E90 Battery Dying - Symptoms

[ShaneE]

Hi there,

I think the battery in me 330i is possibly nearing the end of its life. Last week after filling up, i got a low battery warning when starting the car, but I haven seen it since. The angel eyes haven turned on when I've unlocked the car since then, and now I've just gotten a "High Battery Discharge" warning when starting the car (this was about an hour after the second drive I've done today). It may be in my head, but I think it sounded like the starter turned over a little slower when starting.

So does this sound like time for a new battery? The car is a 2010 model and still on the original battery. Also, I've read a lot about needing to code the battery at the dealer and such, is that necessary? I may or may not have just been quoted R 3600 from a dealer, which sounds pretty ridiculous to me :thumbdo:

 

[Lizzard]

what !!!!! :YesNo:

Please avoid that dealer. The batteries go for about R2100 at the dealer and you get, I think R100+ back for the old battery. I paid in total R1850 for mine at the dealer, just make sure you buy the same CCA and AH as yours if you want to buy it anywhere else except the dealer.

Honestly, I bought my battery at the dealer due to my car having satnav, bluetooth etc in and knowing that the stuff is sensitive to voltage etc, I just didnt want to take a chance at buying a battery and ending up with a dud car cause of a saving on my battery.

R3500 is expensive and the battery is R1850 at the Menlyn dealer, where I bought mine about 4 months ago. The remaining money must be the hourly charge they do due to the battery register. And it takes like, not joking, 40 sec to do the battery register.

Try another dealer and if your car was manufactured prior to 2007 I could have helped you with the battery register, have software for mine due to this @#$% .

 

[ShaneE]

Yup! It does seem that they were seriously trying to scam me, both Cedar Isle and JSN have them for 2100 :coolShake: So lets guess which dealer in close proximity to those 2 it could be ...

I called around a bit yesterday, and the Raylite ones from Battery Centre cost the same as the original ones now anyway, so I see no point in going anywhere else. And definitely dont want to break my iDrive because of trying to save a few Rands

Only issue I have is that I can only get it done next week Thursday, since even though it's that quick, the car needs to get booked into the workshop for the day to have it done - No more short drives for me for a while!

 

[Ratslaaf]

Fit the battery now, register it later. On your car there's a problem with the FRM that's sensitive to power spikes, you don't want to spend more money getting that replaced if you don't have to

 

[ShaneE]

Thanks so much for that, i'll go through today and change it then! Will also save the the R1000 on labour they were going to charge, since coding it is only going to cost R380..

Is there anything special i need to worry about doing when changing it ? Or can i just disconnect and remove the old one, and put in the new one?

 

[Ratslaaf]

There's not much you can do to prevent FRM failure. Provided there's no spike or surge, you'll be ok simply changing the battery.

 

[ShaneE]

So it looks like my car has an AGM battery in it now (the black one), and that costs R5600... And apparently i cant just change from an AGM one to a lead acid (white) one without getting it coded ? From what I can see, its a separate thing to just registering the new battery ?

 

[Ratslaaf]

Yes, that's true. Is this an M3?

 

[ShaneE]

Nope, it's a 330i. Would there be any issue with getting them to change and code in a lead acid one or does it need to stay AGM?
Could it be because my car has professional nav, xenons, etc that it has that battery instead of the normal white one ?

 

[Ratslaaf]

I'm surprised your 330i has an AGM battery to be honest. But yes, they can change the coding to a lead acid battery (and don't let them tell you otherwise), but in order to do so, they'll most likely have to reprogram the whole car. Dealers are reluctant to do so for a few very good reasons, and would probably charge over R2k to do this alone. So best bet would be to stick to an AGM battery hey. I am surprised it costs that much though. Last I checked the AGM batteries were less than R4k.

 

[ShaneE]

From what I can see online very few come standard with them, so I have no idea why mine does- now that i think about it my 130i had a white one too.

Could make sense that this is why i got the R3500 quote from the other dealer, since I did give them my VIN number to get the quote, i'll call them now and find out. But keeping with the AGM sounds like a much better idea than reprogramming the car!

All of this 22 days after motorplan expires

 

[Iceman12596]

Sorry for being a chop, but what is an AGM ?

 

[ShaneE]

Okay so they do seem to be 3500 everywhere else. An it seems the same applies with AGM of it being safe to change now and code next week.
Next question (or issue). My car has an 80ah AGM battery, and the dealers only have 90ah ones. They say it will be okay, but do you see any issues with changing to the 90ah one without doing the registration straight away ?

 

[Ratslaaf]

No issue at all.