E60Speed

The car has no way to check if something is connected to the cigarette lighter outlets. Please don't state this as a fact if you are just speculating. Take it apart and see for yourself if you like (I have)...no sensor exists on the outlets, just a postive and negative lead which are OFF when the car is off. In fact the TSB clearly states the issue is with back voltage from a battery device being left plugged in.
[/quote]

Have a look at a lot of chagers as you plug them into the power socket ( without a phone attached). the green light powers up for a second or so and then dies ( my Nokia car charger does this, my old siemels one doesnt)

When the car is turned off it stays off for a set time then the DME module Tells the IBS module that looks after the batery to wake up and check for a current draw, when the IBS wakes up current is reset to the outlets and the chargers that power up for a seond or so do, thus draw current which the IBS detects, it then tells the DME there is something drawing current on the outlet line thus the DME module doesnt go to sleep, it then later wakes up the IBS module again and the same thing happens.

Now leaving the car like this over a number of days causes the battery to run down, if the IBS doesnt detect anything it and the DME would go to sleep and there should be hardly any draw from the battery


If yo dont believe me go ask your BMW mechanic for his BMW E60 Training manual and have a look at the power modules in Section 10



These cars arnt like the old days where you just had a power wire, the E90 power control module can even redistribute battery, alternator and external charger power how it sees fit around the car

acribb

The car has no way to check if something is connected to the cigarette lighter outlets. Please don't state this as a fact if you are just speculating. Take it apart and see for yourself if you like (I have)...no sensor exists on the outlets, just a postive and negative lead which are OFF when the car is off. In fact the TSB clearly states the issue is with back voltage from a battery device being left plugged in.
[/quote]

Have a look at a lot of chagers as you plug them into the power socket ( without a phone attached). the green light powers up for a second or so and then dies ( my Nokia car charger does this, my old siemels one doesnt)

When the car is turned off it stays off for a set time then the DME module Tells the IBS module that looks after the batery to wake up and check for a current draw, when the IBS wakes up current is reset to the outlets and the chargers that power up for a seond or so do, thus draw current which the IBS detects, it then tells the DME there is something drawing current on the outlet line thus the DME module doesnt go to sleep, it then later wakes up the IBS module again and the same thing happens.

Now leaving the car like this over a number of days causes the battery to run down, if the IBS doesnt detect anything it and the DME would go to sleep and there should be hardly any draw from the battery


If yo dont believe me go ask your BMW mechanic for his BMW E60 Training manual and have a look at the power modules in Section 10



These cars arnt like the old days where you just had a power wire, the E90 power control module can even redistribute battery, alternator and external charger power how it sees fit around the car
[/quote]

My V3 charger has a green light on it that stays lit when the car is on, i.e., the acessory position is on. When I turn the car off, the green light goes off because the lighter socket is connected to a **switched outlet**. The original poster's problem could not be caused by a plain charger just plugged into the socket without a device on the end. I guarantee you I could put his charger in my car and my car would be just fine. You just said the computer looks for a current draw. A charger without a device attached to it **can't** draw a current. It's a dead end. There has to be some kind of resistance on the charger (a lithium ion battery, for instance) to draw a current.

Rudy

I agree about the switched outlet shutting down the charger with the key part but, although I'm no electical engineer, I think there may be some circuitry inside the charger (resistors, etc) that would draw current even if there is no device attached to the charger itself. In other words, the charger itself may be a consumer of current in order to power it's own circuits to adjust the voltage, etc.

Getting back to the charger killing the battery, I doubt it. The accessory outlets are considered a "convenience consumer" and are shut off with the key. If the key is off, nothing plugged into an accessory outlet will ever see any current. It's that simple, isn't it?

Click here to see an earlier post with a .pdf explaining the power supply system of the E60...

edit: After posting the above, I went back and re-read E60Speed's post talking about a back voltage from a connected phone. That issue is clearly not what I was describing and it does make some sense. Although I doubt the internal resistors would have enough power to send a significant back current through the outlet, I imagine it might be a different story if the phone were attached...

lcc014

The car has no way to check if something is connected to the cigarette lighter outlets. Please don't state this as a fact if you are just speculating. Take it apart and see for yourself if you like (I have)...no sensor exists on the outlets, just a postive and negative lead which are OFF when the car is off. In fact the TSB clearly states the issue is with back voltage from a battery device being left plugged in.
[/quote]

Have a look at a lot of chagers as you plug them into the power socket ( without a phone attached). the green light powers up for a second or so and then dies ( my Nokia car charger does this, my old siemels one doesnt)

When the car is turned off it stays off for a set time then the DME module Tells the IBS module that looks after the batery to wake up and check for a current draw, when the IBS wakes up current is reset to the outlets and the chargers that power up for a seond or so do, thus draw current which the IBS detects, it then tells the DME there is something drawing current on the outlet line thus the DME module doesnt go to sleep, it then later wakes up the IBS module again and the same thing happens.

Now leaving the car like this over a number of days causes the battery to run down, if the IBS doesnt detect anything it and the DME would go to sleep and there should be hardly any draw from the battery


If yo dont believe me go ask your BMW mechanic for his BMW E60 Training manual and have a look at the power modules in Section 10



These cars arnt like the old days where you just had a power wire, the E90 power control module can even redistribute battery, alternator and external charger power how it sees fit around the car
[/quote]

My V3 charger has a green light on it that stays lit when the car is on, i.e., the acessory position is on. When I turn the car off, the green light goes off because the lighter socket is connected to a **switched outlet**. The original poster's problem could not be caused by a plain charger just plugged into the socket without a device on the end. I guarantee you I could put his charger in my car and my car would be just fine. You just said the computer looks for a current draw. A charger without a device attached to it **can't** draw a current. It's a dead end. There has to be some kind of resistance on the charger (a lithium ion battery, for instance) to draw a current.
[/quote]
Concur. My Motorola V3 charger has a blue light behind the Moto logo. When the car is running, the blue light will be ON. Once the car is turned OFF, the blue light is off and my V3 phone will "beep" to signal bluetooth connection ended and charging disconnected.

So, I don't believe that there is any current draw even with the charger still in the cigarette socket.

TitaniumGray5

The car has no way to check if something is connected to the cigarette lighter outlets. Please don't state this as a fact if you are just speculating. Take it apart and see for yourself if you like (I have)...no sensor exists on the outlets, just a postive and negative lead which are OFF when the car is off. In fact the TSB clearly states the issue is with back voltage from a battery device being left plugged in.
[/quote]

Have a look at a lot of chagers as you plug them into the power socket ( without a phone attached). the green light powers up for a second or so and then dies ( my Nokia car charger does this, my old siemels one doesnt)

When the car is turned off it stays off for a set time then the DME module Tells the IBS module that looks after the batery to wake up and check for a current draw, when the IBS wakes up current is reset to the outlets and the chargers that power up for a seond or so do, thus draw current which the IBS detects, it then tells the DME there is something drawing current on the outlet line thus the DME module doesnt go to sleep, it then later wakes up the IBS module again and the same thing happens.

Now leaving the car like this over a number of days causes the battery to run down, if the IBS doesnt detect anything it and the DME would go to sleep and there should be hardly any draw from the battery


If yo dont believe me go ask your BMW mechanic for his BMW E60 Training manual and have a look at the power modules in Section 10



These cars arnt like the old days where you just had a power wire, the E90 power control module can even redistribute battery, alternator and external charger power how it sees fit around the car
[/quote]


And what would be the reason the car is checking for a draw on the power outlets when asleep? Makes no sense. Lots of people have radar detectors and all kinds of other accessories plugged in all the time and don't have any trouble with battery drain. No engineer would be stupid enough to design a system where you couldn't leave accessories plugged in when the car is off. Now, overlooking small amounts of voltage backflow from a battery operated device is certainly plausible. Your description is also inconsistent with BMW's TSB which specifically describes a BATTERY operated device being attached to the power outlet when the car is turned off. My car has a radar detector, Lidatek, and cell phone power cord attached 24/7 and I haven't had any issues.

rfg17

Just to add my experience. I have an Aug 2004 build, non-nav, 2005 MY 525i that I took delivery of in November 2004. In mid January, I started experiencing overnight dead battery. I took the car in, they did a load check, tested the battery and gave me a new battery. About 3 weeks later, started to have frequent (every night) episodes of dead battery. Mentioned to the service manager that I had a bluetooth phone (Sony/Ericsson T610) that I kept plugged into one of the power outlets and on all the time. He told me to take the phone out of the car at night. Battery episodes became less frequent, but still happened. Left the car at the dealer for a month, during which time they left it connected to a load monitor. Eventually, they found that the M-ASK controller (it's a non-nav car) would wake up infrequently, resulting in intermittent battery drain. They replaced it, and things seemed ok.

One day, I left my phone charger plugged into one of the rear power outlets overnight and experienced a sluggish start the next morning. The charger seemed to be drawing from the phone in that the its LED came on whenever it was plugged into the phone, independant of whether the ignition switch was on or not.

I believe that some charger circuits are not properly isolated from the devices they are plugged to and may indeed "fool" the power management system in the E60. Clearly, the system is complex and is prone to software bugs which leads to these episodes with some frequency.