Good day.

I'm going to be scheduling a look-see at a repair shop this week, but wanted to get some unofficial thoughts prior to taking it in so I can have an idea.

The Setup:
My ride is a 2002, 325Ci with a little over 50K in miles.
Several months ago I replaced my factory radio with a 7" Touch screen, and computer in the trunk. Maybe related? Maybe not.

The Intro:
Two weeks ago my battery died and needed a jump. I think it was because I had left my OBDII sensor plugged in all weekend -- not sure how much drain that causes, but just tossing that in there. After Jumping the car I noticed some oddities. Some related, some doubtfully related.

Issue #1:
Not realizing that a fuse had blown during jumping the car I went a week without radio (computer). Fuse #41 (the radio/navigation 30amp fuse) had blown. For some reason there was a 15amp fuse in there. During this week period I noticed some odd electrical issues were happening, such as:
My passenger mirror would not move (manually or when put in reverse).
My Turn Signals would not blink on the dash, but they would flash the actual lights

After replacing the fuse with the proper 30amp, radio works, no weird motorized mirror issues, and blinker's good to go.

WTF?

Issue #2:
My car's battery has never struck me as a strong one, even prior to the whole CarPC/Carputer setup. But since I've had it in there I've jumped the car maybe 6 times now -- but then again I do spend hours at a time opening/closing doors/trunk/testing/etc. I would normally crank it every hour or so to make sure I'm good and leave it cranked for 10 minutes or so in hopes of helping to 'recharge' what's been used. Even then typically the next morning I have to jump the car.

Is it more likely my battery or my alternator? Should I invest in a Capacitor -- if so, what size?


Issue #3:
Cranking. So maybe Issue #2 was premature, as I found out yesterday that when I hear my typical "click click click" (with every click came the flashing of all interior lights, dash lights, etc) while trying to crank my car, I would traditionally get the jumper cables and pull the wife's truck down... I was nowhere near home and simply held the key in the crank position with fingers crossed... Wouldn't you know it.... "click click click click click click click click click VROOM".

The clicking in the past has always been a sign of the battery being dead (or so I thought) -- Is this is the sound of a bad starter? Is this the sign of something going dead? Is this related to the battery at all?

Issue #4:
AFTER finding out that I can actually still crank my car... even after the 'click click click' scenario... Yesterday I found that doing that put a new icon alert on my dash. The 'gear' with the exclamation point. After reviewing the owner's manual I saw that it was a fall-back for the automatic transmission -- as if something had triggered it to go into emergency operation mode. "Great!" I exclaimed... Driving it was like starting in 4th gear. I decided I would stop the car, turn it off and crank it back up again to see if it was related to the funky crank from Issue #3. -- It seemed to be! After a successful crank the light was gone.

WTF?

Issue #5:
My engine light is on. After checking it with the OBDII scanner it seems that my Coolant temperature is not up to par. I've been noticing that it takes a long time for the car to heat up... much longer than normal. Where in the past I would have 'heat' within a couple of minutes of my early-morning cold drives, it was taking 15 or so minutes -- and even then the thermostat was registering at about 40% (just below half-way between cold and hot). I read another thread that suggested this may be a sensor? or the thermostat needs to be replaced?

I added coolant, topping it off the other day which seemed to have no bearing on the results..

Please forgive me if these scenarios or questions are silly for some of you – I wish I knew more about vehicle mechanics than I do.
Boy was my wife right when she told me I had issues.... (Did I say me? ... I meant my car).

Would love some feedback guys/gals. You are my personal experts!

Thanks.

bumparooski?

Additional notes. I took the car to a master mechanic today -- one that was recommended by several of YOU guys that are local to me. He was very nice and took time out of his day to hook up some diagnostic tools and testers to the battery/alternator/etc and said that he felt, with a high degree of certainty, that it was the alternator.

This should address a few of the issues. He said that with low voltage coming from the battery at crank, odd things can happen, and explained a few. One of those was the odd 'cranking' I was getting, along with that one-time Automatic-Drive error I got -- low voltage seems to trigger this.

While talking he said that because of the location of the Alternator, to replace this they would have to take out a bit of the items on or around the radiator -- aka getting to the thermostat. Said that there's a predictability about those hoses and the overflow (may be the wrong word) for the radiator that tend to break during this process... so we surmised that things would break, and be prepared to deal with those should that happen -- and almost suggested (not in that gross sales-guy way) that we replace some of those parts while we're in there.

Normally I would be a little wary about this type of suggestion, but again, he came highly recommended ... AND my extended warranty should cover both the Alternator and the other parts.

Did I mention that he didn't charge me to do all this?

Rock on.

I don't know enough about the electrical system to offer any real advice, but I've read that a failing radio head unit can cause all sorts of electrical gremlins. How hard would it be to temporarily remove your screen and plug the stock radio back in for a week or so?

The thermostat's standard mode of failure is to stick open, which is pretty common between 60k-100k miles. This would cause the car to take a long, long time to warm up. Go ahead and have your mechanic replace it if he's getting to the alternator; it's not a huge amount of additional work.

The other part(s) that he may be referring to are the coolant expansion tank, and maybe the water pump. The expansion tank is subject to a lot of thermal expansion and contraction, which weakens it over time. I don't know if it's really believable that it will break during disassembly, but on mine when I worked on the cooling system at 67k, the hoses were stuck on pretty tight. It's not a bad idea to replace it though... you don't want it to break at an inopportune time and pour your coolant all onto the road. If you overheat this engine, you're done. But, 50k miles is maybe a little early to perform an entire cooling system overhaul.

Your hoses are probably fine unless they get damaged during disassembly. This shouldn't happen unless they're stuck on really, really tight.

If your mechanic hooked up the alternator to diagnostic tools that are designed to test alternators, and then he said the alternator was the likely culprit, I'd be inclined to believe him. The alternators in these cars don't last forever, unfortunately.

Take him a 6-pack of Spaten as a thanks for doing diagnostics for free. Most places will charge an hour or two of labor, especially if they have the "real" BMW diagnostic tools.
http://www.gotbeer.com/content/user_1/lSpatenOptiSixPack.jpg

If you trust the mechanic, then let him do whatever he wants under the extended warranty, though they won't be replacing any "non-functioning" or "broken during R&R" parts.

You can let him know that you only have enough money for the deductible (if you have one), so please do his best not to break anything. Then, you'll know, if he calls you to replace a broken piece, he means it.

Regardless, to solve an electrical problem, you have to start with a verifiably good electrical system. So, sounds like you need to start with an alternator, and hopefully not another battery.

Thank you both for the input.

I'll be getting a 6-pack for sure. :-) Since alternator is under warranty, replacing it will be just fine with me -- to test if that's indeed the culprit -- which I honestly feel it is. I would much rather go that route than to pop back in the head-unit -- i will if I must, but I'm crossing my fingers here ;)

THanks!

Dont mean to post with no advice but i have been looking into a carputer for some time now...how much did it run you, where did you get it? How effective is it? ANY AND ALL info you can give me would be more then helpful...honestly i have been on the fence witht his for months but i cant find anyone i trust...motly ebay vendors who sell the carputer itself without touchscreen for 176$....with dvd player, cd, and full windows....

Slightly OT, but no worries.... I love talking about my CarPC :-)

Here's a recent article at Endgadget : http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/06/vic-ltd-rolls-out-navisurfer-ii-in-car-pc/ Scroll down to the first fairly large post... I'm replying to a guy named Alex. The article is about an in-car solution (Wouldn't reccomed for you (BMW), but would for others that have a 1-u).

I'm very pro-CarPC.

All in all (with the overboard gadgets) I've probably dumped about $1500 into it.
Xenarc Monitor
Custom Bezel
Custom Computer
CarPC-Style Power Supply
Radio Component
Rear-View Infrared Camera
USB Hubs (Slim-line & flexable)
USB Dongle
USB Wifi
GPS
IBUS (steeringwheel control)
OBDII Scanner (Realtime Engine Information onscreen)
CentraFuse (Front-End)

I'm sure I'm leaving something out. But, good times.

It's not for the faint of heart (yet)... so if you enjoy car electronics, and home computers, you'll fit right in :-)

Install yourself?

BTW thanks for taking the time on an OT question

My car's battery has never struck me as a strong one, even prior to the whole CarPC/Carputer setup. But since I've had it in there I've jumped the car maybe 6 times now -- but then again I do spend hours at a time opening/closing doors/trunk/testing/etc. I would normally crank it every hour or so to make sure I'm good and leave it cranked for 10 minutes or so in hopes of helping to 'recharge' what's been used. Even then typically the next morning I have to jump the car.

Is it more likely my battery or my alternator? Should I invest in a Capacitor -- if so, what size?




are you a pizza delivery guy or something and what are you testing? i would say this would be a start to your problem. a capacitor is a good idea as well as a dry cell optima battery, they were the sh!t when i was younger and into car stereo's more than i am now.


edit. also you have to drive for a period of time to charge your battery. just letting it run for ten minutes in your driveway is not going to do a thing.