lifelongbimmerfan

Hi

my welcome light feature no longer operates on my 2008 535i, any idea why? idrive has the function ticked off and the headlight is always on auto. used to function, just stopped working. resetting the idrive does nothing, tried both transmitters without success

thanks

bigbadbull

Are you talking about on the outside of the car or on the inside.
On the out side check and see what the time limit is set at for the welcome lights
if on the inside , is the over head light in the correct position... meaning not in the full off position.

lifelongbimmerfan

Thanks for the reply

I am talking about the outside, the angel eyes and parking lights no longer light up when i unlock the car. What timer are you referring to? The only change recently is that i purchased a new replacement key when i lost my second one. But not sure if that is when the function was lost.

Gene

some settings are saved via the key fob. But you stated the welcome lights are programmed to turn on via iDrive menu correct?

bigbadbull

Yeah in the lighting menu make sure the welcome lights are A on B have the timer longer than 0 secs...

If you got a new key , the setting may not be on your new key , but should be on your old key (car comes with 2). I can't walk you threw the exact menu trees since I'm at work and don't have a LCI any more but it's in the lighting settings in the "i" menu.

With the new key have you saved your seat position/mirror/radio settings to one of the 2 positions on the drivers side seat. This should carry over the lighting and door lock settings to the new key, if I'm not mistaken.

Any one else want to correct me... I'm just taking a stab in the dark with mo instruction manual and no LCI in the drive way any more.

lifelongbimmerfan

This problem was traced to a low voltage battery by the dealership. They blamed the bad battery to my short driving habits. I have a very short commute from home to the rail station and park for the day and do not use the car on the weekend as we have other larger vehicles for the kids comfort.

This is my 3rd BMW in recent years. My first one purchased in grad school, also a Fiver had its battery replaced after almost 8 years of hard use. A 325ix made it to year 5 before requiring a replacement battery, this 535i didn't make it to year 3. I am picking up a 2011 X5 for the wife this weekend, (happy, happy) will it make it through the year end? Will our driving habits be blamed and warranty not honored? BMW needs to deal with this. Speaking with the SA, he said this is a common problem and for me to go to parts dept and buy a BMW trickle charger and hook it up nightly.. I didn't buy a plug in electric car so it seems a bit silly to have to lift the hood and plug into an outlet nightly to keep these 50k + cars going.

Interesting, SA also mentioned that they are only selectively honoring new car and replacement battery warranties the criteria being the number of starts/stops on your car during X period and the miles you are drivng to determine battery warranty coverage. He said this was not dealership policy, they(the dealership) could care less as they get paid to sell and swap batteries, but BMW Corporate has provided very specific guidelines and tools to deny customer coverage. I don't know if he was BS'ing me or not...I know that I will be pretty upset if they deny warranty due to lack of use of their product.

BTW, the wife has also owned a Toyota Sienna minvan to transport the kids, the thing had 2 oil changes in 3 years and no other work, no idiot lights coming on, no creaks, no drama and first crank start every time. I don't know where all the electronics are that BMW cites for energy drain, but the minivan had more options on it than any BMW i've every owned and the thing worked like the telephone or my fridge. No joy in using it but you know it works each and every time

bigbadbull

It's a known issue. If you don't drive "At Least 7500miles a year" they won't warranty the batt..most find if you don't drive it every 2-3 days longer than 10 miles or so you will have issues with the batt charging properly.

it sucks but it's all over the forums... I don't know of any other solutions other than the trickle charger, since most of the Alternator replacements and software updates have not fixed the issue.

JohnnyTurbo

I had the same problem. I trickle charged the battery overnight using the posts under the hood. Made sure my headlight switch was set to auto and it worked.

If only there was a way to put the car to sleep faster. I hear it can sometimes take a full hour.

sanjsanj

shouldn't be more than 25 mins unless something's wrong with the car, although you're right it would be nice to figure out what to code to make it sleep faster!