Heard a car alarm go off lat night about 3 am. By the time I got up and looked out the window it had stopped. Went back to sleep and thought nothing of it.
Went out a 07.10 to drive to work, pressed the key fob to unlock the car and nothing. Walked closer, still nothing, tried the boot release button, still nothing. Unlocked drivers door with key and opened door, no lights or anything, key did nothing in ignition.
Tried spare key, same thing. Everything dead.
Phoned BMW assist at 07.20. We can have someone with you at 08.50.
Phoned the AA at 07.25. We can have someone with you at 08.50.
Right. Sit an wait. AA turn up at 08.15.
He checked the Voltage using the jump start posts under the bonnet and got a voltage of 4.5V.
He connects a jump start pack to the jump start posts and I turn the engine over. Engine turned very slowly, probably due to the fact that his battery pack is more suited to starting 1.6 4 pot engines and not big V8's!
Engine starts with usual roar and settles down to a nice idle. iDrive screen is displaying a transmission fault and then airbag/seat belt pre-tensioner fault.
I ask the AA guy to re-set the airbag light but he struggled to find the engine diagnostic location, as he had ruled out the correct one on the account of the electrical socket being a different size to the plug on his diagnostic computer.
BMW assist arrive and find that the AA are also there and he had to be gently persuaded by myself and the AA chap to help reset the fault.
Plugs the laptop in and runs thru various bits and bobs saying that he would have diagnosed the car before attempting to jump start it.
He clears the fault and says that no other faults are present and that it was my alarm going off in the middle of the night. The alarm went off due to the drop in power going to it. It thought that the battery cable was being cut so sounded off from it's own battery.
He checked the battery and said he couldn't find the reason as to why the battery failed and that I should take it for a 45 min run to charge the battery back up and to phone if there is another problem. Drove to work and car was fine at 10.15. Will check it soon when I go out to feed the parking meter.
Sounds like random battery failure?
I thought it was some interruption to the power supply because generally there is enough power in the battery to power the internal cabin lights and to get warning lights come up on the dash but I had nothing so thought is was something other than just a flat battery.
My old Mini had it's battery just die one morning, but at least the internal light came on and so too did the ignition lights etc and I even got a chug from the starter and clicking from the solenoid.
The AA guy was a bit concerned that the negative jump starting post sparked as much as it did when he connected his battery pack to it.
I always make sure everything electrical is switched off before switching off the engine and this beast sure lets me know if I leave the head lights on, which I hadn't.
Can anyone shed any light on why this might have happened and why the airbag/seat belt tensioner fault light came on?
Thanks
Andrew
PS
The only positive thing that came out of it was the fact that the car now wants to change my front brake pads in 12,000 miles time and not 11,000 miles as it has always said since I bought it 3 months ago and that was 3,300 miles ago. Rear brakes 16,000 miles on purchase, 18,000 miles this morning. Weird or what!
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