E89 Battery

Without getting bogged down in the technicalities I changed my battery back in January before I purchased Carly. My local independent registered it while I was having an oil change. The only thing that didn’t work afterwards was the one touch window closing which is easy enough to rectify. I had no problems with the radio.

As I can be away from the car for up to 3 months it lives in a garage connected to a CTEK MXS 5.0. I’ve had no problems at all.
 
The problem with a lot of the points Pbondar makes is that if all that were true then charging the battery directly across the terminals with an external charger would be catastrophic!

By that thinking, the car would completely miscalculate the state of charge of the battery (i.e. that car doesn't know the battery is fully charged) and batteries would be exploding left right and centre through overcharging.

We all know that charging directly across the battery with an external charger (although not recommended) appears to have no ill effects because the IBS modules uses real time data to work out the state of charge of the battery. It uses a continuously evolving algorithm.

Anyway, this has all been done to death before.....

https://z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=100385&hilit=ibs&start=15

and...

https://z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=111651&hilit=ibs
 
ph001, I think it’s a slightly excessive representation to suggest to that I said that it was catastrophic...” causing sudden and very great harm or destruction”

What we were discussing was that not following the guidelines may result in a sub optimal life of the battery...and consequential les than perfect operation of various systems..I follow the rules and my battery is now 7 years old and showed 85% capacity when I replaced.

I remember when it was common to struggle in the 3rd/4th winter of a car battery’s life to get started on a winters morning...

Like most sophisticated systems in the event that a data value seems improbable or invalid then these systems substitute default / safe options..precisely to safeguard against muppettry ..

Nobody was suggesting that charging the battery directly would result in them ‘exploding’

Having said that I’m sure if you put a 50 amp surge charger I wouldn’t like to be too close after an hour or two..

And yes these are issues discussed many times, but for Newbies and/or posters encountering an issue for the first time a more current/recent discussion may shed more light based on greater accumulated body of knowledge..

Whilst clearly you have a wealth of knowledge/experience on this subject I’m simply reflecting what the manufacturers recommend...if this was a commercial aircraft you wouldn’t be allowed to not follow in full the suppliers instructions/recommendations
 
"struggle in the 3rd/4th winter"
Obviously wasn't a 2 year warranty Lucas battery that would die in the 25th month.
 
flybobbie said:
"struggle in the 3rd/4th winter"
Obviously wasn't a 2 year warranty Lucas battery that would die in the 25th month.
Click to expand...


Is that Joe Lucas as in "The Pirnce of Darkness"? :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
 
My previous bike battery was a sealed Lucas, lasted 4 years, quite surprised.
I think the Japs have taken the brand name.
 
The battery is AGM.
It's now been tested and their impression was the battery is in good shape, just low on charge.
They asked me what my average usage amounts to. It gets used regularly but not every day. Neither is it driven on long speedy runs, a lot of round town short trips.
Their opinion was it is not getting enough distance to charge up properly.
Not a lot I can do about that other than to go out on pointless journeys just to give the battery a charge. Bearing in mind I live in London, it's hard to get up to 30 mph for more than half a mile before stopping for traffic lights or jams.

Parked on the street, often nowhere near my house I can't charge it overnight. So I guess I'll have to expect a shorter battery life and the flashing warning.
 
Loxford said:
The battery is AGM.
It's now been tested and their impression was the battery is in good shape, just low on charge.
They asked me what my average usage amounts to. It gets used regularly but not every day. Neither is it driven on long speedy runs, a lot of round town short trips.
Their opinion was it is not getting enough distance to charge up properly.
Not a lot I can do about that other than to go out on pointless journeys just to give the battery a charge. Bearing in mind I live in London, it's hard to get up to 30 mph for more than half a mile before stopping for traffic lights or jams.

Parked on the street, often nowhere near my house I can't charge it overnight. So I guess I'll have to expect a shorter battery life and the flashing warning.
Click to expand...

Well your explanation of its habitat and duty cycle explains a lot..

Two relatively simple solutions based on the premise that once you know what you are doing it only takes 2 sockets and less than5 mins to get the battery in and out...

1 pop the battery out from time to time and charge it in your boudoir overnight / weekend

2 buy a second battery and keep one on charge and then swap em over as above..

My best suggestions..
 
Thx.

Some have warned me of risks to the computer readings etc. when disconnecting and reconnecting.
I have no problem with doing just that, it's what I've done for a lifetime of old car ownership.
Various warnings from people of confusing sensors and reading errors have made me paranoid of this modern thing with it's engine management and the vast array of computerised stuff.
 
Loxford said:
Thx.

Some have warned me of risks to the computer readings etc. when disconnecting and reconnecting.
I have no problem with doing just that, it's what I've done for a lifetime of old car ownership.
Various warnings from people of confusing sensors and reading errors have made me paranoid of this modern thing with it's engine management and the vast array of computerised stuff.
Click to expand...

Its true that there is much said, BMW says in TIS that the only two things are resetting the clock and steering angle sensor.

All I can say when I swapped them out was (at worse) the clock needed resetting, I swapped batteries around 4 times due to getting the wrong size replacement..

I think far greater issues seem to occur when battery voltage is very low and it corupts the settings in various sub systems..

If you get Carly you can do most resets that are required, for the steering angle sensor, I have Foxwell for that, however if you do not move the car with the battery out that shouldn t need a reset..
 
Someone suggested using another battery, any old 12v taken out from my other car. Connecting the jump leads to the cables before disconnecting this one to keep the continuity going. Leaving that connected to the system while charging this one. Of course, not to start the system up!

With all the gadgetry and 'think of everything' that goes into designing such a vehicle they might have built in something to cope with the common requirement to charge one's battery off the car.

Everyday computers have small cells that keep the clock, the ROM/NVRAM charged when your battery runs out. Mobile phones, desktops, laptops, why not a Z4?
 
Loxford said:
Someone suggested using another battery, any old 12v taken out from my other car. Connecting the jump leads to the cables before disconnecting this one to keep the continuity going. Leaving that connected to the system while charging this one. Of course, not to start the system up!

With all the gadgetry and 'think of everything' that goes into designing such a vehicle they might have built in something to cope with the common requirement to charge one's battery off the car.

Everyday computers have small cells that keep the clock, the ROM/NVRAM charged when your battery runs out. Mobile phones, desktops, laptops, why not a Z4?
Click to expand...

Personally I think that's a bad idea..the battery's health is queried by many systems so I think, IMHO, that you are more likley to f$%k things that way rather than just a clean dismount /mount..

Also you have the problem of live cables all the time in the battery bay, whereas if you do it properly, once you detach the negative lead first your safe from flash overs etc...

The issue is the amount of current the ecus /other systems take and the fact that several systems do not power down till minutes after you think you have switched things off..the audio for example runs for 10-30 mins after ignition off..

A proper lock of the doors is the priamry way to force a shut down as quickly as possible even then some circuits run for minutes..
 
if this method can be useful, I connected a battery and the charger in parallel on the terminals in the engine compartment.
Then I exchanged the main battery for a battery bought on the internet but with exactly the same characteristics.
And finally I disconnected on the motor side.
Result the car did not detect anything, everything works without any error message and without any configuration to do. :driving:
 
To the OP: If removing the battery and installing a new one later, causes the steering angle sensor fault (steering wheel icon on the dash), turning the steering wheel left to right (lock to lock) a couple of times should clear the fault. This is what happened on my son's 335i when replacing his old battery, and was fixed by the above method.
Just in case.... :wink:
 
I reset my 2011 Z4 battery after replacement with INPA. Also, I used NCS Expert to lookup the mileage of the last battery change. NCS Expert is also used to change your battery type and amps, if you install a different type of battery.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom