X5 diesel fails to start

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Huw - 15 Apr 2004 23:55 GMT

After being parked at a railway station for 48 hours, my wife and
friend returned to it and..... nothing. Battery completely dead.
The recovery driver tried to charge the battery for twenty minutes and
then to jump start it. It would not crank. Recovered to home last
night and onwards to the dealer this morning by different recovery
truck. Driver mentioned that the X5 is particularly prone to this
problem and he once recovered two such vehicles from a small village
in the same day.
What is the problem? Is it the battery or is it some other component
failure?

As an aside he said that the most common marque of vehicle carried was
Land Rover. This is no surprise, especially here, where every fifth
car seen in Winter months is a Land Rover/Range Rover.

Huw

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Mark C. - 17 Apr 2004 13:03 GMT

get BMW to check it out - my mates dads beemer kept going flat and it was a
faulty component that kept 'waking up' the ecu and used excessive current
and drained the battery! If it where mine i would get an ammeter on it
and make sure the ecu is going to sleep. esp as you say it was at
a train station - electrical interference can 'jam' the frequency on which
your remote alarm fob works and keep the ECU awake - i have heard of this
quite a few times. if i find a site with it on then i will post.

HTH!

MC.

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> After being parked at a railway station for 48 hours, my wife and
> friend returned to it and..... nothing. Battery completely dead.
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.572 / Virus Database: 362 - Release Date: 27/01/04

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Mark C. - 17 Apr 2004 13:08 GMT

This is on the range rover but it will prob set you in the right
direction......
http://www.cunningham.me.uk/rangie/becm-sleep.php
http://www.cunningham.me.uk/rangie/battery-drain.php

BeCM is the ECU just incase you are wondering.

> --------
>
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
> > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> > Version: 6.0.572 / Virus Database: 362 - Release Date: 27/01/04

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Huw - 17 Apr 2004 21:13 GMT

> This is on the range rover but it will prob set you in the right
> direction......
> http://www.cunningham.me.uk/rangie/becm-sleep.php
> http://www.cunningham.me.uk/rangie/battery-drain.php
>
> BeCM is the ECU just incase you are wondering.

Thank you very much. I will check it out tomorrow [Sunday].

The car is now back. The dealer said the battery was flat, as if I
didn't know this already.
They may have done something else to it but would not disclose what,
if anything. It certainly seems to be a common complaint.
While there and at my request, they changed a lazy seatbelt, a
defective indicator bulb and a defective rear upper tailgate light
unit which kept falling out of its hole until I used some Velcro on
it. Apart from defective front tracking, this is a full list of faults
found in the first 13 months.

Huw

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