How a Dying Battery Can Trouble Your BMW?

Battery problems have become more common even in best engineered vehicles like BMW. As you know battery is a main electrical component and a dying battery can lead to malfunctioning of nearly all electrical components. In this article, you will know how a failing battery can affect your car in negative way.

Battery in your car

Battery stores energy in chemicals and produces electrical energy from them to power up electrical devises. Batteries are used now days in most of the electrical devices. Now modern vehicles have become more dependent on electrical systems, so to power these electrical systems, battery is required. The battery used in your car is a big rechargeable battery. The charging of the battery is done by alternator in your car and alternator gets mechanical energy from the engine. This battery supplies power to your starter and the lights of your car, both internal and external. When the battery becomes fully discharged, the voltage across the battery becomes too low to make the electrical components work; hence we say that the battery has become dead. So there are many reasons behind causing your battery dead and I’ll discuss about that.

The main duty of the battery is to start the engine, after the engine gets started; the alternator takes the job to make the engine run by powering the fuel and the combustion systems. But the battery still has access to the engine. If the alternator stops working for some reason, the battery makes the engine but it lasts for some time because the battery gets drained out of power and the alternator is inactive and cannot charge the battery any more, all the power from battery are get used by the engine and the headlights.

What causes your battery to die?

Lights are left on

Mostly, people leave the lights on overnight and forget to turn them off. These lights use the battery power and alternator remains inactive as the engine is off. So battery doesn’t get charged that time, instead it get discahrgeed and at last it gets almost drained out of power completely.

Electric glitch

It is an electrical issue that makes many electrical systems remain active which are supposed to be turned off after the ignition is turned off. This electrical glitch can use and drain all the power from the battery.

Old or corroded battery

If you have a very old battery in your car, like your car is using the battery for about more than 5 - 6 years then you must be having battery problems in your car. The performance of the battery drops as it ages and the time comes when you battery can no longer store the required power for long and you will face starting problems. Even if the battery is not maintained regularly, the battery would get weak and damaged at the terminals and contacts become loose. These loose contacts will not allow the battery to become charged properly.

Bad alternator diode

In BMW, mostly the alternator diodes become the culprit for a dead battery, because the diode allows the alternator to charge the battery. A faulty diode cannot make alternator to charge the battery properly.

Negative effects of a dying battery

If the battery is dying there will be some warning signs like battery warning light on dashboard and slow cranking of engine, but then you have to face the effects of dying battery. So basically, a faulty battery always causes some problems which are quite annoying. Here are most common problems -

l If your car is having electronic gear shifter, then a dying battery can cause shifting problems in your car. In such cars, the battery helps in getting your car out of park, but if the battery is dying, then your gears will not engage and you will be unable to shift out of park.

l In BMW cars, there is a feature called start stop feature, this feature makes the engine turn off when the car is stopped for some time and automatically starts the engine when the brake is released to drive the car. By this process, the unnecessary consumption of fuel is stopped, the fuel economy rises and the money is also saved, but this start stop feature depends heavily on battery because only battery can start and stop the engine. If the battery is dying, then this feature would not work to save the power in the battery. Your fuel will be consumed unnecessarily while you stop the car without switching off your engine.

l If the battery is dying then your power doors would malfunction and get locked spontaneously.

l Your starter will not able to start your car due to dead battery. When you will try to start, the engine will only crank but not start at all, and sometimes it may start but after a long time. If you have some urgent work and you are in a hurry, but you cannot start your engine, so only thing that can give you relief is jump start, but jump start can harm your battery too.

Conclusion

The only thing you can do if you have a faulty battery is to replace it, but sometimes a battery having no damage may not work because it is discharged, so in this case you need not to replace it, charging the battery at service centers can solve the problem.

Europlus Automotive is an automotive service and repair center in Canoga Park, CA serving customers from surrounding areas since 1984. It specializes in all European & Asian make brands with fully trained ASE certified technicians.