640 won't start need help - odd issues

[dawg1]

So walked up to car and did not recognize key fob. Manually opened door, alarms sounded, could not crank car or open trunk. Soft close doors not working. Have tried battery back, jump starting, new key fob battery. Nothing usually is lighting on the dash either but will get an occasional speedo and tach lighting with transmission malfunction message at bottom. What else should I try?

Thanks.

[iamvanja]

Looks like battery, but you tried that already...

[Opie55]

What does "battery back" mean? Have you tried measuring the battery voltage?

[dawg1]

The battery pack was a small lithium jumper. I also tried jump starting twice. The dealer says likely bad battery. Apparently they said if the battery is messed up enough the posts under the hood won't work. So now (assuming it is battery), I have to try to get into the trunk. Dealer said no easy way. It appears to be a panel in the middle of the rear seat that I could perhaps cut a hole in and be able to grab the trunk opener with some type of long handle. Is there an emergency release handle in there? I can't recall. Any other ideas?

Oh the voltage said 12.5v on the battery jump starter. I'm not sure how accurate it is. I'll check it with my regular meter also.

[ezmaass]

Originally Posted by dawg1

The battery pack was a small lithium jumper. I also tried jump starting twice. The dealer says likely bad battery. Apparently they said if the battery is messed up enough the posts under the hood won't work. So now (assuming it is battery), I have to try to get into the trunk. Dealer said no easy way. It appears to be a panel in the middle of the rear seat that I could perhaps cut a hole in and be able to grab the trunk opener with some type of long handle. Is there an emergency release handle in there? I can't recall. Any other ideas?

Oh the voltage said 12.5v on the battery jump starter. I'm not sure how accurate it is. I'll check it with my regular meter also.

Yes, by law there needs to be a manual release in there. I haven't checked the manual, but worth doing so to see if there's also any kind of manual release elsewhere for the electronic latch.

Also, it might be worth while to hook it up to a battery maintainer with a deep reconditioning capability. At the minimum, you'll know if it's the battery. Best case, you may be able to get it back to a half-way decent state to fire everything up and get access to the trunk without starting to cut holes.

[dawg1]

Thanks for the replies. The car is at work, in a parking deck. I wish it was here so I could try slow charging it. I may look for outlets at the deck and hope no one steals my charger.

I am curious why there are not more posts of the front terminals not working with a bad battery. It seems like they usually work fine. Have you guys heard of this before?

[Qsilver7]

It doesn’t take that much power to unlock the trunk. If you hook up your portable jump pack to the designated terminals in the engine bay (make sure you hook up to the correct negative jump terminal...and not some random ground that you may assume is grounded) it should allow you to press the trunk unlock button down in the driver’s footwell or the trunk release button on your remote.

If the car’s battery is deeply discharged...it may need to be connected to a power source (your jump pack or jumper cables connected to another running vehicle) for a few minutes to at least give your car’s battery a boost to be able to unlock the trunk.

[dawg1]

I am using an unfinished bolt that goes into some cross member looking piece for negative. It's big and looks like it's to body. I believe I've used it before the couple of times I've manually charged the battery. Anyway, is there a specific post that I have overlooked that may make a difference? I guess you're saying that could be a problem?

[Qsilver7]

The negative jump start/charging terminal in the engine bay for the f06/f12/f13 is up front on the left (standing in front of the car). See pics below...the neg & pos terminals are circled. Sometimes the negative terminal has a hex head...and sometimes its just a straight looking pin like in the pics below. But the neg terminal is up in that front corner of the bay.

1st pic is an M6 (s63) engine bay
2nd pic is a 640ix engine bay
3rd pic is a 650ix (n63tu) engine bay

[dawg1]

Thanks for the pics, very helpful. Wish I could try it now but it's at work. I may run in the morning and give it another shot as I have to get my car going for work. Just wondering, what's the chance using that neg will provide juice versus using that big silver nut on the black crossbar? I'm pretty sure (I think) if you put a voltmeter neg lead on it, it will give a >12v reading. But gosh, I sure hope it's something that simple. You thought to mention it so it must be important.

BTW, is there any scenario that you have heard of where the under hood posts would not provide current to car due to a failed battery?

[Opie55]

I have never heard of an issue where the terminals under the hood do not work if the battery is weak. Doesn't make much sense. But do use the correct negative terminal.

[Qsilver7]

Originally Posted by dawg1

BTW, is there any scenario that you have heard of where the under hood posts would not provide current to car due to a failed battery?

Ditto what Opie55 said. BMW designed the battery to be charged using the engine bay terminals...and warn against hooking directly to the battery when it is installed due to the IBS (intelligent battery sensor) that is attached to the battery.

When you hook directly to the battery...you bypass the IBS which can cause issues due to it not being able to monitor/register any changes to the battery’s status. See info from the BMW TIS below:

[Derekz4]

Just some more pictures of the proper charger and where to hook it up. I put the charger on both of my BMWs every Thursday night. One thing a BMW hates is low voltage.

[ezmaass]

This is the charger I use on my cars - CTEK Multi US 7002. It'll show various stages of charge capacity of the battery and supports multiple modes for trickle charging, including a deep reconditioning mode. I've been very happy with it over the years.

[dawg1]

update. nothing worked using the terminals under the hood as far as getting the car power. i load tested using the terminals and it said 375cca (couple of tests run), replace battery. the voltage was >12.6. like i mentioned before, no charger or jump starting would give the car any power whatsoever. the car was dead, nothing would work despite showing ok voltage. i did indeed have to make a hole through the back seat panel and then fabricate a wand and hook device to open the trunk using the emergency pull. i took the battery out (connections were clean, tight), load tested again for the hell of it and it said 700cca, good battery. I have no idea why the readings were different. Anyway, put the battery back in car .... car had power, was fine?!. I suppose some computer or system needing resetting and was interfering with the car getting any power. I have no idea but all i ended up doing was removing the battery for a few minutes. The only quirky thing I have going in my car is the Nationwide smartride device so I did wonder if that screwed anything up. Anyway, something spontaneously happened while I was at work and my car was dead when I came out. Kinda makes me nervous it will occur again but I'm not sure I can do anything. Maybe go ahead and replace the battery. It's a 2014 640ix with original battery.

[Opie55]

If I had one of those insurance nanny devices they would probably cancel my policy. I saw that one thing they monitor for is speeds over 80mph. I just started laughing. I can be above 80 for hours at a time sometimes.

[Qsilver7]

Originally Posted by dawg1

...The only quirky thing I have going in my car is the Nationwide smartride device so I did wonder if that screwed anything up. Anyway, something spontaneously happened while I was at work and my car was dead when I came out. Kinda makes me nervous it will occur again but I'm not sure I can do anything. Maybe go ahead and replace the battery. It's a 2014 640ix with original battery.

As mentioned in your thread on I believe BimFest...before spending money on a new battery...I would remove that thing you have plugged in to your OBD II port. I have read In other threads on BMW forums...it has been discussed that leaving devices plugged into the OBD II port has caused similar issues with battery drainage and starting problems. Remove it and make sure your car’s battery is fully charged...then see if the issue returns. If it doesn’t, then you probably found your culprit.

[ezmaass]

Originally Posted by Opie55

If I had one of those insurance nanny devices they would probably cancel my policy. I saw that one thing they monitor for is speeds over 80mph. I just started laughing. I can be above 80 for hours at a time sometimes.

Ditto. Absolutely, unconditionally GET RID OF IT. Look - no insurance company is creating these things, spending money on manufacturing, monitoring, programs, etc, only to save YOU money - despite how they try to sell this nonsense. That isn't a workable business model. In order for this to make sense, it needs to save THEM money.

In a world where we're getting more conscious to privacy issues, such a concept flies in the face of it. These companies are out to make money, and any excuse to claim you're a higher risk, or deny a claim, or whatever benefits THEM is the real motivation here. No thanks. And assuming it's the culprit here, this just adds insult to injury.

[Derekz4]

Completely agree with the above.
Insurance companies are not in the business to not make money.
Send that thing back as soon as you can.

[Luftpost]

My experience....Switched insurance companies, they offered me a nanny device to monitor driving and "save me money". So I put it on my daughters car (VW EOS). She has been driving for 3 years. No tickets, no accidents. I was able to monitor her driving with an app. She did great. Problem is, when I drove it, I would forget about that darn thing, and then it would beep at my driving, and register the event. After 6 month of monitoring, her rate went up, not by much, but it went up.

Lesson learned, never again.

Still trying to figure out how it is saving me money.....

L

[ezmaass]

Originally Posted by Luftpost

My experience....Switched insurance companies, they offered me a nanny device to monitor driving and "save me money". So I put it on my daughters car (VW EOS). She has been driving for 3 years. No tickets, no accidents. I was able to monitor her driving with an app. She did great. Problem is, when I drove it, I would forget about that darn thing, and then it would beep at my driving, and register the event. After 6 month of monitoring, her rate went up, not by much, but it went up.

Lesson learned, never again.

Still trying to figure out how it is saving me money.....

L

Haha - yes, exactly.

Logic would dictate that there's no way the insurance company would do this unless it benefited THEM. They simply couldn't afford to build the devices, monitor them, and run a full blown program around these things if it didn't make them a profit... in the form of (a) higher premiums for "high risk" drivers (new revenue) and (b) canceling coverage for those they predict will be a loss (cost avoidance). Perhaps there's a very small pool who might see their premiums go down - but again, they need to be the minority in order for the economics of this to make sense for the insurance company.

As a society, we should be pushing back on normalizing invasion of privacy. I tolerate it to some degree with companies like Google since (a) their services are free, and (b) their invasion of my privacy benefits me in the form of useful services. But I'll be darned if I willingly allow a company to invade my privacy so they can charge me more money.

[bimmer12]

From my experience they usually state that they can give you discounts based on the readings, but never increase your premium as a result of it. But since nobody ever knows how the premiums are calculated, I don't trust it one bit. Having said that, the "benefit" to the insurer could be that installing these may theoretically make you a safer driver, since you're conscious of the monitoring and possibly getting the discounts.

The insurer I'm with used to do their tracking through an OBD device. Then they moved to an app, which only runs when you manually turn it on before a drive (supposedly). Even at this point, it only measured acceleration, braking, and whether you're driving late at night (something like midnight to 4 AM). Then they updated the app to run constantly, and to measure a bunch of other things, including movement of the phone relative to the car (to assume you're using the phone while driving...I can think of a number of everyday scenarios that would trigger false positives), to penalize you for making or answering calls (even if hands free through Bluetooth), cornering, speed, and a myriad of other things. I never went for these tracking things anyway, but this latest change was just so over the top ridiculous that I considered changing insurers...but they undercut other quotes by quite a bit so I sold out and stayed.