I have an intense audio system in my truck, 1100W Infinity sound stock and 800W Alpine subs under the back seat. Its glorious. But my truck is back home in NC with my dad and I'm in VA at school. One might think that the subs aren't being used by my dad because he's of an older demographic...you'd be sadly mistaken. They're going to get destroyed if I don't put them in my E60!

My truck can handle the extra draw on the alternator and battery from the subs because it has a beefy 260amp alternator, and it doesn't have as many computers and fancy electronics as the E60. My concern is the alternator in the E60 (about 160amps i believe) isn't strong enough to handle the extra load on top of the load its under from all the crazy electronics and computers. I mean the car has a damn near 1000cca battery! Its obviously got a lot of electronics drawing on the battery/alternator, and they need all that juice for a reason.

Will adding my subs screw with my voltage, drain my battery, harm any sensors, trip any errors, anything?

 

I was afraid of that too so I added a cap. I don't know how much it helps but it makes me feel better lol.

 

When you say cap, you're refering to...?

 

Capacitors don't do anything to help, as much as the guys at the store will try to convince you otherwise. The cap pulls on the alternator just as much because it has to get its charge from somewhere. there have been plenty of guys that have put fairly substatial sound systems into there bmw's without having much issues, as long as you aren't pounding the subs to the max all the time I think you will be ok, the vehicles computer should be smart enough not to let it harm the electronics (I think anyway).

 

I think he's referring to installing a capacitor to help with the extra load being pulled by the sound system:

http://www.caraudiohelp.com/newslett...citor_myth.htm

 

i have two type x 12" with pdx 1000 amp... and it was giving me slight problem which was my light was getting dimmer whenever it hit hard... so i got extra battery and solved the problem...

where do you go to school at

 

I don't know how useful caps are but they do prevent dimming.

 

I'm in Southwest VA at Radford.