So I get in my car yesterday morning and go to start it. It starts up fine, but my hardwired Valentine-1 goes haywire repeatedly turning on and off. The ABS light also pops up. This seemed awfully strange but I figured I would address it later after work when I get home.
I proceed to pull out of the driveway continue on. As I'm driving down the road, all of a sudden I hear this really loud BANG. It literally sounded like an MLB pitcher threw a fast ball at the back of my trunk. 30 seconds later my car powers off completely and dies in the middle of a busy street. No lights, no radio, won't turn over, nothin. Then I smell smoke coming from the trunk. I get out and open the trunk, pull off the battery cover on the right hand side and I see smoldering wires and melted plastic.
Of course theres a guard rail to the left of me and a sidewalk to the right and I'm on an incline so I'm basically f***ed. I call triple A and they send a CHP to assist me in getting off the road, followed by a tow truck. While I'm waiting for the officer, this little old man who can barely see over his dashboard locks up his brakes and almost impales me between my car and his.
Finally the cop gets there, uses his bumper to push me off the road so that I'm not endangering myself or other drivers. Well he ends up leaving two nice big creases in the back of my bumper in the process.
About a half hour goes by and the tow truck shows up and lo and behold its one of those POS tow trucks that just attaches to the back of your car and basically drags it with the back end sticking up. After seeing my neighbors 993 porsche have its bumper torn in half by one of these sh*t trucks 4 years ago, I said no way. Theres no way you're towing my car with this thing, I need a flatbed tow truck. Of course, that entailed waiting another three hours before one could get there. Finally they show up with a proper tow truck capable of towing a sports car with low clearance.
I get it towed to my shop, Valley Motorwerks and explain everything to them. (They've got one mechanic who really knows E9X's) After examining the battery he tells me what he thinks happened; It turns out when you change the battery in an E9X, you have to plug in a diagnostic tool and punch in a code telling the car that you are putting in a new battery. (I changed the battery myself a few months ago and put in an interstate) Furthermore, according to him you can only use a BMW OEM battery in an E9X. By failing to do either, this is what will result.
I'm sorry but this is so f***ing weak on BMW's part. Sabotaging your f***ing customers so that your dealerships can make more money?
I've changed plenty of batteries in my lifetime in my E36's and my old E46. And never has any bulls**t like this happened from using an aftermarket battery.
I got the call this morning from the mechanic. He says its gonna be close to a thousand bucks to replace all of the damaged cables and parts in order to get the car running again.