Battery or something else....

M

mishanja

Member
Location
Sugar Land, TX
Car
2013 BMW X5
So, I am not sure what is going on. My FX has been sitting in the garage for about 3 weeks now (while I am moving into the new house). It started and ran before that just fine. Now, in order to keep battery alive, I hooked it up to battery saver, that ran in the maintenance mode. Yesterday, I started swapping my suspension and wanted to pull the car out of garage to change sides. I went to turn it on, and nothing happened. And when I say nothing, I mean no lights, no radio no windows, and what made me freak out even more, I CANNOT TURN THE KEY, either with the intellikey or with actual key plugged in... It acts as when your wheel gets locked, only wheel is free. Is the batter dead? Or do I have a bigger issue? I am not sure, but I thought I could turn the key when my battery would die before.... :disapointed:
 
I had a dead battery once where nothing would come on. I can't remember if the key worked like your's isn't. I couldn't even jump start it. I bought a portable jump pack and just left it connected for a few minutes and then it started. Worked out ok because I've used that to jump other people's cars twice, and mine once after I killed the battery filling up the tires with air a couple months ago. How old is your battery? Mine is 5 years old, but I think this past winter pretty much did it in. There's corrosion all on the positive terminal, which I've never seen before on one of my cars.
 
la_fx35 said:
Sounds like a dead dead battery to me.
Click to expand...

Well, how "dead dead" is it??? :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: can I still try to jump start FX by hooking to my wife's Pathfinder? Also, not to start a new thread, so I'll ask here (totally wrong section). I am working on swapping some Kido's in, and the rear coilover on FX is held in place by a SQUARE nut. Do I need some special tools to remove that????
 
I had an issue with positive battery cable a while back and when it came loose and the car was completely dead, it would still turn with the key inserted. It wouldn't turn normally since I believe the sensor won't read the key without power.

Haven't heard about it happening on the FX, but on BMW's, if the battery goes dead, the steering lock can kick in and pretty much cause symptoms you're talking about. Modern cars are so dependent on systems that it's hard to say what will happen if you cut power for a long time and everything dies.

You can try to jump start it, but if the battery is so dead you don't even have lights, it will take a while. I've had times where I had to wait 10 minutes to get enough power into the battery to even jump start the car. Can you use your battery saver to charge the battery up?
 
I'll hook it up tonight and see, but I think when I pulled it off day before yesterday, it said it was running in "maintenance" mode, not "charging" mode, so I thought battery was full. Will give it a shot none the less tonight
 
There is no "square nuts" that you need to remove for the rear coilovers installation. If I remembered correcty, there are two 12 mm nuts on the upper shock mount and a 17 mm bolt at the bottom. The spring cup is a 19 mm with a 17 mm nut?
 
la_fx35 said:
There is no "square nuts" that you need to remove for the rear coilovers installation. If I remembered correcty, there are two 12 mm nuts on the upper shock mount and a 17 mm bolt at the bottom. The spring cup is a 19 mm with a 17 mm nut?
Click to expand...
Hmm, that is weird, because I am almost 100% sure the bolt that holds a shock at the bottom had square nut. I will have to double check
 
ok, the nut is welded onto the arm. You're right, that nut is square (I think). No need to mess with it. Just need to undo the 17 mm bolt on the shock.
 
I don't know what you did to figure your problem out, but just had the same issue tonite with my car. Thought it was a dead battery, but ended up being corroded terminals. Took the red terminal off, cleaned it with a wire brush, stuck it back on, then everything was back to normal. Wondering if I should change out the terminal, or just slather some dielectric grease on it and call it a day.
 
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