High battery drain?
 

I noticed this morning when I was almost at work that there was a little yellow "!" icon on the instrument cluster display. Messing with iDrive I found my way into the Service section of the menu and it said something along the lines of "High battery drain" and "vehicle may not restart".

When I got to work (about 10 minutes later) I parked in the garage and shut off the car for a moment. When I turned it back on, it started fine, but after a few seconds the "!" icon appeared again and it said "high battery drain" on the iDrive screen.

It's a 2004 530i. I just got it yesterday, and I don't recall seeing the warning at all until this morning. It sat overnight (obviously). My drive into work is about 35 minutes, so I don't know how long the warning was there because I didn't notice it until about 25 minutes in.

Has anyone seen this before?

any after market electrical add ons may cause high drain if not installed properly, that would be a good start as well as checking the battery itself and how well it holds a charge.

Hey Scooter, thanks for the information.

I called up my BMW dealership and they said it'd be an hour worth of labor to perform the "battery test procedure" they do. The guy recommended that I keep an eye on it for a few days before resorting to that though.

I don't have any aftermarket equipment in the car -- at least not yet. BMW said that I can't do the factory Sirius without replacing my head unit, so I'm going to have to go with one of those aftermarket plug and play units. Doh.

When I went out to lunch about an hour or so ago, the high drain warning came up again. However, when I left the restaurant and headed back to the office it didn't come back on. I'm thinking that might be a sign that everything is actually OK. I'm going to continue to keep an eye on it though, and if it comes to it I'll have to bring it into the dealership to have them take a look at it. It's $102/hr, but if they find something wrong they'll apply it toward the actual repair.

Now my next task is seeing about getting the factory navigation added in, if possible. heh.

It seems as if BMW would warranty this on a newer vehicle. Is your car still under warranty? Usually 4 years or 50000 miles.

Unfortunately no, it's no longer under warranty. I know the software on the car needs to be updated -- it's my understanding that as of 19.01, the legal screen that you have to click "Accept" to will automatically disappear after a few seconds. Mine doesn't -- just stays on "Accept" until I click it.

I also noticed on some information I found through Google that the High Battery Drain thing can appear erroneously on versions prior to 19.01, so I suppose that makes some sense.