Bmw e60 nightmare power drain
 

Hi guys,
Been fighting this from when I purchased the car, I wish I knew this eh well I am learning. I did pull out all fuses, relays, computers etc I couldn't find the drain until this red cable that goes from rear fuse box to the front fuse box, as soon as I disconnect that all drops off. Please watch the video. I even connected it straight to the battery it doesn't make any difference battery still drains.

What do you think? does the cable split anywhere or it's one piece ? I found one on ebay looks like one piece

looks like that cable is one piece and part # 61119243091

how can it draw power if it's disconnected on the other end ? If cable is broken inside it can't draw power... unless somewhere on the line someone decided to tap in right ?

1. you need to study a wiring diagram.
2. 250mA draw? That isn't terrible, especially considering the car was just woken up when you connected the battery. i.e. lots of subsystems were energized.

Wait ten ten minutes for the light to go out on the shift surround (car to fall asleep), then don't touch the doors, and what is the draw then? Maybe you don't have excessive draw. Maybe you just need a new battery?

also this:
https://5series.net/forums/e60-discu...0/#post1600683

battery is new. 250mA not terrible but enough to take my car battery in a week to no charge. Even when it falls asleep still draws after 1 hour or 10, or 20 hours. It's the B+ positive cable that has the issue as soon as I unplug that draw stops.

George, have you ruled out the Intelligent Battery Sensor (IBS) as the culprit?

Have a read of this thread: https://5series.net/forums/e60-discu...-136392/page2/ and in particular BimmerFan52's posts at 9 and 19. This is an excellent explanation of how the IBS should work, how to test it and why you should replace it if it has failed.

Thanks everyone, it's fixed. Someone tapped into that red power wire and found it , remove it , unfortunately I started from the front and removed the chair and a lot of other things. I measured resistance with ground and it was high about 7.5 ohms, way to high. Thanks everyone for helping out with this, feels so great even tho I spend 20 + hours I saved big bucks and learned a lot. Sorry for my "french" I was very pissed off to find it there...

Justifiably annoyed. The wire that was wrapped disappears into a factory-wrapped harness, WTF?

super annoying :( I don't know the history of the car or who did this but it wasn't that smart, at least he could've make a mark or something on the wrap to kinda give me a hint... anyways I am glad I figure it all out it was very hard to deal with every day and know my 2 year old BMW OEM battery slowly will die off due to this ... at least I didn't have to replace computers and pay for coding ...:)

Nice work in researching and finding the problem! Is it safe to say this did not come this way from BMW?