Quote:
Originally Posted by DoubleF
Question: is there a specific point you'd recommend replacing a battery no matter what?
I have a battery in my BMW that I've been led to believe is more than a decade old. It seemingly still works fine, but should I replace it anyways due to age?
When I bought the car 3 years ago, I was told the battery was original to the car and still working fine. I've questioned whether the battery was indeed fine due solely to age. I had 3 shops independently say the battery was fine and didn't need replacing. I still don't fully believe them, so I just trickle charge it before a cold snap and idle vs turn off for super short trips when it's cold. I always get battery discharge warnings when it's cooler than -20C ish, but nothing that seems alarming and it always goes away when it warms up.
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All you can really do is have someone test it and see what the CCA's are at, typically BMW batteries are quite large and in the 750-900 CCA range. If its testing under 500 maybe not a bad idea to replace it preventatively but as long as its not sitting in the cold too long may be fine.
Battery discharge Message is very common these days with just so many energy consumers in cars and how they are used.
We all get in turn on the heated seats, radio, heater, etc etc, drive for 2 minutes, stop at a light and the engine start stop kicks in, so now the engine is off and things aren't charging but all the stuff is still on, we get to the store 12 minutes away and shut it down again come back out and start the cycle all over again. The battery just doesn't get any time to recover.
trickle charger or simply just a good long 30-45 minute drive with start/stop off once a week this time of year is likely the best thing you can do for your battery.