[leftoverture]

Hi All - today was the first time I have driven our 228 in subzero weather. Which is unusual for Minnesota but that's another story. Background: car is parked in heated, underground garage. Since my wife works from home, it doesn't get driven much, so it has probably been sitting unused for a week or so.

This morning it was -15°F. I drove her to church, about a 25 minute drive mostly on freeways. Shut it off. Went to church. No problem. Came out after church, about 1 hour and 10 minutes later, and on start up I got these messages:





After driving towards home, I stopped for gas (again after about 25 minutes of driving) and when I shut it off I got these messages:





Upon restart, the messages all display again.

It's a 2016 and probably running the original battery. Despite these messages it started and ran just fine.

So...is this the overly complex battery charge nanny system freaking out because it's cold outside, or could I actually have a dying battery on my hands? Those of you in cold climates should be able to tell me if you see these messages regularly or not when the thermometer drops below zero.

Thanks!

[John in VA]

The cold temperatures don't help an older battery. There was a recent thread about "smart" battery tenders that will give you some ideas. When you replace the battery it will need to be "registered" - some big box auto parts stores offer this service, you can purchase an app or tool to do it, or a shop or dealer can do it.
My son is in Chicago - coldest temps of the season, so far, this weekend!

[aerobod]

It was -24C / -11F when I started my M240i after sitting outside all day yesterday, I received the "Battery discharging while stopped" message, but otherwise everything else was fine. I've had the message a few times since the car was new, always when below -20C and more likely as the temperature approaches -30C or below.

Our cars are both sitting outside all day today while I build a trailer inside the garage with the heater on. By the time I move them back inside tonight (after taking them for a drive until fully up to temp and putting some charge back in the battery), it should be -26C / -15F. The high temp today is meant to be -23C, I will see if I get the message again.

[ggggbmw]

Fellow Minnesotan. Yes, it's brisk today.

I would get this behavior routinely on my 2014 when I was doing short commute trips in the cold, and the battery never got much charging time. The best fix is to put the battery on a battery tender for 24 hours to top it off. I would usually have to do this 2-3 times through the winter unless I got a longer (>1 hr) trip in there somewhere.

I'm still on the original battery. And with nothing but rare, but much longer, trips this winter, I haven't gotten this message (yet). Top off the battery and issue should go away.

Still bugs me that the 'intelligent' battery system can't see that it's really cold, and put more charge into the battery. Then again, maybe it sees that the cold battery in the trunk can't really take much more charge than it's giving it.

[leftoverture]

Originally Posted by ggggbmw

Fellow Minnesotan. Yes, it's brisk today.

You know you're from Minnesota when you refer to -15° as brisk! Thank you for your responses. I don't own a battery tender but I do have a 40 minute drive to work each day and I will take the 228 a couple days this week and my guess is that should get it charged back up. I'll do so on the warm days this week (for those not from Minnesota I'm referring to the two days when it should get above zero.)

[ggggbmw]

Just be aware that as the battery charge gets lower, IBS starts shutting off electrical functions in the car.

Eventually it can get to a state where Comfort Access and the fob unlock button are disabled, and you have to use the key to get in the car. Really annoying to have to disengage the key insert from the fob when it's 10 below.

If it gets to this state, you may think the car is completely dead. You get in and none of the usual entry tasks start up. No lights, no dash display, no iDrive, nothing. I was about to call for a jump start, when I noticed that the 'start' button was lit up. That was the only indicator there was still some life in the car. Pushed the button, and the car started right up.

After that experience, I made sure to put the battery tender on as soon as I got home. And I was a lot more proactive about hooking up the tender if I ever got any of the battery alerts you've seen. Or sometimes just when it's been cold. (I might do it sometime this week, just because I haven't so far this year.)

[ggggbmw]

Originally Posted by aerobod

Our cars are both sitting outside all day today while I build a trailer inside the garage with the heater on. By the time I move them back inside tonight (after taking them for a drive until fully up to temp and putting some charge back in the battery), it should be -26C / -15F. The high temp today is meant to be -23C, I will see if I get the message again.

aerobod , you live in one of the few places that makes a Minnesota winter look balmy.

[leftoverture]

Originally Posted by ggggbmw

Just be aware that as the battery charge gets lower, IBS starts shutting off electrical functions in the car.

See... this is why I call the BMW system needlessly complex. They put all this technology in there with virtually zero actual benefit. Anyway, I put my charger on it and will give it some time to top off since I have already lost some electrical functions.

[aerobod]

Originally Posted by leftoverture

See... this is why I call the BMW system needlessly complex. They put all this technology in there with virtually zero actual benefit. Anyway, I put my charger on it and will give it some time to top off since I have already lost some electrical functions.

It actually works well when cold, as the parasitic drain becomes more of a problem, so they shut it off to ensure the battery maintains a decent level of charge for starting. Although it will give the message that this has happened, the car will still start down to -35C (thats the lowest temp I've had it cold soak to so far) without a block heater or any other form of assistance in the cold, which is more than can be said for many vehicles.

[Xavier Seynave]

Like Aerobod I get that message when the car sat in deep cold and as I just have a 10 minute travel to work, I have always feared being stuck with no possibility of starting up the engine. I do not know what the recharge rate is at idle, but driving to recharge is close to useless, unles you manage to coast for extended periods. The driving dynamics system is indeed more of a pita than a good idea. So, without many places to coast on the road to work, I have to accelerate to speed limit + 10 then coast to speed limit -10 (or speed limit +20 tp speed limit) all the way, with the risk of either getting a ticket or having other drivers wonder what the heck I am doing. Cruise control does not coast so it is not helpful at all.
That said, a charger is probably the best option but the M240 is the first car that has always started in the winter. Both the MX-5 and the FR-S left me for dead once or twice per year.

[leftoverture]

Originally Posted by aerobod

It actually works well when cold, as the parasitic drain becomes more of a problem, so they shut it off to ensure the battery maintains a decent level of charge for starting. Although it will give the message that this has happened, the car will still start down to -35C (thats the lowest temp I've had it cold soak to so far) without a block heater or any other form of assistance in the cold, which is more than can be said for many vehicles.

Well....I haven't had a car fail to start since 2006...and in that case I knew I should have changed the battery out because it was so old but I didn't and one -27°F morning it blew up. But other than that, my modern, fuel-injected cars have always started at the ridiculously low temperatures we frequently see in Minnesota. (This is only the 2nd winter I have parked inside.) So I'm not buying that this system is giving me anything. It attempts to solve a problem that didn't exist.

[leftoverture]

So I charged it. About 30-40 minutes on the 10 Amp setting and it said it was fully charged. I gave it another 40 minutes on 2 amps for good measure. All electrical functions restored and no more warning messages. My conclusion from this is that it wasn't really excessively discharged and the battery nanny was likely being overly cautious.

[jv92red]

My car doesn't get driven much either since I've been working from home 100% since the pandemic. I drive my car maybe once every other week after last March and after about 6 months in I would get strange charging/battery warnings on both my dash and Idrive screen. I live in SoCal so it rarely gets below 40°F so I know it's not weather related. (the rare times it dips below 40°F I crank up the furnace and hunker down)

So to maintain the battery at the correct level while parked I dropped $80 for a CTEK MXS 5.0 and now no more problems. I drive it short distances once every few weeks and no more warnings. The CTEK charger/maintainer is the same one that BMW sells as their own for $20 more. It is designed to charge and maintain our factory AGM batteries.

The seldom starts and short distance drives are not an issue for my battery now as much as it may be an issue for the motor oil itself. I don't remember the last time I drove the car longer than a 10 minute run to the supermarket so I'm sure it's not good the for oil as I might not be burning off any moisture in the oil? I guess that's a discussion for another thread.

[aerobod]

Originally Posted by Xavier Seynave

The driving dynamics system is indeed more of a pita than a good idea. So, without many places to coast on the road to work, I have to accelerate to speed limit + 10 then coast to speed limit -10 (or speed limit +20 tp speed limit) all the way

The driving dynamics system will actually charge the battery very quickly if it determines it is low on charge, no coasting is needed in that case. As it has the capability to put a very high current into the battery, it can do that at any point in the driving cycle. The coast recovery system in combination with low load on the alternator when not coasting is an additional feature. Supposedly the alternator can provide enough current to put almost a full charge into a low battery in 50 km / 30 minutes of steady highway speed, that would likely require about 100A current charge rate.

[aerobod]

Originally Posted by leftoverture

Well....I haven't had a car fail to start since 2006...and in that case I knew I should have changed the battery out because it was so old but I didn't and one -27°F morning it blew up. But other than that, my modern, fuel-injected cars have always started at the ridiculously low temperatures we frequently see in Minnesota. (This is only the 2nd winter I have parked inside.) So I'm not buying that this system is giving me anything. It attempts to solve a problem that didn't exist.

One thing you have to realize is that battery management is just one of the many small items that BMW and other European manufacturers use that in total lead to about 10% saving in CO2 emissions for a given engine compared without these systems (besides battery management as part of Driving Dynamics, engine thermal management, automatic start/stop, low friction bearing coatings, low viscosity oils are some that spring to mind).

As the US is fairly backward when it comes to progressive energy saving, it may not seem a lot, but most European countries have a punitive system for cars. France is the worst, with the M240i (CO2 rating of 172g/km) costing about €4,000 a year for road tax (170g/km is €3,119 per year, 180g/km is €5,715 per year) - https://www.french-property.com/guid...stration-taxes. If it had 10% higher CO2, it would be at 190g/km, which costs €9,550 per year. This means a French owner would pay €5,550 (USD $6,700) extra in tax if the BMW didn’t have the raft of small items that add up to about 10% in CO2 reduction.

BMW builds global cars, the US is only a small part of it’s market and likely the majority of it’s markets have significant CO2 restrictions or punitive taxes. it probably wouldn’t be economical to produce a vehicle just for the US market that stripped out technology it needs in other markets.

[leftoverture]

Oh... don't get me started on the idiocy of European regulations. I deal with them daily as part of my job. Pure, useless bureaucratic stupidity.

[aerobod]

Originally Posted by leftoverture

Oh... don't get me started on the idiocy of European regulations. I deal with them daily as part of my job. Pure, useless bureaucratic stupidity.

For a world where it is all about survival of the fittest and money means more than anything, that may seem the case. For a world where quality of life for society as a whole is paramount, they make sense.

[leftoverture]

Originally Posted by aerobod

For a world where it is all about survival of the fittest and money means more than anything, that may seem the case. For a world where quality of life for society as a whole is paramount, they make sense.

Well, since I started the thread I'll hijack it for a side discussion of European regulatory issues, since you bring it up. I would say it is probably the hope of most people that the regulations would be effective and produce some type of meaningful benefit. I certainly would hope that. But as Ronald Reagan so aptly noted, the scariest words you can ever hear are, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

So, unfortunately, when you start working within this regulatory framework you quickly begin to realize how much bureaucratic BS is in play. My primary pet peeve is in the area of plastics. Thermoplastic is the most recyclable material on the planet yet all around the world there are loads of plastics sitting in landfills or recycling facilities that doesn't get used. Why? Many reasons but the one that irks me most is that product engineers will not allow the use of recycled plastics in their designs. They often will not even allow the use of first generation (pre-consumer) recycled material.

So if I were setting the rules... the first change I would make would be to require the use of an appropriate percentage of recycled materials...both pre-consumer and post-consumer.

That's my primary pet peeve. The list goes on for sure. Regulations such as REACH that cost companies and consumers billions yet produce little to no meaningful benefit. Etc.etc.

[aerobod]

Originally Posted by samll

this is not about the regulations
it's more about how government burocaracy implement them

Not sure what you mean about how they implement them, but if you want bureaucracy, the US is just as bad as any other country I have to deal with. Some of the most idiotic vehicle regulations like having mirrors etched with "Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear" or requiring mandatory reversing cameras to prevent bad drivers from reversing over their kids, are driven out of US regulations.

[aerobod]

Originally Posted by leftoverture

Well, since I started the thread I'll hijack it for a side discussion of European regulatory issues, since you bring it up. I would say it is probably the hope of most people that the regulations would be effective and produce some type of meaningful benefit. I certainly would hope that. But as Ronald Reagan so aptly noted, the scariest words you can ever hear are, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

So, unfortunately, when you start working within this regulatory framework you quickly begin to realize how much bureaucratic BS is in play. My primary pet peeve is in the area of plastics. Thermoplastic is the most recyclable material on the planet yet all around the world there are loads of plastics sitting in landfills or recycling facilities that doesn't get used. Why? Many reasons but the one that irks me most is that product engineers will not allow the use of recycled plastics in their designs. They often will not even allow the use of first generation (pre-consumer) recycled material.

So if I were setting the rules... the first change I would make would be to require the use of an appropriate percentage of recycled materials...both pre-consumer and post-consumer.

That's my primary pet peeve. The list goes on for sure. Regulations such as REACH that cost companies and consumers billions yet produce little to no meaningful benefit. Etc.etc.

It is obviously a problem that the EU is aware of, here is the EU briefing on it: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/...ts-and-figures Their mandate is that all plastic packaging in the EU has to be recycled by 2030.

[leftoverture]

Originally Posted by aerobod

It is obviously a problem that the EU is aware of, here is the EU briefing on it: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/...ts-and-figures Their mandate is that all plastic packaging in the EU has to be recycled by 2030.

Yes there is awareness of the recycling issue... but precious little is actually being done. I find it all too typical where the plastic waste is simply shipped off to some other country (about 50% for the EU according to your article). If engineers were compelled to use 1st generation regrind, which has very few of the issues of the post-consumer material, that would be a huge step in the right direction. But all the recycling focus seems to get placed on the post- consumer side.

Not sure how familiar you are with plastics manufacturing, but the runner system in an injection mold can create waste from about 5% of part weight up to as high as more than 200% for some very small components. Most plastics will easily tolerate about 20% first generation regrind without loss of properties, but you'd be surprised at the products that such regrind cannot be used. In very large volume production, a hot runner system is used thus removing the runner system waste, which is great, but so many lower to medium volume parts cannot use any regrind and do not cost justify hot runners.

So solve the first gen problem first...it is (relatively) low hanging fruit. Then we can focus more on the post-consumer side. But instead companies spend their energy and resources completing fruitless and meaningless regulatory paperwork typical of government requirements. I'm working on such a task right now...well... after lunch I will be.

[zipstic]

I felt like I needed to chime in here since I'm a fellow Minnesotan

We drove the wife's 2013 F30 on Saturday and got the exact same messages as leftoverture. Last year during sub zero temps she got the same messages. She's still on her original battery. I have a 1 year old battery in my e92 335xi and her F30 started up better than mine this weekend!

I'll be throwing on the CTEK just for good measure.