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      01-21-2016, 02:17 AM   #1
JohnAG
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Cold Weather Causing Car Alarm to go off

It has been very cold here in South Korea during the past week (low of 8F high of low 20's), and about 3 days ago at the end of the work day my car alarm went off. I scratched my head when I found nothing wrong, and turned it off and it remained off. Then this morning after driving in to work 5 minutes after I arrived, the car alarm went off again, so I turned it off again only to go off again another 5 minutes later. It didn't go off again until during lunch time after driving for about 6 minutes to eat lunch. So I called my dealer and told them of the issue and I was told that it was the cold weather causing the battery voltage to drop after a short ride or when the car has sat for a while which causes the car alarm to go off. So I thought, Really? The low battery voltage causes the alarm to go off? I find that weird, since there was no warning indicators in my dash, which my dealer said it should have. So their recommendation is to have the car run for about an hour to fully charge the battery.

Has anyone else experienced this?
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      01-22-2016, 12:18 AM   #2
JohnAG
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Wow...sounds like my car is some sort of lemon then if I'm the only one experiencing this. I need to figure out how to permanently disable the auto start/stop function as this is not helping the battery issue. I wonder what else will go wrong with this car that is uncommon with others.
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      01-22-2016, 12:23 AM   #3
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Perfectly reasonable for car alarms to go off with falling battery voltage. That's how many car alarms detect whether a door is being opened - when the interior lights come on the battery voltage drops and this triggers the alarm (not saying this is how the alarm in a BMW works).

Tony
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      01-22-2016, 12:36 AM   #4
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Low voltage can cause alot of weird things to happen. My car sat for about 3 weeks in a garage with temperatures hovering just above 0F. The first couple of days driving on start-up I kept getting a low battery charge warning. These cars will start shutting down things (i.e. interior, lights, etc.) once the battery gets below a certain level, you'll get the message in iDrive. After driving for extended periods at least 15 miles one-way over the course of 2 days, the warning went away, even with temps dipping to -4F.
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      01-22-2016, 06:08 AM   #5
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Four years here and no problems with alarm.

My car's coldest nights out have been -27 Celsius, which seem to be -16.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Until this year there was no problems at all. Now I have had "low battery" warning two times, but nothing else.

Of course my car is equipped with winter package from the factory, whatever that means (maybe bigger battery and more heaters, etc.), ""842 COLD CLIMATE VERSION"
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      01-25-2016, 01:19 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brissim View Post
Perfectly reasonable for car alarms to go off with falling battery voltage. That's how many car alarms detect whether a door is being opened - when the interior lights come on the battery voltage drops and this triggers the alarm (not saying this is how the alarm in a BMW works).

Tony
I'm a car mechanic,and the way that the alarms supposed to work is if the contact points on the door switches are activated which completes the circuit to ground, caused by opening the doors that mechanically pushes these pin switches. These switches also activates the interior lights as well as the dash indicator lights. Not by the voltage drops that you suggested as the voltage can be very miniscule especially if the interior lights are manually turned off. I'm not saying that no cars in the world uses the logic you mentioned to activate their alarms (perhaps Chinese or Russian made ones which I'm not seen or had my hands on), but I'm pretty sure BMW doesn't use it. I'm sure it can be done, but it will be like feeding yourself using your right arm wrapped around behind your head to get the food to your mouth on the opposite side.
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      01-25-2016, 01:33 AM   #7
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Perhaps this issue is with 2016 models that are driven in short distances which doesn't allow the battery to be fully charged especially with all of the electrical and electronics running in high. It is also a known fact that cars driven in short distances where the engine or oil temperatures do not reach normal operating temperatures (140 deg F or higher) shortens the engine life because water molecules are not removed through evaporation from the oil when the temperature is too low causing water to accumulate with the oil and breaks down the oil quicker as well as promotes corrosion. This is one reason why I don't normally like living too close to work.

Either that or it's just a by product of a car filled with current hungry electronics that also remains on most of the time even with the engine turned off. With my other car which is also filled with electronics, its battery dies after a few days of extreme cold weather, but it doesn't annoy me with its alarm...so it's good and bad
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      01-25-2016, 01:39 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by car_fan View Post
Low voltage can cause alot of weird things to happen. My car sat for about 3 weeks in a garage with temperatures hovering just above 0F. The first couple of days driving on start-up I kept getting a low battery charge warning. These cars will start shutting down things (i.e. interior, lights, etc.) once the battery gets below a certain level, you'll get the message in iDrive. After driving for extended periods at least 15 miles one-way over the course of 2 days, the warning went away, even with temps dipping to -4F.
This is the weird part is that I don't get any warning in iDrive or anywhere in my dash indicating that my battery voltage is low. I've not experience it right before the alarm goes off, but I don't think there is any low voltage warning anywhere other than the alarm.
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      01-25-2016, 11:17 AM   #9
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John, the simple thing to do is charging your battery. Driving 1-2 hours in cold weather will do you no good- you need 24 hours.
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      01-25-2016, 08:44 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tjalle View Post
John, the simple thing to do is charging your battery. Driving 1-2 hours in cold weather will do you no good- you need 24 hours.
I currently live in an apartment complex and parks overnight at a parking garage which makes putting a trickle charger a challenge. So far taking a long route to work and letting my car run holding the rpms to about 2000 for about 3-5 minutes after I get to work seems to do the trick. Is there a volt meter function in the iDrive, or will this require coding? Perhaps this is a good indicator how long I should run the car before turning it off.
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      01-25-2016, 10:00 PM   #11
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I don't know of a voltmeter function in idrive. I have one which I plug into the lighter socket in the console from time to time. I don't recall where I bought it, but there are many available on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_s...+v%2Caps%2C466
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