[JUSKIDN]

"Battery discharged while stopped; electrical devices were temporarily switched off"

thats the message I got on the idrive yesterday. Today it still has the yellow warning triangle by the mileage and I get the message on start.

Im not to sure what it really means, everything appears to be working fine. Anyone else got this and found out how to correct it. My car has just about 55K on it.

BTW: the battery is only about 6 months old. It was replaced by the dealer because of another issue.

thanks
Lonnie

[DTP1980]

Take it straight back to the dealer and get them to resolve under warranty. I'd be interested to know what the diagnostic is

[PK2348]

i received the same message this morning on a 328 with 27K on it. Did you ever find out what this meant?

[JUSKIDN]

the message went off the next day. Im at 55K miles so no more free service, so no way was I bringing to the dealer. I did some research on other sites and think it may have been the ignition accessory left on. My girls were washing it that evening and had her iPhone connected playing music. So Im guessing they left the accessory on after unplugging the phone. Like I said the code went off the next day. The battery was replaced 6 months ago so it had to be that, anyway thats my educated guess.

[PK2348]

Originally Posted by JUSKIDN

the message went off the next day. Im at 55K miles so no more free service, so no way was I bringing to the dealer. I did some research on other sites and think it may have been the ignition accessory left on. My girls were washing it that evening and had her iPhone connected playing music. So Im guessing they left the accessory on after unplugging the phone. Like I said the code went off the next day. The battery was replaced 6 months ago so it had to be that, anyway thats my educated guess.

Thank you, mine went awaY this afternoon. I think I might have left the ignition on last night and that caused it

[geoff7877]

Using the stereo with the motor off will wake everything up and all control units start communicating with the DME. This will not only cause the battery drain warning to come on but can kill that 6 month old battery. Go for a 20+ mile drive and it will start to recharge the battery.

If it does kill the battery, the parts warranty or even the original factory warranty would not cover it. The diag report will show that you used the stereo with the car not running and how many times. Batteries are not covered under any warranty unless there's something that's a non user error issue found.

[E90Fleet]

These modern cars use a huge amount of power when you turn them on without starting the engine.
I have regularly measured discharge rates of well over 20amps from the battery just from turning on the ignition. Now turn on the radio and have the AC fan blowing and you will quickly drain even the largest battery fitted.

Models before the E90 and F30 would very seldom have double digit amp draws.

[Slalom]

Apparently there is a service bulletin on the battery discharge issue. I took mine in after getting this warning several times in the January cold. This is despite using a battery tender, keeping the car in a relatively warm garage, driving on the highway for 150+km ... All things that would keep a battery charged.

The dealer applied a fix. I now have a few differences in screens (opt and a gear show up on the right hand side of the display when there are options, heated steering wheel info shows on engage and disengage, nav behaves differently - goes through fly-in).

It is still bloody cold here so we will see if the car behaves normally when I go out tomorrow morning.

[rlmesq]

I've seen it a few times (and also on my E92) when I left the trunk open and the lights stayed on.

Drive is a few miles as geoff7877 suggested and everything will be okay.

[bmwauug]

Less than 2k on mine and I get it - only when very cold!

[gomichaelkgo]

This happened to me as well with a months-old car. It was the proximity sensing door handle on the driver door.

[MdW86]

Bellow what voltage does the car give a warning?

[Fat Panda]

Originally Posted by Slalom

Apparently there is a service bulletin on the battery discharge issue. I took mine in after getting this warning several times in the January cold. This is despite using a battery tender, keeping the car in a relatively warm garage, driving on the highway for 150+km ... All things that would keep a battery charged.

The dealer applied a fix. I now have a few differences in screens (opt and a gear show up on the right hand side of the display when there are options, heated steering wheel info shows on engage and disengage, nav behaves differently - goes through fly-in).

It is still bloody cold here so we will see if the car behaves normally when I go out tomorrow morning.

Same thing happened to me, and got the same fix (and updates).

The dealer told me that BMW in Germany sets the warning to off at 85% capacity of the battery. Due to the deep freeze, and with other systems running in the background, the battery drop to 85% is quite easily made. They reprogrammed the threshold to 65%.

[vifferfun]

Originally Posted by Slalom

Apparently there is a service bulletin on the battery discharge issue. I took mine in after getting this warning several times in the January cold. This is despite using a battery tender, keeping the car in a relatively warm garage, driving on the highway for 150+km ... All things that would keep a battery charged.

The dealer applied a fix. I now have a few differences in screens (opt and a gear show up on the right hand side of the display when there are options, heated steering wheel info shows on engage and disengage, nav behaves differently - goes through fly-in).

It is still bloody cold here so we will see if the car behaves normally when I go out tomorrow morning.

Hello! Sorry to ressurrect this thread, but do you know what changes the dealer made? I'm having the same warning, even though I changed the battery last week. Besides, I would LOVE to have the heated steering wheel activate/deactivate show up on my screen -- it's impossible to see the heated-steering light unless I dangerously duck my head down to check!

Thanks!

[Billfitz]

Originally Posted by vifferfun

I'm having the same warning, even though I changed the battery last week.

It probably wasn't the battery. Look at one of the umpteen threads on this topic, get a battery maintainer. If you still have a problem when using the maintainer then you can see about a possible software fix, but you've got to make sure it's broken before you can fix it.

[Slalom]

Hello - I see no problem in keeping this thread alive. There is a serious problem with the cars that may not be of concern to people in warmer climates but sure is to us.

I assume that when you changed the battery they "registered" it. Nothing to do with forms of course, but the past few generations of BMW were picky about this and could misbehave.

When I went to the dealer they did a low level software update. I lost everything - all settings - had to go back and do them again. The update changed the parameters for the low battery warning. It now comes on at 65% cold crank vs 80%. On a fully charged new battery, the old threshold would have been passed at -21c.

Looking at the parts diagram, they should have replaced the battery too as the original was 90Amp hours and the new one is 92. In my case they skipped the last step. I am back to having troubles. With luck it will go away. The car is plugged into a trickle charger again.
Funny thing, I never had to do that on any other BMW.

I agree that the changes to the SW were great. - the heated steering wheel activation, and the sports instruments now go up to a theoretical 320 hp.

[Billfitz]

Originally Posted by Slalom

I see no problem in keeping this thread alive.

When there are so many current threads that address the problem and reveal the cure why resuscitate a zombie? Let the dead lie in peace.

[vifferfun]

I’m guessing that my problem wasn’t the battery, but since I was still on the original battery for a 2012 I didn’t mind changing it anyways

I have had the new battery on a CTek battery tender until the battery was completely full, but I still had the issue of “Battery Discharging While Stopped” and “Battery Charge Low”

It has been really cold here in Canada (-20C) and that’s when the problems began. I guess I need the software update? Is this something an independents mechanic can do?

Thanks!

[Billfitz]

Get one of these so that before you try fixing it that you know it's broken:
https://www.amazon.com/INNOVA-3721-B...+voltage+meter

The warning might mean your charge is low, or it might mean the software is too aggressive in showing a fault that isn't there. This inexpensive device will give you a second opinion.
Indys might be able to do a software update, but only if they specialize in BMW.

[vifferfun]

Originally Posted by Billfitz

Get one of these so that before you try fixing it that you know it's broken:
https://www.amazon.com/INNOVA-3721-B...+voltage+meter

The warning might mean your charge is low, or it might mean the software is too aggressive in showing a fault that isn't there. This inexpensive device will give you a second opinion.
Indys might be able to do a software update, but only if they specialize in BMW.

I actually already have one of those.

While in accessory before the battery change, I used to have only 11.60V (But 14.40V while running).

While in accessory after the battery change, I get about 12.20V (But 14.40V while running).

The mechanic used a battery from BMW and he coded it correctly. He’s the best BMW mechanic in the area, and much better than the dealers :-)

[Billfitz]

The 14.4v while running is reading the alternator. The battery might get up to about 13.8v in warm weather with a full charge, but 12.2v is sufficient. Even 11.6v should get you started OK, but it's low enough for the system to get snippy about it.

[akgambino]

Originally Posted by vifferfun

Hello! Sorry to ressurrect this thread, but do you know what changes the dealer made? I'm having the same warning, even though I changed the battery last week. Besides, I would LOVE to have the heated steering wheel activate/deactivate show up on my screen -- it's impossible to see the heated-steering light unless I dangerously duck my head down to check!

Thanks!

Let me know if you ever find out what can be done about this. I have the same issue when it is like -40, the car starts just fine and shows no signs of a weak battery and is super low km on the car but I have seen the warning a few times and oh yes I hate not seeing on the dash if the steering wheel heat is on!