[turbotel]

My e91 330d touring had been running just fine until one day a low battery warning alerted my attention.
I dont tend to drive the car much but have always connected a modern pulse charger every couple of weeks just to keep battery topped up.
One morning I got the dreaded yellow steering wheel locked warning.
No amount of moving the wheel would release the lock,engine would not start or disengage from park.
I attempted to re align the dde and cas with inpa but as there was no ignition on lights only battery on inpa start screen was unable to re sync/align modules.
Went to tool 32 to reset elv counter etc,still no luck.

The car was sitting parked well into my driveway front end first.
A local so called specialist diagnostics was called who attempted unsucessfuly to get rid of the warning and get motor running.

Next step was to get car recovered to local main BMW agent,what a total waste of time this was,all they did was a health check despite my request for a diagnosis of my problem.

They informed me of the tread depth of my tyres and alloy wheels needed refurbing with a final note that a new CAS and programming was required for starters at some 600 ukp.

I found another independent bmw specialist who now have the car in thier workshops.
Within a few minutes of the car reaching thier garage they informed me that they had managed to start the car,presumably with a more advanced diagnostic program than mine.
They said it was highly unlikely that the CAS was faulty and that they had only ever replace 2 over many years.

I am now waiting on they investigations into battery drain whilst car is sleeping.
Something is draining the power from a fully charged battery.
I had replaced the original old battery 6 months ago to a new 100 ah so it was not a bad battery issue.
I also recently replaced the older ibs unit for the later type along with substituting the steering column and elv steering lock.

I suspect all of these problems were caused by a low battery voltage caused by power drain and until the cause of power drain is found it could happen all over again.

To make matters worse the car has a retractable towbar with a suspect stripped motor gear although the tow ball is now in the extended position with a fixed green light on the button indicating no module faults.

I have read that a faulty telecoms module might be a possible cause by keep waking up to bluetooth signals .

The car has been in the workshop for a week now and I am eagerly awaiting
some good news ,fingers crossed.

Any comments /ideas/experiences welcome.

Cheers all.

[Emilime75]

Did you register the battery when you replaced it?

Has anyone load tested said battery?

Has anyone tested the alternator and voltage regulator?

[turbotel]

Battery registered ok.
Alternator charging ok within range 13.8v to 14.2 v.
Brand new yuasa 100 ah substituted of same rating for current testing purposes.

[turbotel]

My independent BMW specialist informed me today that after having the car on test over the weekend that the only cause of battery drain was the steering lock which I had recently replaced .
I guess that I was unlucky in replacing one bad original lock with another
faulty lock.
They are going to fit an elv emulator and hopefully all will be well.
All this caused by what might amount to a small electric motor contained within the lock, a £5.00 /10$ part causing a low battery which confuses the CAS to DDE alignment.
I am considering buying a Bavarian technic diagnostic.
Will this give me any advantage over my existing inpa or tool 32.?

[BendOR335D]

Might want to have them check (or check yourself) the harmonic balancer, sometimes when they start to fail the first sign is a low battery warning...

[BB_cuda]

Originally Posted by BendOR335D

Might want to have them check (or check yourself) the harmonic balancer, sometimes when they start to fail the first sign is a low battery warning...

I would say first sign of a harmonic damper (not a balancer on this engine) is the burnt rubber smell and lack of power steering. This engine is internally balanced and thus no need to externally compensate. Cars with need of external balancing also have a balancing weight on the flywheel that work in conjuction with front harmonic balance. Chevy 454 ci is an example of needing them.

[turbotel]

It would appear according to my independent that my problems were caused by the comfort access draining power.
If this is the case what we have is a situation where a door handle fault(well documented)drained battery causing yellow steering wheel warning with steering and gearbox locked and car effectively immobilised because the cas loses its codes with the DDE.
The rest is history with the car nearing its previous full function.

A useful sub note for anyone experiencing this situation.

HIDDEN SERVICE FUNCTION. !

Press and hold start button for 10 seconds which must re-align codes and allow communication between DDE and CAS and CAR WILL START !

How I wish that I was aware of this function at the start of all my problems.

[BB_cuda]

Originally Posted by turbotel

It would appear according to my independent that my problems were caused by the comfort access draining power.
If this is the case what we have is a situation where a door handle fault(well documented)drained battery causing yellow steering wheel warning with steering and gearbox locked and car effectively immobilised because the cas loses its codes with the DDE.
The rest is history with the car nearing its previous full function.

A useful sub note for anyone experiencing this situation.

HIDDEN SERVICE FUNCTION. !

Press and hold start button for 10 seconds which must re-align codes and allow communication between DDE and CAS and CAR WILL START !

How I wish that I was aware of this function at the start of all my problems.

You can disconnect whichever handle is shorting at the front and temporarily keep going down the road. I have purchased used E90/E70 ones on ebay and also bought them from a friend whose space gray car got totaled out.

I actually changed my rear "normal" handles to comfort access as well but it was lots of work.

[turbotel]

The culprit was comfort access.
A fault with this wrecked two new expensive batteries by fully depleting and loss of a cell.
This created an Avalanche of problems,CAS losing alignment with DDE,Steering locked along with autobox selector.
Thank goodness my independent sorted it for less than I would have been bent over for by my main BMW agent.