Drivetrain Malfunction / Battery Won't Charge

[BigEnergy]

I have a 2016 xDrive40e (the hybrid plug-in). I was sitting parked with the car on talking on the phone when I noticed these messages pop up on my dashboard about the drivetrain and also my battery. The dealer was closed so I called a BMW mechanic, he advised if I could drive and it wasn’t shaking, to bring it in to him and if it was shaking to pull over and have it towed. I drove carefully staying below 40mph, and my car felt normal and fine. No shaking no feeling of reduced power, nothing. If not for the messages I would say there was nothing wrong with it, except I noticed when I pressed my brake, normally it would show me a blue energy bar that indicates it’s sending that braking energy to my battery to charge it, which now it wasn’t doing that when I pressed my brakes. So the battery is not getting power which I’m assuming is what’s causing the drive train error???

I get to his place and he’s closing up so I leave with him overnight. He just called now and said that the car is turning on but the battery is needs power and they are not used dealing with the hybrid plugins and only have a slow charger not a fast charger and he suggest I get a fast charger and try to charge up the battery. He says that the it’s also drivable so I should take it to the dealer and see if they have a fast charger or could see what’s wrong with it.

From my research I’m thinking it’s worn spark plugs maybe but not sure. I was due for service last month and haven’t gotten it done yet mainly due to some surprise large bills I’ve had to pay recently and the last time I got it serviced was the first time since being covered by the maintenance plan and I had to pay 1200 for the service, so I wanted wait a little bit before doing it; so I’m saying all this to say it could also be due to the fact that I haven’t had it service that could be causing this problem as well.

What do you all think?

[Tomcat_F15_STL]

Honestly, worn spark plugs will have nothing, zero, absolutely unrelated to this problem.

Drop it off at the dealer. Give them their $200 to diagnose. Then, you will have a reliable answer and can decide on the next action.

Keep us updated!

[Tomcat_F15_STL]

I would be inclined to pull the coil packs and inspect. Then, get a can of CRC Contact Cleaner and hose down every engine connector plug & receptacle in sight. Blow them off dry with air before reassembly.

[corduroy]

The 40e will get an assortment of error messages when the aux battery is dead/dying as it controls a lot of the starting/stopping of the hybrid functions. Are you on the original auxiliary battery, if not, when was it last changed?

If you're on the original, it's well past the time to change it (for the 40e), imho.

[BigEnergy]

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. So, here’s the update, and it’s kind of funny.

The BMW 3rd party mechanic I took Simone (my X5) to called me the next afternoon. He said that it was “tricky” because he first wanted to charge the battery and see if he could diagnose the issue, but he only had a slow charger there and had to repeatedly unplug and replug as they moved other cars in and out that morning and finally gave up. He admitted that they don’t have as much experience with the hybrid or electric-only BMWs and suggested that I go to the dealership and have them use the fast charger to get the battery going and then see what the issue was. I said ok and asked if Simone was turning on or if I needed to get a tow (the dealer was less than 2 blocks away from the mechanic’s shop so I was going to call the dealer to pick her up) He says “oh yeah, she turns on no problem.” To which I was surprised to hear because one of the messages that appeared on the dash the night before was “Do not turn off engine, as it will not restart. Drivetrain malfunction.”

I head over to the shop, get into Simone, tell her I’m sorry to put her through this, and then turn her on. Shockingly, all the messages that were on the dash are now gone. She starts up normally, I put her in drive and I take off. I press the brake, and I see the blue energy light up showing energy being transferred to the battery, which is not what it was doing yesterday. I keep driving, while in “comfort” mode, I go up to 60mph, no problems. I switch to sport mode, go up to 70mph, no problems, no messages. I continue driving for another 25mins switching between, sport, comfort, and MAX eDrive, no issues. The next day, yesterday, I drove her to Santa Barbara and back which was a two hour commute. No issue.

I guess, moral of the story is: CTRL+ALT+DEL and Restart ????🤗🤗🤗

[BigEnergy]

Originally Posted by corduroy

The 40e will get an assortment of error messages when the aux battery is dead/dying as it controls a lot of the starting/stopping of the hybrid functions. Are you on the original auxiliary battery, if not, when was it last changed?

If you're on the original, it's well past the time to change it (for the 40e), imho.

That is a really good question. I bought this car certified pre-owned. It was 3 years old and maybe 32k miles. So I’m not sure if it was changed before then, but I don’t believe it has been changed since I bought it. I’ve just don’t the regular maintenance schedule and don’t recall a battery replacement. But I do think you are right about it dying. The day before I had ran out of gas and was using the battery to get home and only has 1 percent left. The next day I barely made it to the gas station and filled up, 15 minutes later is when I pulled over to talk on the phone, and I believe Simone was in comfort mode which uses more of the battery than sport and maybe it glitches out when it got low 🤷🏾‍♂️

[corduroy]

Originally Posted by BigEnergy

That is a really good question. I bought this car certified pre-owned. It was 3 years old and maybe 32k miles. So I’m not sure if it was changed before then, but I don’t believe it has been changed since I bought it. I’ve just don’t the regular maintenance schedule and don’t recall a battery replacement. But I do think you are right about it dying. The day before I had ran out of gas and was using the battery to get home and only has 1 percent left. The next day I barely made it to the gas station and filled up, 15 minutes later is when I pulled over to talk on the phone, and I believe Simone was in comfort mode which uses more of the battery than sport and maybe it glitches out when it got low 🤷🏾‍♂️

I don't believe the maintenance schedule mentions the battery, but it should be treated as such with the X5, regardless of type (35i, 35d, 40e, 50i, x5m) - just my opinion. These get so many gremlins when the voltages get a little erratic. The high voltage hybrid battery on the 40e charges the 12v batteries, so when it's low, the 12v batteries don't get a charge. When I had my issues, I was running under eco mode a lot - which I suspect didn't recharge the 12v batteries on already old 12v batteries. I might have some of the details a little wrong, but that's the general issue.

The aux battery in the 40e also controls the start/stop and starting the electric motor so it's under extra work. From what I've seen, the aux battery usually needs to be replaced every 4-6 years in the 40e (just reading on here and the facebook groups how often this is happening, expect another cycle of '18 models needing it replaced when it starts to get cold again later this year, lol), considering that you're at 7 years, it's pretty impressive.

I would change both batteries if they haven't been changed (should be a date on them). Dealership is a rip. Bimmerlink can code the main 12v battery but I haven't seen an option to register the auxiliary 12v battery. I think the foxwell readers can do it, I was able to register the auxiliary battery with ISTA+ (and I did some 2 years after the dealership replaced mine because they never registered it, grumble).