Phantom Mark

I did search this as im sure its not uncommon.

Firstly a couple of times in the recent 3 months my clock seems to have forgotten what time it was, despite the date and year remaining in memory.

On this occasion I also noticed my odo trip had reset, plus all the journey computer and OBC etc etc, not sure if it did that before but did do it this time.

My car was in for an oil service last week in fact and no faults were found when they put it on the computer for a regular download of the faults logged, in fact the dealer mentioned my car was one of the most fault free he had ever come across which was nice to know.

I did some 4 months back have the high drain warning come up once when sat in the car waiting for the wife for a short while and having the radio on, it never logged into the fault logger tho and the dealer saw no sign of that, reasoning being that I had already asked about possible faulty battery already ?

Any ideas here given the recent trip to dealer and no fault codes ?? Is my battery on the way out maybe ? Cranks a little lazy on cold mornings but nothing that im worried about ? and how can it forget the time but not the date, makes no sense lol

boukehj

Indeed sounds as though your battery is on the way out.
The car turns Alzheimer when the battery is low.

Phantom Mark

Sound like its about due at 3 years old tho ????

TIA

one4thethumb

+1 The odometer, all related trip settings and the time (but not the date) were all cleared and the clock had to be re-set when my original battery was on its last legs early last month.

-Russ-

Hi Mark

When I disconnect the battery my car remembers the date, must be the computer holding onto a fixed point. It won't bother putting the time in as it would always need reseting even after a short time, as would the date if left with no battery overnight.

I don't know why yours should keep losing the time though, you would think that if there's not enough power to keep the clock then it would definitely not start, but these cars can do strange things.

Phantom Mark

Its only the second time its done it in 5 months so im not too annoyed yet, just trying to stayed 1 step ahead of any failings on the way, I sort out a new battery soon I think just in case

dolfs

This started happening to my 08 535i a month or two ago. Along with it the TPM memory ended up messed up each time, so I had to reset it.
I brought it in, and in the end it was diagnosed as some relay closing too soon and it would get fixed with a reprogram, so I got an all new CIP/PROGMAN.
They promised me the CIP info, but of course forgot to include it for pickup and I am battling it out with them.
Good news is it also fixed one of my other problems which was that it was nearly impossible to select songs from the iPOD with a first letter far in the alphabet. Turning the iDrive know now seems speed sensitive and causes scrolling to skip ahead. Yeah!

545felix

could be the battery, a loose battery cable, or a faulty battery sensor (the weird looking thing on the negative cable.) at the very least check to make sure the connections are tight.

sixcard

Hey Mark, it would be helpful to know something about your car ... year, model etc.

This sounds like an issue that has been discussed on this forum.

I would not necessarily rush out a buy a new battery.

If the car is not driven enough the battery drains more than it is charged on the short runs. When it reaches a state of low charge, on starting, the system shuts down some non essential functions so as to assure a start.

Though I don't discount other responses, I know that this could be one cause. If you drive often and far then this probably does not apply.

I am one who does not drive enough. My solution was to hard wire in a tricky (OOPS) trickle charger and I enable it when needed.