in the hot even.

[mackeroni]

A wire just 'jammed' into the hot side of a fuse socket will not run down a battery. It has to be actually connected to something that uses power -- OR -- it might have been shorting out on something. A closer examination might have revealed that the inserted wire was actually touching both sides of the fuse socket.

All this surmising aside, if you let your car sit for a few days between drives and are still running your original battery, you just might be approaching the end of your battery's life.

[sometorque]

Originally Posted by mackeroni

A wire just 'jammed' into the hot side of a fuse socket will not run down a battery. It has to be actually connected to something that uses power -- OR -- it might have been shorting out on something. A closer examination might have revealed that the inserted wire was actually touching both sides of the fuse socket.

All this surmising aside, if you let your car sit for a few days between drives and are still running your original battery, you just might be approaching the end of your battery's life.

chased the wire down and it was simply taped off at the end with electrical tape. Highly doubt it was shorting on something.

I hadn't driven it much the last week or so, but it is my daily driver and driven 50 miles or so a day.

Car is under warranty for a few weeks, so I just left it at the dealer. The battery was replaced back in 2012, so I'm leaning towards the battery failing and the fuse blowing being more of a coincidence. Dealer quoted me $359 for a new battery and coding, not much more than my local Indy.

[bmw1racer]

Originally Posted by sometorque

Dealer quoted me $359 for a new battery and coding, not much more than my local Indy.

That's cheaper than the $600+ my dealer wanted.

You can do it yourself for less than $300 ($150 battery, $120 OBD2 dongle+app).

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by sometorque

Dealer quoted me $359 for a new battery and coding, not much more than my local Indy.

I paid more than that and so did some other people I know so that sounds like a pretty good price to me.

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by bmw1racer

That's cheaper than the $600+ my dealer wanted.

Isn't that what you paid but got reimbursed by BMW?

[dm874]

many of the forum members can code the battery for you for little or no cost. Just make a post under your regional forum for a local battery coding request

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by dm874

many of the forum members can code the battery for you for little or no cost. Just make a post under your regional forum for a local battery coding request

This is a good idea. I wish I would've done this.

[bmw1racer]

Originally Posted by Esteban

Isn't that what you paid but got reimbursed by BMW?

Yup.

Reporting this atrocity to your local news station (KNBC4) really helps.

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by bmw1racer

Yup.

Reporting this atrocity to your local news station (KNBC4) really helps.

Clever!

[mackeroni]

Originally Posted by sometorque

... The battery was replaced back in 2012, so I'm leaning towards the battery failing and the fuse blowing being more of a coincidence. ....

Are you saying your 2011 BMW had its battery replaced in 2012 and this replacement battery has failed in 2016? Something is wrong. Your car should not be eating batteries this fast.

[sometorque]

Originally Posted by mackeroni

Are you saying your 2011 BMW had its battery replaced in 2012 and this replacement battery has failed in 2016? Something is wrong. Your car should not be eating batteries this fast.

Oops that was a typo. It was replaced 4/2013. Car is a very early 2011 (build date 6/2010), so about 3 years on the original battery and another 3 on this one.

A bit on the short end, but given how hot it gets in South FL , it's not entirely unreasonable. My previous s2000 used to eat batteries every 4ish years.

[sometorque]

Dealer diagnosed it as a bad battery. Battery replaced, however I did get the yellow car on lift this morning the morning after they replaced the battery. Car started up fine otherwise.

In your guys' experience, is it normal for there to be some "residual" warnings from a battery replacement, or should I just chalk this up as normal behavior while the car figures out there's a new battery? Car was properly coded to accept the new battery.

[sometorque]

So things have gotten interesting since this issue started.

If I let the car sit for an extended period of time (typically 6+ hours), i'll get a yellow car on lift symbol when starting up the car. I've also noticed my halos wont turn on. The yellow card on lift can mean quite a few different things per what I've seen online. However, it seems this light can indicate increased battery discharge or battery monitoring has failed.

Furthermore, I've noticed the car doesn't seem to enter sleep mode. Start button stays illuminated for hours, every 20 or so seconds, you'll hear what sounds like some sort of servo/relay clicking, and every few minutes either the DCT shifter or the center display on the dash will light up

Car voltage is a healthy 12.7-12.8 volts right after shutting it off, per the hidden menu on these cars. If I let it sit for 6 hours and check it again, it's down to 11.7-11.8. Not sure if this would be considered a normal voltage drop, but it does seem worth mentioning.

Looks like it's going back to the dealership. 3 weeks of CPO warranty left, so at least the issues cropped up before the warranty ended.

Curious as to if any of you guys have an idea as to what's going on here? Bad IBS or a module not entering sleep mode?

[kioneo]

Sounds like something is draining it or preventing sleep like you said. The IBS should shut off high drain modules, but maybe that is bad like you said.

There are some pretty good diags that the dealer or a BMW indie can do. The car actually maintains a history of discharge and they can read that out. Further, like you said there may be extra codes that you can't see which point to the drain.

Before you do that though, I'd disconnect absolutely everything extra just to make sure it isn't one of those. For example radar detectors, phone chargers, USB cables, thumb drives, etc. also turn off Bluetooth if you have it. Basically completely isolate the car. Maybe you'll find one of those is keeping it awake. It's a long shot, but it's free

[sometorque]

Originally Posted by kioneo

Sounds like something is draining it or preventing sleep like you said. The IBS should shut off high drain modules, but maybe that is bad like you said.

There are some pretty good diags that the dealer or a BMW indie can do. The car actually maintains a history of discharge and they can read that out. Further, like you said there may be extra codes that you can't see which point to the drain.

Before you do that though, I'd disconnect absolutely everything extra just to make sure it isn't one of those. For example radar detectors, phone chargers, USB cables, thumb drives, etc. also turn off Bluetooth if you have it. Basically completely isolate the car. Maybe you'll find one of those is keeping it awake. It's a long shot, but it's free

I have a sneaky suspicion is the IBS. The yellow lift light also can mean battery monitoring failed, which would point to the IBS. What throws me off is that if I shut the car down after even a minute of it on, and then start it back up, the yellow lift warning goes away. Almost as if a quick "pick-me-up" from the alternator juices up the battery enough to kill the warning. Also, if I let it sit for less time (3-4 hours), i get no warning. Thinking perhaps the discharge isn't enough in 3-4 hours to trigger the warning, but after 6+ hours, it's enough to trigger the warning.

My theory is that it either went bad with the battery that was just replaced, or was somehow damaged when they put in the new battery. It would make sense that a bad IBS is not properly allowing the car to enter sleep mode.

Either way, it's going back to the dealer on Monday. It's not the biggest issue since I can still drive the car, but it is something I'd like resolved while I've still technically got CPO coverage through the end of this month.

[PA135i]

Originally Posted by Esteban

I paid more than that and so did some other people I know so that sounds like a pretty good price to me.

Yeah, that is a good price. ($359) Since this battery lasts 6 years just get the dealer do it.
My dealer charged $417 for the battery and coding.

[sometorque]

Originally Posted by PA135i

Yeah, that is a good price. ($359) Since this battery lasts 6 years just get the dealer do it.
My dealer charged $417 for the battery and coding.

Yeah, i was as surprised as anyone, especially after hearing horror stories of dealerships charging $600+ for a battery.

$359 was a bit more than my local indie, but with the convenience of having a loaner for the day to get to and from the office. Cant be mad at that.

[Eyeman]

Since I use lightweight batteries, I have more weak batteries issues than most. When my battery is getting weak, next thing that happens after getting service lights is the clock starts completely losing the time.

[JimD]

I can't agree that $300-400 for a battery is reasonable. You can buy the Carley app for your phone for easily under $100 and a battery for less than $150 and do this yourself. If you get the battery at come autoparts places they will put it in for you. The app expense is a one time thing and then you have it to read and reset codes and change things on your car.

I would get a multimeter (mine came from walmart) that reads small current draws. You have to pull a battery cable to use it but you put it in line between the battery and cable with everything off. Read the current draw. It sounds to me like it is high. Figuring out why is harder. You need to pull each fuse, one by one, to find which circuit is doing this. Once the circuit or circuits with the drain are identified, you try and find the actual issue.

My original batter is working fine. I drive a 2009. SC isn't quite as hot as FL but last week we were over 100. 3-4 years isn't long in a normal car without the advanced circuitry of the BMW. In a BMW I expect to do much better than this. My car is driven only 2-3 times per week (I put the majority of miles on an older cheaper SUV). That should be worse on the battery.

[sometorque]

Originally Posted by JimD

I can't agree that $300-400 for a battery is reasonable. You can buy the Carley app for your phone for easily under $100 and a battery for less than $150 and do this yourself. If you get the battery at come autoparts places they will put it in for you. The app expense is a one time thing and then you have it to read and reset codes and change things on your car.

I would get a multimeter (mine came from walmart) that reads small current draws. You have to pull a battery cable to use it but you put it in line between the battery and cable with everything off. Read the current draw. It sounds to me like it is high. Figuring out why is harder. You need to pull each fuse, one by one, to find which circuit is doing this. Once the circuit or circuits with the drain are identified, you try and find the actual issue.

My original batter is working fine. I drive a 2009. SC isn't quite as hot as FL but last week we were over 100. 3-4 years isn't long in a normal car without the advanced circuitry of the BMW. In a BMW I expect to do much better than this. My car is driven only 2-3 times per week (I put the majority of miles on an older cheaper SUV). That should be worse on the battery.

Without going into it too much, "reasonable" is subjective in this case. In my case, because of how I'm compensated, the downtime on the car and associated time spent buying a battery, ordering and waiting on shipping of the BT adapter to register would've cost me way more in lost time than just forking over $359 to have it replaced.

To update on my last post, I disconnected the IBS to see if it was the culprit and no more warnings. However, the car still does not enter sleep mode and there is a definite parasitic draw. I left the car sitting for 12 hours last evening. Right after shutoff, voltage dropped to a healthy 12.6 volts. After 12 hours, it had dropped to 10.9. Car still started, but it was a bit labored.

Since the car is still under warranty for a few more weeks, I'm simply going to drop it back off tomorrow, share my observations with the SA and have them go through it. I'm just glad this issue cropped up just before the warranty ends lol.