k Wang

I had my V1 hardwired to the mirror in 2008 by using member Don Juan's instruction. Everything worked out fine and I am wondering how many of you did the same?

I have new battery installed in October 2010 and was told by the dealer that they detected voltage low. I asked them to check and the service invoice stated: "PERFORMED ENERGY DIAG, PERFORMED DRAIN TEST FOUND DRAIN FO 110MA. CUSTOMER HAS AFTER MARKET MIRROR AND LIGHTS, UNPLUGED MIRROR FOUND MIRROR IS DRAINING BATTERY." The shop foreman stated: "The mirror issues that my technician was referencing is the wiring that comes out of the ceiling that he stated was connected to the rear view mirror that is over the existing mirror causing the high draw on the vehicle".

I know the V1 is powered on from the power lines from the mirror. But when the dealership performed the battery drain test, I did not have the V1 connected(which I took it off for the loaner car). So I wondering why the hardwired power cord is draining the battery when the power cord is not connected to the V1 unit, unless there's problem for the mirror itself. Or the battery they put in in October 2010 is no good.

I am not familiar with the electric parts so can anyone share your thought on this? I need to get back to the shop foreman on this issue ASAP.

Thank you.

k Wang

Any input on this?

tonyb635

Not sure myself about the draining, unless they noticed the cord and used this as an excuse... I woldn't think there would be a drain at all going on if its not connected. I have a 2008 535i and I tapped into the green wire with the yellow stripe as per some of the instructions posted within this site. I also installed a switch in the overhead to cut the power to the detector. This is not the V1, but rather a Cobra or something like this. I haven't had any problems at all, but I don't leave it on unless I'm out on the highway.

brocyourworld

The green/yellow wire is only active when power is supplied to the vehicle (either engine on or in accessory mode). The green/yellow wire powers the sunroof, not the mirror.

or_550i

With the V1 disconnected there would be NO draw. However, the error messages the diag. tools read can be stored when a fault occurs. The added current draw on the mirror circuit created a fault, possibly, that logged the problem and the tech. simply saw the error log and noticed the wiring.

This will probably be an ever occurring problem until the V1 is wired to the sunroof power or some other higher capacity current source than the mirrors.

k Wang

The service invoice stated: "PERFORMED ENERGY DIAG, PERFORMED DRAIN TEST FOUND DRAIN FO 110MA. CUSTOMER HAS AFTER MARKET MIRROR AND LIGHTS, UNPLUGED MIRROR FOUND MIRROR IS DRAINING BATTERY."

Based on the statement above, the technician believe the mirror is draining the battery because after you unplugged the mirror, no sign of power lost. Guess what? I unplugged the mirror today and my V1 can still be powered on which means the V1 hardwired has nothing to do with the mirror. So the problem should be the mirror that's draining the battery's power...Really need to find a way to fight for it.