# POS BMW



## Kell (May 28, 2002)

Long story short.

Left the radio on in the car while I went to get and then fit a roofbox (1/2 hour max). Came to start it again, but to no avail.

Called RAC who started it with jump leads and tested the battery which seemed OK.

Anyway, had the car serviced by an independent and when I went to pick it up it was already running. Thought nothing of it, but parked it at the train station while I was at work. Came back to find it dead again.

Doors would open, lights would flash etc, but not enough juice to turn the engine over.

Jumped it again.

Parked it overnight at the house and found that not only was there not enough juice to turn the car over, nothing came on when I put the key in.

Nothing at all.

Anyway, just tried jumping it from our Mini. As soon as I touched the negative cable to the grounding point there were lots of sparks and the alarm started going off detached cable and ran round to put key in ignition to turn it off. And the key wouldn't do anything to switch it off.

Finally thought I've nothing to lose and ignored initial sparking and connected cables with the intent to now actually start the BM.

At which point the Bimmer got just enough juice to lock the doors.

With my key in the ignition.

And my house keys on it.

At least the house is unlocked so I can go in and out. But my wife is out so I can't unlock the Beemer to get my keys out and now have to stay awake until she gets in as I can't lock the front door.

Brilliant.


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## LordG71 (Jan 10, 2012)

...and the morale of the story is...


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## alexi7 (Aug 30, 2011)

Get an Audi instead of a BMW :lol: :lol:


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## ThreeBeans (Apr 21, 2012)

I know it sucks for you but that made a great comedy sketch in my head with a great big Homer Simpson - DOH!
Hope you get it sorted soon and bloody lucky the house was not locked up!


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## Kell (May 28, 2002)

LordG71 said:


> ...and the morale of the story is...


Unsure. Except that this forms the latest episode in a five year tale of disappointment with this car.

Missus didn't get in until one o'clock so didn't bother trying again last night.

Tried it this morning and there's still nothing. So having to get the garage out to pick it up.


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## Wallsendmag (Feb 12, 2004)

You need to get rid, it's been nowt but trouble .


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## Kell (May 28, 2002)

If I could afford to I would.


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## ScoobyTT (Aug 24, 2009)

LordG71 said:


> ...and the morale of the story is...


I suspect the morale was quite low. He'd just locked his keys inside the car.


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## rustyintegrale (Oct 1, 2006)

ScoobyTT said:


> LordG71 said:
> 
> 
> > ...and the morale of the story is...
> ...


 [smiley=book2.gif]


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## tomd1338 (May 1, 2012)

ScoobyTT said:


> LordG71 said:
> 
> 
> > ...and the morale of the story is...
> ...


 :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


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## Kell (May 28, 2002)

New battery put in on Friday.

Car seemed OK on Saturday but we didn't use it at all on Sunday.

Came to start it this morning and it was completely dead again.

There's oviously a short somewhere - and my feeling (hence why I mentioned the car was already started the other day) is that the guys that serviced it and looked at an electrical problem have somehow created a short circuit somewhere which is causing the battery to discharge.


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## Guest (May 8, 2012)

join the better breakdown organisation  they would use an amp clamp which would show any electrical discharge.


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## Gazzer (Jun 12, 2010)

take it back kell.............they need to put it right


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## TT-TOM (Feb 15, 2012)

If your planning on doing fault finding i've got a big table somewhere that i can dig out which tells you the current being drawn by each circuit when measuring the voltage drop across the fuses. You will need a good quality multimeter though.


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## Kell (May 28, 2002)

It's already back with the garage.

I wouldn't know where to begin to fault find myself.


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## CWM3 (Mar 4, 2012)

Mate, don't know if you have checked this, but as a multiple BM owner over the years, the most common cause of dead batts is to do with the air con control panel, from memory its along the lines of a resistor or the like that allows a fan to keep running long after it should have shut down.

Well known BM issue , any good Indy should be able to advise


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## Kell (May 28, 2002)

Well, I picked it up again on Saturday and (fingers crossed) it seems to be OK.

Apparently, when the battery is changed, you have to tell the car it's been changed or it thinks that it's still using the old battery with no power. Not sure why this would causethe car to die, but it can.

When it was changed over, this wasn't done. But now it's been done and, so far, it's been OK.

Though they did say that it's going to be a bit of trial and error, and there was a fault code for the Intelligent Battery Sensor (which was going to be the next port of call), but they didn't want to start replacing stuff until this was tried.

They haven't charged for any of the investigative work, which I think is fair - given that it *may* be caused by something they forgot to do. Oh, and they came up to the house to pick the car up too.

I know BMW would have told us that they couldn't fit us in for three weeks and that's only if we didn't want a courtesy car - six weeks if we did - and then promptly replaced everything they could think of, plus a few other things for good measure, charged us the handsomely for the privilege and still left us with a flat battery.


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