[SpoolinAddict]

Have a N55 EWG F30 that has a parasitic battery drain. When I went on a short 4 day vacation, my car was completely dead and had to use key to get in. I just ended up replacing the 3 year old battery and registered with bimmerlink. I wanted to just start fresh with a new one. I got a Interstate AGM battery with same specs and has 3 year warranty.

Some details maybe related?

I Replaced foglights to LED Fog Light Bulbs and coded Foglight Lamp to LED with bimmercode. The next week, got a "Battery Discharged Start engine and Battery discharging while stopped" warning. I also changed a blown 20 amp fuse for the cigarette lighter (its been blown for the past 2 years never changed it). Negative battery was always unhooked when i installed leds and fuse.


Then went to work Monday thru Friday, got home Friday night and on Monday I got battery discharged warning.

I put everything back to stock, took off led, coding back to completely stock and unhooked anything connected even cigarette lighter to rule this out, even the blown 20amp fuse for cigarette lighter I put back. And a week and a half passed and it came back with the battery discharged warning with new coded battery, put everything back that I changed, even coding back to stock.

It completely died on me new years, I got the battery discharged warning, drove 30 mins to my sisters thinking it would recharge enough and when i was going home i needed a jump.

Took to two reputable indy shops in the bay area (bimmer guys and bimmeronly) and they did testing and couldn't find anything. I even left the car from Thursday to Monday on each shop but the warning sadly didn't pop up.

The warning only pops up randomly but fine after I drove after awhile except on NYE not sure why it died completely.

Is the dealership my only option at this point? Someone mentioned to me to have it looked by a master tech at a dealership. I'm tuned with bm3 and they might update my software but if this is the only way without blindly changing parts like the water pump, comfort access, FEM module (was searching online) which can get expensive quick.

Any other recommendations you can guys can suggest?


Led's I used were from Amazon "SEALIGHT H11 H8 H9 LED Bulbs LED Fog Light Bulbs, 6000K Xenon White 400% Super Brightness H11 LED Light Bulb Kit for Car, Lighting Range over 300m, Play and Plug"

[Billfitz]

The LEDs have nothing to do with it. Your old battery probably didn't either. There's no need to blindly change parts, you already did that with the battery, but you do have to identify the source of the current drain. That's a long and involved process but it has to be done. There are youtube videos that show how. A dealer might do that, but they're just as likely to blindly change parts.

[AliKattan]

I had the same issue happening to me two weeks ago, I installed new battery and found it dead by the morning for three days in a row, just to find out later that the place I bought the battery from didn't register the new battery properly, so I registered it by myself using bimmerlink and made sure that it's coded properly using bimmercode, the car was just charging to 80% even after registering it I found it dead the next day, I jumped started the car and drove it for a little bit and at the end of the day I found it charged 99% and never encountered this issue again.

before you do anything just make sure that the battery is properly registered & coded and drive it for a little bit and check the charging status.


Good luck man.

[Fredo]

I'm on the same boat. My car is a 2012 F30 335i sedan with 105k miles. Two years ago the issue started, but it's very sporadic. Sometimes I can go 6 months without any trouble. I replaced the IBS (intelligent battery sensor) and it didn't help.

I read the cluster and comfort access handles could be the reason. However, two different Indys checked my car and could not find an explanation.

[jdhillon656]

yes, i have a same issue happening since i changed my puddle lights.
But same issue even i put back stock lights

[Charles B]

Never ever take a car out of warranty to the dealership for repair. There has to be great independent mechanics in your area.

[F32Fleet]

Put the car to sleep and start testing fuses for the drain. This is what a shop will do.

[SpoolinAddict]

Originally Posted by Billfitz

The LEDs have nothing to do with it. Your old battery probably didn't either. There's no need to blindly change parts, you already did that with the battery, but you do have to identify the source of the current drain. That's a long and involved process but it has to be done. There are youtube videos that show how. A dealer might do that, but they're just as likely to blindly change parts.

2 Indy Shops checked it out and everything came out "normal" and also bit the bullet and brought it to the dealership. Picking it up tomorrow and see what the tech says. But he did mention there's aftermarket parts. The only thing I know of is the MMI Carplay Box and a "LOJACK UNIVERSAL OBD PASSTHROUGH KIT-WY0810T001" I don't know what that's for but I'm gonna get it uninstalled. Then monitor, and if all else fails I will take out my MMI carplay box.

Do you think this lojack obd passthrough could be causing the drain? I always thought this was the oem obd and so I used this port to code on bimmercode.

Picture of the obd passthrough below

https://ibb.co/6WdVkG6

[Billfitz]

Lojack is a tracking device in case the car is stolen. It draws current, but not that much, and if it was causing parasitic drain it would have done so from the day it was installed. The pass through wouldn't do anything if there was no Lojack device plugged into it.

[SpoolinAddict]

Originally Posted by Billfitz

Lojack is a tracking device in case the car is stolen. It draws current, but not that much, and if it was causing parasitic drain it would have done so from the day it was installed. The pass through wouldn't do anything if there was no Lojack device plugged into it.

Update

Got rid of this since I don't even have access if it DOES need to be tracked.
So far it's been 9 days and no battery discharged so far.


Just glad it wasn't the cluster or water pump since those were more costly. (fingers crossed)

[SpoolinAddict]

Update

So I removed carplay, unplugged anything that drain battery, unplugged comfort access from door handle. Let the dealership take a look since I wouldn't be charged

They recommended changing the battery since the current Interstate battery is causing "undervoltage fault due to the battery not strong enough for the car"

I am going to just get my money back for the Interstate battery and get a OEM battery at almost the same price.

So far it hasn't gave me a battery discharged warning and the car sat over the weekend.

[Billfitz]

Without knowing the specs on the Interstate battery I can't say for sure but my gut feeling is that the dealer is hosing you.

[richardodn]

Chiming in here. A couple months back my E83 X3 was going in to the dealer to have a recall done and change the transfer case fluid plus a number of other things. The morning I was to bring it in, the battery was dead. It hadn't been that long since the car was last started (maybe a week) so it shouldn't have gone dead. Anyways, I had them do a battery diagnostic service on it ($250) and they pinpointed the issue. I had a module (communications module) that was periodically waking up for a bit and going back to sleep. The tester he used showed current draw over time and you could see the spikes. (This dealer sends videos of inspections and other communications.) I never would have been able to diagnose this with home tools. This was money well spent.

[rlesko]

It looks like you mentioned it in post #10, but a faulty water pump was draining my battery. If your water pump is long in the tooth, you should consider changing it anyways. If your car is from 2015, its possible its still the original water pump.