How To Prevent Battery Drains on Your BMW
How To Prevent Battery Drains on Your BMW
At Edmonton BMW, we strive to support our customers' vehicle ownership every step of the way. We have BMW certified technicians in our Service Centre, giving you peace of mind that your vehicle is in good hands when visiting our dealership for service or repairs. Contact us to schedule an appointment, and we can help identify why your BMW's battery is draining its charge.
Things To Avoid Doing Which Drain Your Battery
When you have a dead battery, it's always a good idea to figure out why it lost its charge to avoid having problems in the future. Some of the common mistakes drivers can make are leaving the headlights on overnight, leaving an OBD-II scanner plugged in, or not addressing voltage drain issues. Although it's usually a small amount, keeping voltage drawn from the battery for a long time can lead to a dead battery. If your battery is draining, check any external addition to the electrical system, such as wiring for an amplifier or lighting, as those can sometimes be the issue. If your battery is drained and has no external factors impacting it, you will want to charge it and begin diagnosing other electrical systems.
Causes Of Battery Draining
A cause of a drained battery is a failing alternator having issues recharging the battery back to its total capacity. In this situation, you will want to have the battery fully charged, and then you should test the vehicle by driving it and monitoring the voltage to see if it has a sufficient charge. If the charge drops as you drive or the battery is too weak to start the vehicle back up, it might be a faulty alternator or wiring. Lastly, if you have checked everything and it all seems to be in working order, have your battery wiring checked and replace the battery.