E61 Electrical Problems
Hi All,
I recently acquired a 2008 535xi wagon with a 6-speed and the sport package (yes–very excited!). The car is in quite nice shape, other than some electrical problems I've noticed since I brought it home two days ago. Luckily I got a great deal, so I'm not too upset by the undiscovered problems. I've done quite a bit of researching on the forums, but am a bit lost as electrics are far from my strong suit. I appreciate any suggestions for diagnosis.
I occasionally get a "high battery discharge" warning when starting the car, and there are some clear electrical problems, as outlined below:
- It sounds like one of the disk drives (either the CD or DVD for the nav) keeps spinning when the car is shut off, unless it's locked.
- The car goes to sleep very quickly: we have two other N52 E61s as comparison, and the new one will sleep right away (and this is obvious, because the electric truck mechanism stops working, whereas the trunks on the other two will continue to work). I have to open the driver door to wake the car before the electric trunk mechanism will work. I also can't turn on the radio when the car is off, unlike in the other two E61s.
- When I start the car, the odometer first appears in kilometers (as well as the mileage range, etc), before switching to miles after ten seconds or so. I have a CarFax history report showing that the car has always been in the U.S. (and the mileage doesn't have a discrepancy, and the car is very clean for its 163k miles).
- The USB input doesn't work, and the AUX is finicky (when I turn the volume up, it sometimes gets so quiet it's hard to tell it's playing).
- The headlights stay on whenever the car is running, and the switch does nothing. The foglight also don't work. It's not the switch, as I plugged it into my other wagon and it worked fine.
Sorry about the disjointedness of this post–I understand this cannot be diagnosed simply by describing the symptoms. I tested the battery, and it hovers between 13.8-14.2V when the car is idling and sits at 12.45V when the car is off and asleep, which seems okay to me. If the voltage was low, I'd assume some of the issues were due to that, but it doesn't seem to be the case. It seems like the IBS may be shutting down systems that could be drawing on battery power, but I'm not sure how to tell which ones are doing that (although my first guess might be the nav unit, due to the noise after the car is shut off). Would pulling fuses be a good way to diagnose? I'm afraid it could have multiple issues (ie. a bad nav unit, a bad LCM maybe, etc?), and I might get lost between them. Could this be a result of an un-coded battery? I'd assume the one in there was coded, but I cannot be sure.
I'd love to hear some suggestions for diagnosis–not asking for a solution, as I realize it's impossible to diagnose over the internet. I do have access to a professional scan tool that can read all the module codes, if need be. Thanks in advance!
It's also got an AC leak, and the N54 sometimes makes a weird howling noise at high RPM (probably not turbos, as they were done 25k ago with receipts), but I'd like to deal with the electrics first. Otherwise, the car is in very good condition and drives really well.
Just a picture for entertainment:
E61s.jpg
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