Slow death.. then fine.

Hi All,

Just thought I would share a recent experience for all those newbies whose cars start acting odd...

So over the period of about 2 months, it was taking longer and longer to start the car. Sometimes 15 seconds of keeping the key in the ignition and it would finally start. Eventually I would go away and come back trying 5 or 10 minutes later. During the same time, the rear window heater seemed to take forever, and then also on shutting the driver's door the window wouldn't return to the normal fully closed position. All other electrical systems seemed perfectly ok. Finally the car just wouldn't start, even though the computer came on fine etc etc.

Turns out the battery (the original from '04) was finished anyway. Even after charging it overnight, I could then start the car, but the wipers would keep on going and couldn't be turned off, and a number of functions accessible from the steering column didn't then work. Windows couldn't be controlled either.

At least that was enough to get me to BMW. They replaced the battery and that was it. All was fine thereafter.

Cheers,

SharkyC

All is well that ends well, that is just amazing that you had an original '04 battery in your car this long!

That was just a scare! You do not want to see a slow death, with a BMW! It is unbelievable what a bad battery can do to these cars.

Good that it was just those battery gremlins!

Yeah, sounds like I got off lightly.

I have 160,000 miles on the beast now. It had around 75,000 on it when I got it 2.5 years ago if I recall. I had to replace the alternator already, that was an interesting episode of the car shutting down whilst on the motorway...

SharkyC

Ah, if you got it 2.5 years ago are you sure it was original battery? It seems highly improbable!

You could be right there. At least I know the battery lasted at least 85,000 miles over the last few years I have had it. But maybe that is normal then... Well, in any case, I have some more piece of mind now. As long as the alternator doesn't go again...