Batteries.....

[CondorX5]

Everything seems to happen all at once to cars in our household.......my X had a new battery about 4-5 years ago when the alternator was replaced under warranty - RAC came and did a very efficient replacement of the original BMW battery at the time, even though it was ok, BMW insisted the battery needed replacing before warranty would pay for the alternator replacement at the time.

In the past 6 weeks or so the car stood for a while while BMW messed about (as per my other thread ) and then I waited for the Arnott airsprings to arrive from the US by which time the battery had gone flat with all the opening / closing and working with doors open etc.  Thought  it would recover with a lot of daily very long commutes but on Monday I ended up in a city centre basement car park with a flat battery when I returned to the car - a nice person with a 4 wheeled mobile battery pack (also known as a Toyota Yaris I think) helped me jump start the X successfully.  Yesterday was ok although it cranked over rather slowly, then today it just wouldn't start when I was leaving work, so really not holding a charge.  Luckily rescued by a colleague with another jumpstart.    Limited options for battery replacement around 6pm though - rather than take a chance and carry my big Clarkes Jump Start pack or try to charge overnight via the CTEK and hope for the best I went for the easiest way out and called local Halfords while I was en route home to see if they had one in stock and got them to fit it as its such a big heavy battery.    Not the cheapest option but it was all sorted efficiently and with a 5 year warranty. Hope thats the last for a while now!

[Sanj]

Grrrrrrr.....

Same issue for me Bosch S5 in the car for under 2 years and a cell was down. Would drain in 4 days max.

It is my 5th battery in 9 years ownership (many replaced under warranty). I think these cars KILL batteries just for fun!

[lezmtaylor]

I put my battery on charge with the CTEK every night, does not do the battery any harm and assured of a start evertime I use it.( About once a week)
The last battery lasted 6 years , Replaced last summer with another fibreglass battery.

Lez

[jeegnesh]

Replaced my Bosch S5 had two cells down, I believe this is my 3rd battery within 5 years, thank God for the Bosch warranty


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[CondorX5]

I suppose I have been lucky with batteries then, this is only the second time I have replaced mine - it had the original BMW battery when I bought it in 2010.  Hopefully will be able to keep the paperwork safe for the next 5 years given the failure rate!  I bought the "premium" Yuasa battery that Halfords had, there was a cheaper version with a 3 year warranty.  The one that was in the car was an Exide.   

[grumpywurzel]

[quote="CondorX5"]
I suppose I have been lucky with batteries then, this is only the second time I have replaced mine - it had the original BMW battery when I bought it in 2010.  Hopefully will be able to keep the paperwork safe for the next 5 years given the failure rate!  I bought the "premium" Yuasa battery that Halfords had, there was a cheaper version with a 3 year warranty.  The one that was in the car was an Exide. 
[/quote]

That's the one I bought a few weeks ago, 100ah from memory so plenty of grunt. Thing that kills the batteries is short trips which doesn't fully recharge them and the cold weather.

[X5Sport]

These glass mat batteries are also intolerant of going flat and once it gas happened they are trouble from then on.

I am concerned that so many of these Bosch ones go down though.  I wonder if it caused by the amount of current these cars draw to start and run, or is it bad design/build by Bosch?

[Sanj]

It's one of the two, wish I knew if more Bosch batteries were going wrong on other models, not just BMW.

It is very strange though, it is awful....

[ianst0028]

I had a Bosch one on the X5 when i bought it
when i was looking for the electrical fault on the car i tested it and it came up a bit weak so i replaced it with a yuasa 5 year one
on doing some investigation the Bosch one was less than 2 years old and came from halfrauds ( I know what they charge for a Bosch one so i feel sorry for the poor bugger who paid for it)

so far the yuasa one seems to be much happier in the car than the Bosch one and the electrical gremlins seem to have vanished

[CondorX5]

All the Bosch batteries I have had in various cars have died rather prematurely, I tend to avoid them if possible now.

[pvr]

Don't think the Bosch ones are any good, even with a CTEK on it. On my Golf, I had them go down every other year and after the third replacement - they refused to swap them over. Went back to OEM (whatever make that was), and am still on the same battery after 12 years now.

The OEM battery of my E53 - I never replaced.

[Waka]

I replaced the battery in my old X5 (which was the original one even at nearly 12 years and 100k miles old!) with one of these:
http://www.batterymegastore.co.uk/varta-h3.html

How the hell do they deliver 22kg for this money!

[jaynana]

I think the oem battery (Varta was it?) is better than the S5


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