[martinf79]

Hi All -

As many of you know, its been bitterly cold in the Greater Toronto Area for the last few weeks (more so this week hitting close to -35 C/ -31 F). To compound things, my car has been sitting more of less over the holidays (or driven for short trips - i.e. for less than 10 minutes at a time).

My question is, is it normal to be getting the "Recharge Battery" and "High Battery Discharge" warnings given the above? This is the second time this winter that I have had to recharge my battery, and I never recall ever having to do this on my Infiniti under relatively the same circumstances (and this didn't happen last winter w/ the F30). Thoughts?

[RoundelM3]

I haven't experienced this, but then I live in South Texas...it's been cold here, but nothing like your cold in Toronto. That aside, have you checked with your dealership about your battery issues?

[martinf79]

Originally Posted by roundel335

I haven't experienced this, but then I live in South Texas...it's been cold here, but nothing like your cold in Toronto. That aside, have you checked with your dealership about your battery issues?

Not yet. I have to go in for an oil change in about 3K KMs, so would rather wait and have them look at it while the car is there vs. going in now and then again in another 2 months.

[BavarianFanatic]

Sounds normal given the fact that you haven't been driving it very much. There's always going to be parasitic draw when the car is idle. The fact that it's so cold compounds the issue because it severely impacts the ability of the battery to deliver energy as well as accept a charge. Use the car for a long ride to get it fully up to temperature and give it a chance to charge. Your short trips are the absolute worst thing you could possibly do to a car - especially at those temps.

[Bassthe1st]

Funny, I signed up on this forum especially to ask if anybody else have that problem.

During the christmas vacation my car stayed unused for 3 days at very cold temperatures. This was on a 450km trip, so the battery should be fully charged. Well, when I left it was -38°C and the car had a hard time starting but did anyway. The real problem is I had High battery discharge alert with the accessories deactivation message. When that happens, some unessential equipment like the main heater are unavailable and the essential ones like the defroster and the seat warmers(yes, you read that right. Completely stupid) are. So I had to do the whole 450km back with frozen feet because the heater would not work. Back in Montreal it was -28°C and after stopping at starting the car it was still showing a discharged battery. Then I put the car in the garage and the alert went away.

I had problems prior to those low temps. In November I started to get a low battery charge alert in -3°C weather so I brought the car in. They checked everything, recharged the battery and sent me home. I was told that I would always get a battery discharged alert in cold weather, that my 55min a day of driving is not enough to recharge the battery and that I should either charge the battery once in a while or go make a 30min run on the highway.

This is simply unacceptable and I'm actually thinking about returning my less then 3 months old car because of that.

Anybody else had issues with the heater not working? It's just a fan damn it.

[martinf79]

Originally Posted by Bassthe1st

Funny, I signed up on this forum especially to ask if anybody else have that problem.

During the christmas vacation my car stayed unused for 3 days at very cold temperatures. This was on a 450km trip, so the battery should be fully charged. Well, when I left it was -38°C and the car had a hard time starting but did anyway. The real problem is I had High battery discharge alert with the accessories deactivation message. When that happens, some unessential equipment like the main heater are unavailable and the essential ones like the defroster and the seat warmers(yes, you read that right. Completely stupid) are. So I had to do the whole 450km back with frozen feet because the heater would not work. Back in Montreal it was -28°C and after stopping at starting the car it was still showing a discharged battery. Then I put the car in the garage and the alert went away.

I had problems prior to those low temps. In November I started to get a low battery charge alert in -3°C weather so I brought the car in. They checked everything, recharged the battery and sent me home. I was told that I would always get a battery discharged alert in cold weather, that my 55min a day of driving is not enough to recharge the battery and that I should either charge the battery once in a while or go make a 30min run on the highway.

This is simply unacceptable and I'm actually thinking about returning my less then 3 months old car because of that.

Anybody else had issues with the heater not working? It's just a fan damn it.

So looks like you and I are in the same boat. And you're right... non-essentials are turned off (i.e. heater).

Just so you know... during your long 450km drive, the battery was likley charged after about 100km, you could have shut the car off, then turned it on/off (you will still get the high discharge warning), followed by turning it on again. I have found it takes 2 starts to clear the warning (as I fully charged the battery over night last night, started the car this morning and still had the warning. I had to shut it off and start it once more to clear the warning and to get my heater back!).

I am going to take it in to have an electrical test done just to be sure everything is okay w/ the battery. I suspect the really cold weather isn't helping.

[jdong]

With air temps in the -9 F range, my Facebook feed is filled with friends who woke up to find that their car doesn't start.

Low temps lower your battery capacity, and honestly your BMW is doing you a favor by warning you about your battery level. Smart battery monitoring is not available on a lot of vehicles. In fact I've mostly seen this in BMW and Audis.

[eekthecat]

Bizarre - I just got that error message here in southern california (lows of ~45deg F). It could be my short commute (10mi roundtrip) though.

[martinf79]

.. Interesting.... I'm feeling better that I'm not the only one... and my commute to work is probably 10 km as well, so compound sitting for a few days over the holidays, short commute, and record breaking low temps.... I guess this all makes sense.

I do have to agree... the fact that the car tells you its about to die before it actually does is a God send. Helps prevent those situations that could leave you stranded on a -40 degree C night.

[BavarianFanatic]

One thing to remember is that with the battery in the trunk, it doesn't receive the benefit of getting warmed by the engine. This means that even though you might drive long enough to warm the coolant and get heat in the cabin, the trunk is still very cold. Again, a standard lead acid battery is impacted with respect to both discharge and recharge when it's very cold.

As a general rule of thumb, it's always best to start a car and let it idle for a few minutes whenever the temps are significantly below freezing. This helps alleviate the effects of thermal shock to all of the components that were previously -XX degrees and are now suddenly exposed to X,XXX degrees resulting from combustion. It'll also give the battery an extra couple minutes of recovery time.

[n55x3]

Originally Posted by BavarianFanatic

One thing to remember is that with the battery in the trunk, it doesn't receive the benefit of getting warmed by the engine. This means that even though you might drive long enough to warm the coolant and get heat in the cabin, the trunk is still very cold. Again, a standard lead acid battery is impacted with respect to both discharge and recharge when it's very cold.

I think this is a good point and holds true for most BMWs. I made a similar statement in the X3 boards as my wife's X3 has been seeing this issue. With the battery in the trunk you don't get the heat soak you would when it is under the hood.

I hooked the battery tender up to the X3 last night and it was fine after about an hour of charging.

Her's is a 2011 and parks right next to my 2013 335i. Luckily the 335i has not shown this message yet but I wouldn't be overly concerned if it did.

[Bassthe1st]

Originally Posted by martinf79

So looks like you and I are in the same boat. And you're right... non-essentials are turned off (i.e. heater).

Just so you know... during your long 450km drive, the battery was likley charged after about 100km, you could have shut the car off, then turned it on/off (you will still get the high discharge warning), followed by turning it on again. I have found it takes 2 starts to clear the warning (as I fully charged the battery over night last night, started the car this morning and still had the warning. I had to shut it off and start it once more to clear the warning and to get my heater back!).

I am going to take it in to have an electrical test done just to be sure everything is okay w/ the battery. I suspect the really cold weather isn't helping.

I did stop 3 times(restarting the car) along the way to check if the alert would go away and it did not. The last one was after 300km. Cold weather isn't helping, but still, the behavior of the electronics is plain stupid.

[Dan_335i]

i have a thread on this. same thing for me



Started my car up in -31C or -24F this is a cold start never drove the car in 24 hours.

Drove the car home from my other house. which is 20KM or 13miles away.

when i turned off the car it told me to charge the battery.

i just left it cause i think the battery is just cold that why its triggering the sensors.


car started fine the next day

[martinf79]

Originally Posted by Dan_335i

i have a thread on this. same thing for me



Started my car up in -31C or -24F this is a cold start never drove the car in 24 hours.

Drove the car home from my other house. which is 20KM or 13miles away.

when i turned off the car it told me to charge the battery.

i just left it cause i think the battery is just cold that why its triggering the sensors.


car started fine the next day

Hmmm... when I drove to work, I received the "Charge Battery" warning when I shut the car off. When I left for the day and started the car up again, I got the "High Battery Discharge" warning w/ essentials automatically shut off. Mind you, the car was sitting outside on the coldest day ever (close to -40C), so that is what likley killed it.

Regardless.. if the car is giving me these warnings, I rather conduct a full re-charge over night vs. hope that it goes away on its own.

[skypx]

Here's my thing, as expensive as these batteries are I not taking any chances! Dealerships seem to look for any excuse to deny a warrantee claim.

After driving our X5 for 1hr 30 minutes I connected the Ctek 4.3 battery charger and selected the snowflake/AGM mode. 7 hours later the battery was fully charged, so obviously driving for 1hr 30 minutes did not charge the battery completely. I can't imagine getting the "High Battery Discharge" warning and only driving it for 10 minutes.

[Lost Horizon]

Here's one of the problems with cold weather:

The available capacity of an AGM battery at -40 is 30% of rated...

So a couple of ASS start/Stop and idling in traffic with all of the nannies on to keep you warm, including lights, etc is a downhill slide all the way into work at the low temps. Plus, the car is aggressive when it comes to keeping enough capacity back to get you started as a last resort, and chicken little about telling you in advance ..

[martinf79]

Originally Posted by Lost Horizon

Here's one of the problems with cold weather:

The available capacity of an AGM battery at -40 is 30% of rated...

So a couple of ASS start/Stop and idling in traffic with all of the nannies on to keep you warm, including lights, etc is a downhill slide all the way into work at the low temps. Plus, the car is aggressive when it comes to keeping enough capacity back to get you started as a last resort, and chicken little about telling you in advance ..

Considering I've got the steering wheel heater, seat heater, rear defroster, heater, radio, lights, wipers all going at the same time for a 10 minute drive in -40 C weather... I guess this all makes sense now (especially if teh car is only at 30% battery capacity to begin the initial start).

[Lost Horizon]

Originally Posted by martinf79

Considering I've got the steering wheel heater, seat heater, rear defroster, heater, radio, lights, wipers all going at the same time for a 10 minute drive in -40 C weather... I guess this all makes sense now (especially if teh car is only at 30% battery capacity to begin the initial start).

For that short run, you need to invest in a $60 AGM smart charger to plug in along side the block heater..

[martinf79]

Originally Posted by Lost Horizon

For that short run, you need to invest in a $60 AGM smart charger to plug in along side the block heater..

I have the CTEK smart charger (same OEM one made for Porsche). Its very compact and easy to charge.

http://smartercharger.com/products/b...multi-us-3300/

[wynden]

I've had these same alerts appear this past Mon/Tues. The alerts went away today. Glad in a way it's not just me. I guess a weekend of being parked at < -20 C will do that.

Speculation on my part, but it seems that the car's diagnostics measure a differential in the battery's output between trips, i.e. from when last stopped to next started, and report a warning if the output measurement has dropped. Given the recent cold snap I guess letting the car sit for a couple of days would trigger the battery output drop, even if perhaps not material to the overall operation of the car or health of the battery.

That the main heater is disabled while my seat heaters still work seems stupid to me also. At least my a** has stayed warm.

I'd be willing to bet that most any other vehicle on the road with similar diagnostics would report warnings also, given the recent temps here in the Great White North. Seems BMW's monitoring is generating a warning that, while perhaps worrying, isn't necessarily a big deal (unless it's doesn't go away).

[Bassthe1st]

I wanted to test it again this week so I left the car sleep outside for 2 days(around -20°C). On monday coming back from work the ASS was working with -4°C temp so my guess is the battery was charged. Yesturday was fine but this morning the battery was low again, though heating works. I'm definately bringing the car back in to check it.

[BavarianFanatic]

Originally Posted by wynden

I've had these same alerts appear this past Mon/Tues. The alerts went away today. Glad in a way it's not just me. I guess a weekend of being parked at < -20 C will do that.

Speculation on my part, but it seems that the car's diagnostics measure a differential in the battery's output between trips, i.e. from when last stopped to next started, and report a warning if the output measurement has dropped. Given the recent cold snap I guess letting the car sit for a couple of days would trigger the battery output drop, even if perhaps not material to the overall operation of the car or health of the battery.

That the main heater is disabled while my seat heaters still work seems stupid to me also. At least my a** has stayed warm.

I'd be willing to bet that most any other vehicle on the road with similar diagnostics would report warnings also, given the recent temps here in the Great White North. Seems BMW's monitoring is generating a warning that, while perhaps worrying, isn't necessarily a big deal (unless it's doesn't go away).

I think it simply measures the voltage output.

Seat heating has a lower current draw than the fan does I imagine.