BMW I3 | 12v Battery Replacement/Rant
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- čas přidán 25. 02. 2021
- #BMWI3#12vreplacement
Here I change the 12v battery in my BMW I3.
I had to wait three weeks for my battery and maybe that is why I had frustration with getting the I3 to be driveable again once I replaced the battery.
Battery was purchased from Remy. AUX18L is the part number.
I used the Veepeak OBD2 BLE+ bluethooth 4.0 scanner along with Bimmer Link to register my battery.
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Thanks for the video and explanations. I just changed mine, which was almost 8 years on the car :). What I have learned, you do not need to dis-attached the wires from the connector directly attached to the battery. Just unscrew two top bolts, and the job is done.
Exactly the same thing happened with my i3 battery replacement! We just changed it today, with the REX working but not the EV, and we decided to leave it on the charger til morning. Have not registered the battery. Thanks for this video!
Did this work?
Strange, I didn't have anything too wild happen when I replaced my 12V battery, all the craziness was before that when my battery was dying. Once I installed the new one and registered it, everything came up within minutes. One thing I did have in common with you is the first time I plugged it in afterwards, I got the blinking "red ring of death," but after the classic "unplug and replug a bunch of times method" it started working, took maybe 1-2 minutes of sitting there and contemplating itself.
Also yes I installed a different aftermarket battery in mine, it was only $50 vs $200, roughly the same size and same capacity. Model was a Y50-N18L-A3
Changed my 12v battery last weekend. Bought it from Amazon for around $130. Before I started to disconnect the old battery, I hooked up a spare fire alarm 12v battery to the 12v terminals under the rear trunk - there is a YT video on this. Changed outthe12v battery, disconnected the fire alarm battery and everything was fine. No registration needed - because the car never saw a” Zero 12 Volts” condition. My only problem was dropping the hold down bolts while trying to thread them ( big clumsy hands).
Next up is changing out the front pads and rotors.😊
What battery did you buy from Amazon? The Remy?
Cool video :-) good information. thanks for posting
Thank you for tips. This afternoon I'll need to change the 12V, hope it goes smoothly...
I had similar issues to those in this video when I changed my i3 12V battery. I followed the HV battery disconnection procedure when replacing the battery too. Upon reconnection of the battery, when I pressed the Stop/Start button, the iDrive displayed a warning message, something like: "Shifter malfunction. Please drive to nearest BMW workshop". As well as being a very expensive solution to this problem, this was hardly possible when the car would not shift into drive 🤔 I decided to turn off the car and let it rest for a couple of hours (not plugged in to AC). When I returned and started the car all was well and the error had gone. I did need to re-initialize the power steering module by steering from full lock left to full lock right and I did register the new battery with BimmerLink. All has been OK with the car since then, as this was over 18 months ago now.
Hmm. I didn't have to reset any modules. It just had to sit and "find itself " again.
Which as an end user- that can get frustrating if the car decides to die in say a shopping center parking lot.
Wow!! A nightmare come true for you starting when you broke the vent when you pulled the battery out first to remove the + terminal. You dropped a wrench, I dropped a front frunk screw and my language was worse. I just finished a change out of mine in a 2017 BEV, using a fully charged (not trickle) ETX 18l due to AUX 18l nationwide shortages. I had to trim a bit of lead and forfeit the vent which in the airy frunk is hard to justify even having. I replaced mine while it was still running, but displaying a persistent message "battery discharging while stopped". I've come to learn that is an i3 death notice if ignored. I thought it was my HV battery because I didn't know the i3 even had a 12v battery. It was a relief to learn that it did and that it was the battery discharging. All done, I only had to reset time and date...period. I now consider myself very fortunate. My HV battery was also fully charged before I began this project.
However, I have read and read and read and still can't make any real sense out of the BMW i3 battery registration. Does it just change the date or do much more to reset what some call a learned battery charging routine that involves a reset to "new" settings? Your experience scares me to be honest, although I have ordered a standalone Creator 410 OBD2 scanner that is supposed to register BMW batteries without needing a bluetooth connection to a smartphone app. I'll try it but sure hope it doesn't toss me into your world of frustration because I hate being there. It is easy to rant about this simple registration task and I have sort of done the same in Reddit's BMW i3 forum, only 2 days ago and still ongoing at:
www.reddit.com/r/BMWi3/comments/xwe6ng/register_battery_or_not_my_final_thoughts/
I hope your problems are all cleared up now and thanks for (tongue in cheek) an entertaining & informative video.
I never had the "battery drained while stopped message."
I believe the battery registration is to tell the car it's a new battery so it doesn't send as much voltage to charge it as it would for an old battery
“I smell Weed!”😂
Wished I had thought of connecting up another battery while removing the existing 12v. I disconnected and removed mine (12v BMW battery) just to see if there was a date on the battery when it was installed to start thinking about a replacement battery to keep me from getting stranded in the future. The battery was out for maybe 45 min to an hour and was even put on a 12v charger while I cleaned up the terminals etc. Reinstalled the battery and the display showed faults, but it did go into gear and driving it down the road everything / faults cleared up on the dash. Parked the car for two days and then when I went to go drive it, the doors would not unlock and then the alarm went off (very loud high pitch noise). I could do nothing (could not get in the car or open the frunck). The alarm stopped after a minute which seemed like eternity! I’m about to go back out now after it’s been setting overnight and see what happens. FYI….the HV battery was almost fully charged and the 12 volt battery too. Never registered the 12 volt seeing it was the same battery that hadn’t given me a problem before ( was just doing some checking of which I wished I hadn’t done now).
Mine was on the evse for 4 hours before the alarm randomly went off longer then 20 minutes.
At least yours moved right away- mine didn't.
Informative video, im in the looking for an i3 as a second car in the household. Best regards from Sweden.
When our 2014 i3's 12V battery died, the car was 100% dead. So I ordered the Remy battery, it took about 10 days to arrive. I put it on a battery charger overnight to make sure it was full, then I installed it like you did. Car turned on but would not drive, just like you. I tried everything I could find on the Internet and people were telling me I didn't need to register it, etc. I finally ended up having to have the car towed to a BMW dealer who registered the battery for me for the low price of about $200. Oh, and they also scolded me for using an "inferior" Remy battery (Which has lasted as long as the BMW original). The BMW service tech sort of smirked and said, "Why would you do this?" I was so angry and still get angry about this when I think about it.
Thus far in my 4-year ownership of my I3 this right here of the battery dying is the most frustrating part of my experience thus far.
Was the new 12V battery fully charged before you installed it? I've seen that being recommended. Since you had an empty HV battery and maybe also a low 12V battery, I'm not surprised the car is acting strangely. The 12V battery is charged via a DC/DC converter from the HV battery. There is no 12V alternator on the REX. There is although an emergency EVSE-powered AC/DC converter that will charge the 12V battery when a charger is plugged in with 0% HV battery, although without any progress indicator. Excerpt from the BMW University training material (notice the AND in the first sentence):
"It is not possible to operate the vehicle if the high-voltage battery and 12 V battery are not charged.
In order to put the vehicle back into operation, the charging cable for charging the high-voltage battery must be connected. If necessary manually unlock the charging socket cover and connect the charging cable. Emergency charging is started automatically. The charging status is not displayed. The 12 V battery is charged somewhat after a few minutes. The 12 V vehicle electrical system is ready for operation again. The high-voltage system can be started, the high-voltage battery can therefore be charged. The charging status of the high-voltage battery can be displayed again. Continue to charge the vehicle until the state of charge for the desired range is reached.
An additional AC/DC converter is located in the electrical machine electronics (EME) for the emergency charging function. This supplies the electronics of the EME if the 12 V battery is discharged, thus enabling the start-up of the high-voltage system. With an active high-voltage system the 12 V battery is charged using the DC/DC converter in the EME by the high-voltage battery."
Interesting read. I wad unaware of the emergency cost function.
My HV was fully charged as the car was plugged in for four hours before randomly setting of the car alarm.
The new 12v was fully charged as well.
The bloody green thing won't clip back for some reason any tips?
On the subject of “Epic Fail”, my 2016 I3 Rex has 48k miles on it and the little Asian voltmeter that’s part of the USB charger under the dash always read 12.8 to 13.6 volts. But after hearing so many sad tales of woe when this battery dies,I figured that 6+ years was as far as iwas willing to chance it.
Ac button flickers but ac works fine and recently got battery discharging when stationary (after a service was done) so im assuming they did somthing wrong at the service centre ... they confirmed during the service the v 12 battery is good it's 7 years old which is very strange but maybe due to low milage (currently 25,000 miles) it's i3 rex 2016
From what I've read, charging the new battery before installing it makes this process go more smoothly. Three years is typical life of a lead acid car battery in Wisconsin so I just purchased my second replacement. These are pricey. I'm trickle charging it for an eventual install on my '16 REX. The current one was installed in November of '19 so I was going to wait until late summer. But I think a neighbor bumped into my car getting into his and set the alarm off. If any more weird things happen in the mean time, I'm putting the new one in. It and the required tools will be stored in the Frunk in case it happens while I'm out of town or something. Doesn't it seem that these things go when it's snowing, raining, cold, the wind is blowing, during a date, or your on your way to something important? Cheers!
We are so used to batteries coming to us fully charged. But my understanding is that these don't come that way. They need to be charged before installing or you have to wait for the car to do it. And when all of the controlling circuitry is run by the 12 volt system (14 and a half volts typically when the battery is fully charged and functional) those circuits don't work well when their power supply isn't high enough. That explains all of the funky stuff going on until this AGM battery has been brought up to level by the HVB system. I'm not an electrical engineer or trained technician for this car, but I do remember that the REMY battery took quite a bit of current initially when I connected it to the battery charger in 2019 when I was preparing to install it. At the time, I had a second car to use. I hope my trickle charging in advance brings it up to the proper charge. Maybe I'll dig out my voltmeter and see where the voltage is now.
I’m about to change mine tomorrow. Got an oem battery which was expensive. Problem is, the i3 is dead, and has been for over a month now. Plus it’s parked the wrong way on my drive so the charger won’t reach. I am hoping once I change the battery it will give me enough to turn it around so I can charge it! 🤞🏼 Good vid tho, thx 👍
How did you do. If you can't get it to move put a battery charger on the 12 volt, be careful attach the battery charger leads to the battery BEFORE you plug it in. Once it has a little charge you should be able to get it to go into the ready state and be able to move it. I know the Users manual states not to put a battery charger on it, but I had to do it several times before I changed the 12 volt battery on mine, and no adverse affects. I carried a battery charger around for a couple of days in the car LOL. Had to hook it up once at Church as it died during service RED FACE. Now that I have a new battery, 12 volt, all is good love the little car.
@@jameshaney7011 that was good thinking on your part. 👍 I fitted the battery and got in the car, pressed the start button, shut my eyes and held my breath...... then I heard that magical start up chime 😅 The screen showed a few errors to begin with... brake system error etc. I went for a quick drive and it cleared. All good now and no errors (apart from the rear drivers door sensor thinking it’s always open! An error that’s been there for a few months now) I have booked it in to a local bmw specialist to have the battery registered, although the car is behaving perfectly without it? Charges fine, no warnings etc. I agree though ... it’s a cracking little car. I love it.
I too am curious if I can put a larger AGM battery in as a replacement. I want to put in a 24 hr. dash cam as well as run a freezer for a few hours with the car off. I wonder if the registration has the latitude to place a larger Amperage battery. Did you see a drop down menu? Or could one just input the new battery specs? Thanks for the wonderful adventure.
I saw no drop down menu or a way to input specs of a given battery.
Just a place to enter date the battery was changed.
Sorry you had that bad experience. I just swapped in my 2nd replacement battery. BMW did the first one free as it was under warrantee. This one I did myself. Not easy.
Same issue I couldn't wait for the new battery so I just charged the old one and even when it was connected it with the battery tender hooked up (after hours of letting it charge) the HV reported 0% SOC and when I try to connect it to charge HV it's stuck blinking orange not ever starting to charge.
I wish I could let it sit on a EVSE to charge all it wants but it didn't die on my driveway no it had to die when I visiting my sister on her appartment... FML now I gotta figure out how to let it sit with an EVSE hooked up x.x
Mine died four hours after I got home. While it was plugged into the evse.
Oddly enough when the battery died- it Tripped my gcfi breaker...
Drivetrain error and unable to charge errors are still coming up after replacing the 12v battery. We had put it on the charger to make sure it was fully charged after receiving it in the mail (Remy Battery). The windows are not rolling up when the door closes. Feeling pretty frustrated right now. Is it possible that we need to charge the new battery even MORE?!
Once I changed the 12v battery. I just plugged the car into the evse and let it be over night~12 plus hours. The following day all was fine.
Yes it is really frustrating.
Gracias por el video. Es escandaloso que BMW dejará este “caballo de Troya” en forma de avería oculto en este gran coche. Bastante ya es que tengas que llevar el coche a su servicio de mantenimiento por algo tan aparentemente sencillo como cambiar la batería, pero lo que es inaceptable es que no exista una señal de aviso antes de quedarse descargada. Yo tengo un i3 con casi 5 años y es algo que ahora mismo me tiene inquieto, cuando no debería ser así. Es frustrante.
De nada.
Estoy de acuerdo en que la batería de 12v es una falla oculta y un dolor en el trasero con el que lidiar.
Hello, great instructions. Why do you have to register the battery? Thanks
I do not know the real reason.
Some forums claim registering is point less and others say it's so the car knows the age of battery and be able to adjust charging it.
Cuz BMW$
I'm having the exact same issue
It was an absolute nightmare to replace the battery i took it to a bmw “specialist” and he wasnt able to get it running had us both FRUSTRATED i was over the headache had no other option but to hand it over to the dealership... $611 later it seems to be running fine
Changing the 12v is a frustrating experience.
I would hate to replace the high voltage battery pack.
Same experience, minus all the waiting: The battery died, I got all sorts of weird error messages & the alarm went off; I got a new battery the next day, I installed it carefully following instructions, and now... the car doesn't work. The accessories come on, I can put it in neutral and turn off the parking brake, but otherwise zip. And the main battery is fully charged. Frustrating beyond description.
Did you ever get it working? I’m at the same point where I’ve changed the battery out. I did fully charge it first. But it still will not go into READY mode. The cars evse battery is fully charged too
Thanks so much for this video! I just completed my replacement and everything seems ok so far.....keeping fingers crossed.
When I disconnected the vent hose from the old battery, though, the whole vent tube came up. I attached it to the new battery, but it doesn't connect to anything on the car - do you know where it's supposed to connect to? Does it really matter?
Thanks!
I'm not sure if or where the vent hose connects
Vents to atmosphere.
You mean, basically let it dangle?@@phenex551
When you disconnect the 12v battery the car will trigger fault codes when starting back up. To avoid this theres a 12v rail at the back of the car which you can connect a small 12v battery in parallell to, to keep the 12v rail powered while changing the main battery. That way the electronics doesnt lose all information. Do this after charging both batteries, and before connecting second battery, disconnect the high voltage first.
Wished I had thought of doing the same thing connecting up another battery while removing the existing 12v. I disconnected and removed mine (12v BMW battery) to see if there was a date on the battery when it was installed. The battery was out for maybe 45 min to an hour and was even put on a charger while I cleaned up the terminals etc. Reinstalled the battery and the display showed faults, but it did going into gear and driving it down the road everything / faults cleared up on the dash. Parked the car for two days and then when I went to go drive it, the doors would not unlock and then the alarm went off (very loud high pitch noise). I could do nothing (could not get in the car or open the frunck). The alarm stopped after a minute which seemed like eternity! I’m about to go back out now after it setting overnight and see what happens. FYI….the HV battery was almost fully charged and the 12 volt battery too. Never registered the 12 volt seeing it was the same battery that hadn’t given me a problem before ( was just doing some checking of wished I hadn’t done now).
Thanks for the how-to and the rant. My favorite part is where we can hear the wrench fall through and you say "SOB". I laughed at that one.
IMHO, the accessory battery is an EPIC FAIL on this car. No warnings before failure from the car that it is time to change the battery. When it fails you would think the car was about to blow up with the errors it spews. After changing the battery I had to clear over 60 error codes before it would go into ready state. It feels like the ECU implementation was an after thought, bootstrapping what works for ICE vehicles to an EV. At least now I know the symptoms and I will be aware of what I need to do next time.
I would say the 12v is weak point of this vehicle or any ev
I wish evs would do away with 12v altogether.
How did you clear the error codes? I can’t get mine into ready mode after swapping the 12volt
Hopefully in the not-too-distant future, every car's 12-volt battery will be solid state and last the life of the vehicle. I'll be changing my (2017 REx) 12-volt soon after watching lots of videos and reading lots of comments. I'm not sure if it's the original battery I'll be replacing. I bought my i3 used in April 2019, 22 months after it had first been put into service. I'll look for a date on the current battery after I remove it. BTW, I purchased my replacement unbranded AUX18L from Atlantic Battery Systems last week. Price: $145.00 including shipping from North Jersey to Western NY, and I was not charged sales tax. I already have an OBD2 port dongle; I'll just haven't pay the $39.99 to use BimmerLink to register the battery. And I'm going to have a friend with a trickle charger top of the charge on the new battery for me even though I was told the battery was shipped to me fully charged. Hopefully I'll avoid Eco Belkin's post-installation nightmare.
I installed my new battery today! Many thanks to the creator of this video for all of the valuable tips as well as another that taught me how to wrangle the green style high-voltage battery disconnect thingy. Grand total: $189.22 ($145.00 for the battery, $43.19 for BimmerLink activation w/8.0% tax, and $1.03 for a nut and bolt for the battery bracket to replace the one I broke by over-tightening it). Except for the broken bolt, everything went smoothly. I attached a trickle charger to the connection points on the engine, but I don't know if it worked. It's an old trickle charger with no lights, needle or any other indicator of function. When I connected the new battery, I heard electronic beep beep beeps from inside the car, so I'm guessing the charger did nothing. Even so, the ONLY thing I needed to reset was the clock. All of my eight presets were still programmed. Even the date was correct. Registering the new battery with BimmerLink went smoothly. I had checked with BimmerLink with my old battery still installed and it showed a 99% state of charge. The new one, even after having a friend top it off briefly five days ago (apparently it did indeed ship fully charged as promised by Atlantic Battery Systems), showed as 97% charged. I'll check again in a few days after it's had some time to top off from the high-voltage battery. Also of note in the app, there was no indication that the battery had previously been replaced (there is a field that should display the mileage, or rather kilometrage, at the previous replacement; it was blank). The old BMW-branded battery itself has no date on it. I guess it's possible that the original battery of my 2017 i3 which was manufactured in March of 2017 and first registered in June of 2017 still holds a 99% S.O.C. after about six and a half years and just over 49,000 miles on the road, but I'm still glad I changed it so I don't have to worry about getting stuck on the road during the upcoming western New York winter.
I have the same problem today!!! I can find a solution
Na wa o! With all this challenges, how does anyone own a fine car like this in Africa. I'm following the channel because I love the car and I'm planning to buy. Unfortunately, I've not seen any bmw ev expert here, so I'm learning how to mange everything before I buy. What do you think, possible I can manage on my own or dump the idea of the i3 or ev ownership in Nigeria totally? I need advice.
Honestly it comes down to what is available to you in your area. Are parts easy to come by or is shipping going to be a challenge. Also advanced service as well- this is a giant computer and you may need access to Bmwtis software at some point to fix something and that is a $30 usd/day charge.
If the battery is new exact same type AGM, specification on volts, amp hour rating and cold cranking amps a 1st time registration seems like a simple process. If the battery has different amp hour rating and cold cranking amps same voltage i think a parameter change during registration for amp hour and cold cranking amps to set up charging control for these different than stock specification to best charge a different higher rated battery.
Interesting. Wonder what have to change in the code to be able to use a more available battery?
You have to full charge the 12 volt battery for 36 hours before installing. It’s a on / off battery
$300 at dealer - battery + computer setting
More like $611 thats what i was billed lol
New battery from the dealer is $253.00 OEM including cored and the car reprogramming by self n a cuplé of days .