[drivecar]

I'm trying to find out what's normal and when is there a warranty issue with the battery or something not "going to sleep" as it should?

I parked the car for 6 days without driving it and when I went to start it, it had lost all the radio, clock and fuel economy settings and barely started.

Unless I left the car at the dealer for several days, it would be difficult to recreate this problem, so I'm not sure how to go about getting it corrected.

By the way, the lights were off, the keys were out, the doors where all shut, dome lights off, headlights off, and nothing was left charging in the car.

If 6 days is "normal," this this is not a good car to leave at the airport on a week or 2 week vacation trip.

[Master Deep]

Most modern regular production cars should be able to go 2-3 weeks and still start up.

[drivecar]

Originally Posted by Master Deep

Most modern regular production cars should be able to go 2-3 weeks and still start up.

"Should be able," is right.
The car did actually start (slowly) despite this problem, which was amazing since the car didn't have enough juice to even maintain the clock time setting.


What is the official cutoff off point of a problem or not a problem? Is this up to the dealer's subjective opinion?

The battery may be failing, but I think it's also possible that the car's "systems" are drawing too much power while the car is off or not shutting down fast enough after the car is turned off and that may be what needs to be fixed.
If the car is so smart that it has all the these computer systems that need to "go to sleep," or else they will drain out all the battery power, then it should also have one that monitors the battery or monitiors how many minutes have passed since the car was turned off and forces everything drawing power to power off before the battery charge gets too low.

If it's only the battery failing prematurely, then that would be a quick fix.
They would have to look at the car to test this, but if it takes 5 or 6 days for it to drain, I'm not sure if they will do that.

In case this is normal, are there aftermarket batteries that fit in the designated space in the e90 that have significantly more reserve power than the stock BMW battery?

[crazed792]

I wouldn't say it's normal at all. I've gone on work trips where I leave my car at the airport for a week and have yet to have a problem. Hell, I accidentally left my parking lights on when I went to a basketball game and a few hours later came back to see them on. Started up just fine.

I would hope that it's your battery and if it is there are supposed to be ways to test for a bad battery that don't take too long.

[BMWs4ever]

There is something wrong with the battery dying that fast. I have left mine 3 weeks without a charger and it started fine.

[drivecar]

Originally Posted by BMWs4ever

There is something wrong with the battery dying that fast. I have left mine 3 weeks without a charger and it started fine.

Well, I think it should last 3 weeks so you can expect to take a vacation without arriving to dead battery in the airport parking lot, but is there any spec that says if it doesn't last a minimum number of days, then they need to fix it?

[jopa489]

What year is your car? And do you drive lots of short trips?

[drivecar]

Originally Posted by jopa489

What year is your car? And do you drive lots of short trips?

2008 and I don't drive super short trips. About 30 miles a day during the week and varying amounts on the weekend. I left the car in the garage for the last 6 days and went to start it today and it almost didn't start and it lost the date and time and fuel economy settings. I normally don't go more than 1 or 2 days before driving it again, so this issue never came up before.

[wsybert]

Sounds like a battery to me. My E46 328i has sat for 6 weeks this summer, and started right up. It isn't as smart as my 335. I have had cars that had bad battery's and it is fine for short periods, then you let them sit, or put a load on it (like sitting with the stereo on for an hour waiting for your wife to finish shopping...) and the car won't start.

Simple battery load test will determine its condition. If it's a system in the car, then maybe the ECU logged it.

Bill

[klipseracer]

If your car actually started(this takes far more power) but did not retain the time settings, u have an issue with connection at the minimum. Go make sure your battery cables are perfectly sitting on the battery. The bst box can make it sit awkward. Also make sure everything is tight. This is a free and easy check.

[drivecar]

I keep hearing about e90 batteries draining because the car fails go to sleep after you turn it off and there are a bunch of things that continue to draw large amounts of power when this happens. Within hours or a few days, you will have a dead battery.
For instance, this can also happen if you leave a cell phone charging or leave an iPod or USB stick plugged into the USB port, it will just keep drawing power until the battery is fully drained because they prevent the car from going into its sleep mode.

If they know this, why don't they fix it with a a hardware fix (kill those ports when the car is turned off and key removed) or software fix that forces the car to go to sleep within some defined time period?

Is there a software update for the car that addresses this?

[drivecar]

Originally Posted by klipseracer

If your car actually started(this takes far more power) but did not retain the time settings, u have an issue with connection at the minimum. Go make sure your battery cables are perfectly sitting on the battery. The bst box can make it sit awkward. Also make sure everything is tight. This is a free and easy check.

I will probably go to the dealer and have them look at the battery connection to verify it is secure, but I don't think it's a loose connection because then everything would have been completely dead and the car wouldn't have even done the slow, retarded-sounding engine start.
The battery light also came on after the car started which probably indicates a nearly drained battery.

[klipseracer]

Originally Posted by drivecar

I will probably go to the dealer and have them look at the battery connection to verify it is secure, but I don't think it's a loose connection because then everything would have been completely dead and the car wouldn't have even done the slow, retarded-sounding engine start.
The battery light also came on after the car started which probably indicates a nearly drained battery.

I don't doubt your battery was low. The point I'm trying to make, is if your car started, I gaurentee there was more than enough electricity to power all of those items.

I spent a week trying to figure out why all the electronics worked in my car perfectly but my car wouldn't start. Would just click and wouldn't turn over. The reason is because the battery wasn't secured properly. It was starting fine, and then all of a sudden it stopped starting up. Point being, There was enough power to keep the electrical on, but not enough oomf to start the car. In your case, there was enough oomf to start the car, amps i believe is the correct term, however your car had lost power completely at one point. Even a few amps would keep the electrical up to date. To start your car requires like 650 amps.

[Neutrino45]

I recently left my car untouched for 3 weeks and started with no problems. I've left an 6 years old civic untouched for 3 months and it started with no problems. That should give you an ideal how long you can go without starting your car.

[deletedelete]

WAIT?!?! A usb stick keeps the car from going to sleep???

[persian54]

aren't parking lights designed to stay on?

and what kind of 'slow start' ?

for me, if i don't drive the car for the weekend, it has a 'slower' start that days when i drive it every day. or days when it's colder, or when the engine is already semi-hot

[n5160u]

You should also be aware that there is a whole different problem besides low batteries being involved when the cars data system crashes and then reboots on its own. This has happened to me four times that I know about since the car was new but I don't know how many times it might have crashed and reset itself while parked when I wasn't there to see the system lose its memory settings. The dealer said the system resets and rebooting occured because I didn't drive my car enough to keep the battery charged but that was a load of B.S. My car may not get a lot of use in the winter but it gets a lot of use in fair weather and it is kept on a BMW automatic pulse type battery charger when parked. This type of battery charger can be left connected to a battery for years without damaging or overcharging the battery.
My car is an E93 with the body cavity rumble issue that is still not fixed after two years and enough trips to the dealer I'm on a first name basis with everybody in service.
On one of my many trips to the dealer to try and get other issues addressed the system went gray screen of death while on the highway going to the dealer. It is not likely that the system crashed due to a low battery while driving at normal speeds on the freeway around twenty minutes the engine was started. After beeping three times loud enough to wake the dead it went stupid. The system rebooted correctly after the CAN BUSS went to sleep but it did not log any DTC's so the dealer refused to update the system software because there was no hard proof the failure ever happened. This was after the service writer saw the car with the blank gray screen but before it reset itself. I suppose I should have expected it to reset itself since the service writer took the key out of the car so he could scan it for errors. The system seems to allow a reboot if one is needed after the CAN BUSS first goes to sleep so the problem was gone when we got back to the car.

I have been told by others that the random system crashes were mostly fixed by a "Progman" software update in late 2008 or 2009 but the dealer refuses to do the work until there is a solid DTC logged. The body cavity rumble was addressed by a service bulletin about two years after the problem was made a lemon law buyback issue but the dealer stalled on doing the work for another eight months and only relented when I brought a lawyer into dealership. Whatever they did to the car after that actually made it worse though.
At the end of my lease this car will be going back to BMW and I will never buy or lease another one. The free service means nothing if you have to keep bringing it back to get it fixed over and over again because they never seem to be able to get it right the first time.
I might have always had to pay every time my Benz needed service work, but it was always fixed right the first time and they always made sure I was happy with what had been done before I left the service area.

A few months ago when I had my Benz in for an oil change I was telling my SA about the latest round of B.S. from BMW over the body cavity rumble issue on my E93 and another customer that was waiting to talk to the SA over heard what we were talking about and said he also owned an 06 335 and told us the history of all the times it went into limp mode because of high oil temps and how the same SA had made endless promises about getting the aux oil cooler retrofit done, and how he went through two HP fuel pumps while waiting for BMW to authorize the fix for the range of build dates covering his car.
I learned something new that day.
The SA had started his career at the Benz dealer and they all thought he was one of the better SA's they had working there. He had jumped ship to BMW a few years before to take a better position and the Benz dealership people could not believe we were talking about the same guy that had once worked there.
Then again, if he had taken a promotion going to BMW and was back to being a SA when I ran into him there might be a lot more to his career history than I would ever know.

[drivecar]

Originally Posted by Prowess Symphony

WAIT?!?! A usb stick keeps the car from going to sleep???

Yes.

To work around this problem, you are supposed to unplug everything from the USB port and power ports when you park to prevent the battery drain.

[drivecar]

Originally Posted by persian54

aren't parking lights designed to stay on?

and what kind of 'slow start' ?

for me, if i don't drive the car for the weekend, it has a 'slower' start that days when i drive it every day. or days when it's colder, or when the engine is already semi-hot

The video shows the slow start. It was even weaker the first time I tried to start it.

I notice the date display wasn't reset completely, but it is several days behind. The time was completely lost.

[u2b]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/K-aB_0AuvRg&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/K-aB_0AuvRg&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/u2b]

[MontegoGoGoGo]

I left my car for about 40 days this summer and it started right up.

[new2the3]

Definitly not normal, I left my 135i off for 3 months and it started up perfectly normal.

[Kylekuu]

you can always call up the dealership, assuming you have the time and it's not a hassle. They should have load testers that can test ur battery, and if u fall under warranty, they should replace it for free i think. My bro had his battery fail because it was too weak in cold cranking amps for free, but this was lexus though. But they also don't offer free maintenance. In the end doesn't hurt to try