Ramsey

Gents,

I don't drive my 545i on a daily basis and decided to get a trickle charger for winter storage. Hooked it up and had it charge for a full 24 hrs.

Started the car today to go pick up my son and had errors all over the place, active steering gone, restraint system gone, wipers are on full speed and won't stop, cannot use any of the controls on the steering wheel, even all the window switches won't work.

Appreciate some advise if I need to reset my battery to get over this and how to make sure I reset the battery right.

Love the 545i, hope to get back to normal.

Thanks

turboawd

i put a charger on my old battery, and i started having issues too. the battery was 4-5 years old and about the end of its life anyways, but charging it made it worse. i ended up getting a new battery.

try disconnecting the battery and reconnect. is the voltage good?

luigi524td

Did you connect the trickle charger to the jump post under hood or directly to the battery. BMW recommends the former. Unless your trickle charger sent a spike into the system I can't think of any way it could be directly responsible for the issues you mentioned. That said, our cars are battery / voltage sensitive and any battery issue will cause the errors you mention. The IBS also is a critical link - that might be worth investigating if it is faulty.

pcy

Does that charger have auto shut-off? If it doesn't, the charger may have over-charged the battery.
Take a voltmeter and measure voltage across battery terminals.

devildawg712

Yea, I find it hard to believe it's the trickle charger's fault. I'm pretty sure you're having another issue.

southgate

What was the voltage before you charged it?

Ramsey

A quick update, I fixed it. All I had to do is disconnect the positive charge on the main battery terminal. Left it disconnected for about 30 minutes, hooked it up again and every went to normal.

I will just need to reset the time and also reset the active steering. I read on a thread that active steering is reset by turning the steering wheel all the way to the left then all the way to the right, back to center, switch car off and on, and it should be done. Hope this will work.

Thanks for those who provided feedback, cheers.

l1tech

FWIW always disconnect the negative battery cable first...could save you $$$ in repairs if a slip of the wrench occurs