Hi all!


Seems like my car is somewhat morning grumpy, 'cause:

it's been getting colder and colder through the nights here (about below freezing), and when I start the car, and drive it about 100ft, the iDrive reboots, active steering & tyre pressure detection module comes on with an error. My active steering becomes disabled (hard to turn the steering wheel).

I'm not 100% sure about this having something to do with cold nights, but it's happend more and more frequent, and the number of cold nights have also been more frequent. It also doesn't happen when I start the car after work, cause then the weather have been 10-20 degrees above the morning temperature thoughout the day.


Anywho; when I get this problems, I stop the car, and start it again, and the problems are gone.. Sometimes the same thing happens after 1500ft again.

If I start the car (the first time) and don't start to drive, the problem doesn't come, but when I start to drive (and almost at the same point every time), it faults.


I've read there that it might be because of a installation of a cheap battery, but I don't know if the previous owner(s) have changed the battery to some unoriginal and cheap one.. How can I tell that I have a propper battery?


Specs about the car:
2003mod 520i, E60, Xenon


I can take some mesurements on the voltage before I start the car tomorrow morning, but what should the voltage be? (before starting the car)


[Sorry for my bad English ]

 

Hey,

We've just started with some cold mornings here in New York too... though probably not nearly as cold as Norway! I'm just enjoying my heated steering wheel on the way to work!

I'm a relatively new contributor to these forums too, but from what I've read here, a bad battery can be responsible for a very wide variety of weird electrical glitches like the ones you've described. Certainly, the colder weather can cause an already weak battery to start acting up. I'm pretty sure the "correct" battery voltage is 12.6V, but you can do a search here just to make sure. And of course, your dealer can check it for you too and replace if necessary... there are so many electronics in these cars that I think I'd be afraid of causing more trouble by trying to replace the battery myself

Eric

 

Had the same problem I had an after market cheap Battery fitted. Took it to the dealer they put a BMW monster in it and wow no more problems. Sorry I dont know how to tell what a cheap battery looks like.

But the new battery fixed all of my error messages

Good luck

 

I had that exact problem when I first got mine. I replaced the battery and everything was fine for a couple of months. It all happened again. But mine also had dynamic drive malfunction and other errors. So I took it to service. They thought it was the software upgrade and upgraded the software. I drove a few miles and it happened again. They found out that the alternator is putting too much power and replaced the alternator. Has been perfect ever since. Mine was still under warranty so it cost me nothing, so if you don't I would replace the battery first and hope for the best. Hope that helps.