So here's a fun rabbit hole: my auto stop/start got weird, and then... you already know, rabbit hole leads to "time to replace that battery." But the rabbit hole keeps going.

This is all for a MY2017 F56 S (Mini Cooper S).

1. BimmerLink's "Mileage last battery replacement" displays "77,520,000 m". Now if that's miles, yeah no. If that's meters, that translates to 34K fewer miles than the car had when I bought it.
2. I've been using BimmerLink for almost a year now and that number has never changed. I'm guessing it is some weird translation of "there is no value stored in the car for the last battery replacement" -- which would be normal if the original battery is in the car.
3. Took car to Shop X and they said the WWYY (2-digit week, 2 digit year) date on the battery was "3816," aka week of Sep 19-25 2016, which is right around the car's manufacture date (based on VIN) of Oct 21 2016.
4. Popped the hood myself just now and found a big round "9/19" sticker on the battery (which is a genuine BMW, part no 61 21 2 353 813), and "2919" literally etched into the metal of the negative battery post (not the terminal attached to the battery, the actual post of the battery itself). 2919 translates to the week of July 16-22, 2019.

So I'm thinking:

1. My "Shop X" pulled the "3816" date they communicated to me straight from the car's computer -- you don't just make up dates, and frankly, it's a decent shop with a strong reputation (the miss of the actual battery label and etched-in date on the post bugs me, but I can see it happening; people make mistakes).
2. If the previous owner got this clearly 2019-vintage battery but the then-installer didn't register it, I would totally expect the car's computer to show an install date corresponding to the prior battery (in this case, original off the assembly line). Or no date at all.
3. BimmerLink's weird "Mileage last battery replacement" value of "77,520,000 m" probably also translates as "never been replaced". Can't prove that, but it's a hunch.
4. All this adds up to the battery not being registered in 2019.

So my question is: is there any value to registering the existing battery properly at this point? Or should I just say heck with it and buy a nice shiny (and expensive, ouch) new battery (and register it, of course)?

Thx for any input. Kind of an edge case, maybe, but would love some technical insights for curiosity's sake if nothing else. I've been watching SoC and other battery readings on the car in real-time and what I see doesn't look like a dying battery... but it might well be given that it was never properly registered to be properly charged 3 years ago. And no matter what, the auto stop/start pretty much deciding to not work anymore means something is up -- I just don't know whether it's the battery, or what the computer *thinks* of the battery, or both.

 

Just for ***** and giggles, register the used battery today as new.
See if that allows the auto start stop to function again.
It might cost you a battery sooner that later, but you'll have your answer.
The battery is 3+ years old, thats about the life of a battery in a MINI!!
The computer relies on the state of charge reporting to allow start stop.

 

More to come but figured out two things after I finally got all my info straight:

• "77,520,000 m" in Bimmerlink is definitely meters, not miles. So the 2019 battery was registered, at approximately 48,169 miles, by the prior/first owner.
• Battery's voltage is decent and SoC is good, but SoH is the pits. I picked up a battery tester that revealed this.

Currently using the same tool to try to recondition the battery. Not expecting much but it's one of the tool's capabilities (on a battery that can be reconditioned successfully, anyway). Even if the tool is successful I expect to replace the battery -- disconnecting and reconnecting this thing form the car to jab at it electrically is a royal pain

 

Replacing a battery is one of the cheapest expensive things you can do -- so much easier than getting stuck with a dead battery, which always happens at the least convenient time, on the darkest, coldest night, in the worst part of town. There's some law of physics about this, discovered, I believe, by engineers at Lucas Electric

Very interested to learn how this all resolves.

 

Lucas electric= Murphys law

 

Well, here’s the detail. When I first tested the battery it had an SoC of 98%, voltage at 12.81, resistance at 10.44 megohms, and a clearly horrid SoH of 29%.

Did some (inadvertently short) passes with the repair option, let the 3rd run to automatic completion and ended with SoC 98%, voltage at 13.02, resistance at 9.51 megohms (note this is after a bounce off a floor of 9.27 after one of those short runs), and a slightly less horrid SoH of 32%.

Put it on a fourth repair run, which again ran to automatic completion, stats in pic below. SoC 98%, voltage 13.23, resistance 9.42 megohms, and a SoH of 33%.

33% is the highest SoH the battery ever got to, across all repair runs.

This is definitely an interesting exercise, and I’m hooking the car back up to the battery temporarily — but new battery is on order, will be here in 3-4 days. In the meantime, keeping use of the car dead minimal and may or may not put my 800mA tiny tiny trickle charger on it, depending on behavior and readings I observe dynamically.

I will say this: I wish I had had this tool sooner. I totally intend to use this tester in a preventative context in the future, and not just on the MINI.

Oh -- regarding Shop X telling me the battery was original: no clue. If BimmerLink knows the battery was replaced (despite giving a pretty non-intuitive read of when), the car knows, and if the car knows and the date literally etched into the battery clearly document that it literally didn't physically exist until 2019 -- I have no idea where they got that "3816" battery install date from.

@2017All4 , I'm with you for sure. I was happy to jab at this thing to see what I could get out of it, but reliability is everything and I have seen more than my fair share of batteries go spontaneokaput. I'll experiment with this one more AFTER I have put the new one in the F56S.

 

If Lucas manufactured firearms, wars would never start!

 

Damn metric system!!

 

I totally expected that if the thing was simply going to play metric it would have used kilometers instead of meters -- using meters instead of miles is kind of like using inches instead of feet for building heights

 

Born and raised in Europe, we never used
decimals as in 17.5 meters, it was 1750 centimeters. I can see the logic.

 

Wow, didn't know that -- the whole thing makes sense now! Thank you -- this is useful!

 

Latest update, as I wait for the replacement battery to arrive. Took the car out for a regular-use drive or two or three. Last night I had to replace a tire so ended up doing a couple of unexpected manual stop/starts — pulled the car into the garage, stopped, then decided to work on it outside instead.

On one of those “get it outside” restarts, I had no power steering assist.

I figured it was just crappy handling due to the tire. Nope. Took the car out to the gas station today. All good getting there. Refueled. Started. No power steering assist. Risked a manual stop/start. No change. Again. No change.

And interestingly, no codes or seemingly related errors that I could find in BimmerLink — though it is complaining about TPS (my spare is full size but has no TPS sensor, so this is normal, but has never caused a power steering fail before).

Since the PS is electric my money is on this battery being “wobbly” vs “dead.”

Took the Mini home (I was maybe 6 miles away). It’s staying unused but on the 800mA charger until new battery arrives Saturday.

 

Seems that almost all mini electrical gremlins come from a low/dead battery. I hope that corrects yours.

 

Well, I had this giant writeup of what I did and the web browser ate it. Fun.

Redux version:

• Confirmed BimmerLink's report of mileage at last battery replacement is in meters. I did register the new battery myself.
  • The BimmerLink report of "mileage" upon my registration, upon running it through meters to miles conversion, did match the odometer.
  • This also tells me the prior reading of "mileage" in BimmerLink was accurate -- the old battery was in fact registered. It just barely made it 3 years before requiring replacement.
• Got an
  ACDelco Gold 94R AGM
  ACDelco Gold 94R AGM
  from Amazon.
  • size 94R, equivalent to the BMW-brand which is an H7
  • 850 CCA instead of the 800 CCA of the BMW-branded battery
  • $170 on Amazon instead of $220+ for anything else I could find
  • 3 year warranty
• Auto start/stop function is restored, but can't use it as a practical matter.
  • When it shuts the engine down, it immediately kicks the engine back on (within less than a second) and I have no power steering assist, an issue that looks exactly like what is in this TSB (right down to the stack of error codes in the TSB)
  • The lack of power assist will eventually "go away" if I:
    • Leave the car turned off for long enough (still figuring out "long enough") or;
    • I clear its error and info codes.
    • Start the car after one of the above.
  • There are never any permanent codes stored, no matter how long I leave the error/info ones stored.
  • When the engine comes back on it throws a "Driving stabilization" warning on the iDrive display.
  • The "Driving stabilization" warning first came up on the drive home from getting the car's software updated -- BEFORE the battery replacement.
  • There are other situations, without auto start/stop usage, that cause the same loss of power steering assist on next-start but do not throw the "Driving stabilization" warning (some throw other warnings at the problem start) -- still figuring out what those situations are, exactly. But the net result is the same -- no power steering assist.
  • I suspect the power steering assist issue is NOT related to the battery, but is instead some intersection of the software update and whatever the TSB is pinpointing -- again, whenever the power steering assist goes away, I get almost all the stack of error codes in the TSB (and there are a lot of them).

Solid recommend to folks to get a unit like the -- battery tester (including charging testing and load testing), repair/recondition/desulfator, charger.

• Certain functions can only be done when the battery is not electrically connected to the car (don't lie to it about this unless you want to break your car or your battery or maybe yourself -- you don't want a battery exploding in your face).
• I tried the repair function on the old battery, which had a 98% State of Charge (SoC) but only a 29% State of Health (SoH) and over 10 meghoms resistance. The function seemed to slowly lift the SoH but it topped out at 33%. I'll continue to experiment but the old battery isn't going back in the car barring a miracle.
• Clearly the SoH is what was at issue. On arrival (before install) the new battery, which had a March 2020 date code on it, had 95% SoC but most notably 100% SoH.

So that's that. Once I get the software question figured out I will report back as to whether it was the software or the battery I got that causes the engine to immediately restart after it auto-stops. With a March 2020 date on the battery, who knows what the voltage dip is that the computer is seeing.

 

I'm on my 2nd new Mini, a convert that was killed by a texting driver that escaped, the second I'm driving now. I also had two of the Brit family cars with the Mini drivetrain. Here's my question. I am a caretaker of a freinds 2010 Turbo, and then there is my 2013 basic. Both need batteries. My dealer (who is 45 miles away and I have zero trust in. Took my convert in for the top recall, got it back with the top not working at all and a $400 bill) tells me I can't just change the battery, that the computer has to be reprogrammed when the battery is changed. So, what happens if I just change the battery?

 

"Reprogram" is a big word and I suppose technically accurate in a sense, but what the dealer means is that the new battery has to be "registered" to the car. Which pretty much boils down to kicking off a programmatical process that says "hey, car, you have a new battery, throw out how you've been managing charging the battery based on the old battery, and start learning about this new one."

Basically, the charging management for the battery is computer-controlled, learning and adjusting charging in real time based on how the battery responds to charging (and on how its voltage and output rise and fall under use, among maybe other things). On BMWs and MINIs this tech is called "IBS" (Intelligent Battery Sensor). As the battery is affected by age and wear (heat! cold! other!) how the battery responds changes, and the IBS tech changes how the car charges the battery (and is involved with some other things, like the automatic start/stop feature in the F series aka third-gen MINI Coopers).

If you just physically swap in a new battery and don't tell the car it's a new battery, IBS applies its previously-learned interaction tactical -- which it learned from the old battery right on up to its chargeability limits "at the end" -- to the battery you just swapped in. Not great for the life of that new battery, not great for efficient use of it either. So, net, registration is effectively the reset/start learning again button. Or at least that's how I understand it. And it makes sense, if you know some tech about batteries.

Also, one of the inputs is the Ah (amp hours) rating of the battery. If the new battery has a different Ah rating -- which is a measure of capacity -- the car needs to know. Bigger Ah means the battery will provide power longer under a given scenario. Lower Ah means it will provide power for a shorter timeframe in that same scenario. So, to start making assumptions dynamically about how long the battery will last, IBS needs to know that rating. If you change Ah sizes you have to "code the car" or "code the battery", but what that means in plain English is "tell the car the new battery's Ah rating." You would do this at the same time as you register the new battery as previously described.

So on an F series car (my F56, for example) this is easy for a car owner to do with tools like BimmerLink and BimmerCode. Both apps go on your phone, you pay for them, you buy a Bluetooth OBDII adapter that lets the apps talk to your car. Off you go. The dealer can do the same thing with their tools, and they're probably using a full computer setup with a cabled (vs wireless/Bluetooth) OBDII connector, for all kinds of good reasons. But the net is the same: if the battery Ah capacity has changed, tell the car the new Ah capacity to presume and use in its battery-management activities. And then, whether the Ah capacity has changed or not, register the battery (tell the car it has a new battery, so it doesn't electrically manage the new one like the old one and screw it up over time).

2010 and 2013 MINIs are presumably R-series (2010 is for sure). Doing these operations is needed on those as well, and is the same in principle. But if I recall it may not be as simple as downloading a couple of apps in an App Store and plugging in a Bluetooth duhickey and tapping on your phone screen. Others may be able to chime in on that.

PS anyone reading this who knows more than me, if I've incorrectly explained something in this post, please feel free to offer correction.

 

+1 it just controls the limit of charge over time. It helps with the life of the battery.

I had my battery reset on my R58 with the schwaben scan tool. The battery on my old R52 gen 1 (non reset system) seem to last a lot longer then the Gen 2 MINI. I had one last 8 years. I am on my 3rd battery on my gen 2. The first battery was dead when i bought it. The dealer did not care and that's why they thought it had issues(cheap price). When the gen 2 MINIs sits for a long time without trickle charger they seem to die, but my MINI was loaded and has NAV and alarm that seems to drain the battery when it sets. I feel a sitting Gen2 and Gen3 MINI has a greater chance of going through batteries without trickle chargers.

 

My R56S was far too easy to battery run-down IMO -- observations similar to yours. My F56S is going through, well, this thread and the alternator thread at the ripe old age of 6 years and 1.5 months. So also observations similar to yours.

As I dig deeper into my F56S and posts (this forum and others) about various specific electrical components going wacko or failing outright (these F56 alternators don't seem to last long -- I've seen failures reported at 51K and 75K miles), my take is that the alternator is either undersized or not great spec -- or at least that's the case out as far as my October 2016-produced MY 2017 vehicle -- and given that these are Denso alternators, generally good stuff, I would say most likely undersized and therefore being operated at their limits (with predictable effect).

I did find that the current Genuine BMW/MINI alternator specified for my car, superseding prior part numbers, is a 180A while -- very much to my surprise, didn't see this coming -- what is *in* my car is a 150A (original alternator, not DIYed out/etc). I won't say that backs up my theory, but it certainly supports the idea that someone at BMW found some specific reason to bump the amperage.

Even though I'm rebuilding my alternator next week rather than replacing it, that's a cost management issue -- $59 to try to banish the weirds of my F56S posthaste is just a smart thing to do. But at some point in the future I'm going to upgrade to at least the 180A alternator, whether Genuine BMW/MINI or from Maniac Electric Motors (see the alternator thread for my backstory there).

 

I am having the exact same issue on my 2017 F60.

After stopping the engine and starting back the power steering assistance is dead. I also noticed the rear camera does not work (although the parking sensors work).

I replaced the battery myself, and it seemed to resolve the issue for a brief amount of time, but it has since returned.

Interested to know if this is SW related, alternator, or something else.

Let me know if there is any info I can provide from my vehicle to help out.

 

Hey there -- sorry to hear you are having the same or similar issues, but I have a friend with a 2019 F56S who is having similar battery weird. Guess out of the gate is that this boils down to the alternator going bad and/or being undersized. Still doing diag on that point -- waiting for parts to come in -- but that's the short version, which is still work in progress. But if I'm right about the alternator being undersized it would explain a lot of things out there, including my issue, my friend's issue, and yours.

The software involvement/variable is interesting -- here's what I think is going on in my 2017 F56S.

1. Theory: the 2022 software is a bit more sensitive to communication (between computer modules in the car) cut-outs than the software it had prior. This would explain why I had no loss of power steering assist until the software update, despite having a battery that was definitely in need of replacement (almost certainly due to alternator failing to keep up with charging and vehicle loads).
   
2. Under the prior software in my car (2017 -- which was not original, the original was 2016 but the car had been updated at some point by its first owner) there were pretty much zero electrical glitches as the battery got worn down more and more. The earliest clear (but not to me as I was new to the car) sign of battery trouble was that the auto start/stop kicked in less and less over the course of maybe 1-2 months.
   
3. With the new battery and no alternator repair/replace, the auto start/stop will stop the engine but then the car *usually* (98%+ of the time) kicks the engine right back on again, presumably because the battery voltage (courtesy of undercharging by alternator) dipped too low. Upon restart the power steering is usually gone as well.
   
4. Really important: if you stop the car after it has lost power steering (doesn't matter when -- 5 seconds after or 5 hours or you get the idea), and THEN let the car go completely to sleep -- meaning the hazard button, the "P" on the shifter, and any and all other lights in the car go out completely -- in the subsequent start of the engine (given your new battery) the power steering should be back. If the car does NOT go completely to sleep, the return of power steering is a coin toss, but if the car DOES go completely to sleep, you'll get the power steering back.
   
5. It is possible to force the power steering back into play by:
   • Clear all Error codes
   • Clear all Info codes
   • Turn car completely off
   • On next engine start you should have power steering.
     
6. The voltage drop resulting from battery undercharging causes multiple systems to lose proper communication and signaling all at once at engine start. So when you look at error and info codes (there are never any permanent codes, btw), there's a stack of all manner of "I am not happy I am really not happy look over there that isn't happy either" stuff, but it is all the result of comm fail that is itself the result of loss of voltage needed to produce the comms. Basic electrical/computer 101: insufficient power = computers get weird/can't talk/etc.

So two questions for you:

1. Have you ever used BimmerLink? If you have, figuring out whether you have the same thing going on as I should be pretty easy. If not, and you get set up with it, then it will also be pretty easy to figure out.
2. Can you get a photo of the label on your alternator? No need to share the photo here, just need to know what's on the label -- you either have a 14V150A alternator (150 amps) or a 14V180A alternator (180 amps). I'd bet a slice of pizza you have a 150 amp alternator under your hood...

 

Just took a look and it’s the 150 amp alternator.

I’ve pulled logs with bimmercode and even ISTA+ and there’s never anything permanent, just obscure sounding warnings and some mentions of low voltages.

My experience has been exactly the same as yours. Let the car “sleep” and restart and the power steering comes back.

Most typically for me it happens when I start the car (power steering working) then drive a few miles down the road, turn off to get gas, then restart the car and power steering is gone.

Is the short drive not allowing enough time for the alternator to recharge the battery? It’s even happened after an hour long drive, but less often.

 

Yeah, sounds like we're dealing with the same thing:

• In the error and info logs, low voltages, comm fails, and sensor values that are unacceptable are all tangled up in it. Basic root is momentary loss of minimum voltages needed for various bits of electronic sensors and comms, brought on by starting the engine.
• Short trips tend to kick it off more than longer ones. The quick run to the gas station or store is almost always good for setting it off.

Here are some other characteristics:

• Definitely load-correlated. Shut off as many accessories as possible and see how your experience changes. Probably won't benefit the shorter drives, but you might be surprised how it mitigates the problem appearing after longer ones.
• Happens more in Green driving mode. I've been watching voltage and amperage values in BimmerLink while driving and in Green/ECO mode there seems to be less charging going on. Not sure why that is. But if you are using Green mode, start using MID/Normal mode instead and see how things change.
• Do NOT use auto start/stop (unless you are doing so for diagnostic purposes). If you are using auto start/stop on a regular basis (guessing not but here's the spiel anyway), stop using it and see how things change.

But yeah, short version, short trip is too short for the alternator to bring the battery up from the engine crank at start of the trip. Which should not be normal. With that in mind here are the scenarios I'm trying to work my way through.

• Voltage regulator in the alternator is shot.
  • I have this documented pretty well, and have a regulator on order.
    • While driving I'm seeing voltages as low as 12.5 and as high as 14.9. 14.5 should be the top; anything higher on the regular and something is definitely wrong. It also shouldn't be hanging in the mid-12s while the engine is running.
    • It does two weird things. (1) bounces up and down as it pleases -- not a little bit, we're talking wild swings. (2) goes unresponsive to revving the engine. Giving it some gas should make the voltage kick up and then settle. Even if it only kicks up a little. I'm seeing it -- routinely -- sit in the 12.5 zone, you give it gas, nothing happens, and then whenever it wants to it suddenly hops up to 13.x or 14.x and plays nice and then... you get the idea. And the whole time the battery voltage is not exactly where it should be for an AGM battery with automatic stop/start duties.
• Brushes in the alternator are shot.
  • Since the regulator is clearly not regulating well, my guess is the brushes are not THE issue, but given that the whole setup is looking suspect, brushes are a wear item, and overworn brushes can contribute to this sort of thing, I have these on order too.
• The alternator is undersized.
  • If you go get a new genuine BMW/MINI alternator now, it's a Denso 180A unit. What is in my 2017 F56S (original alternator), and in my friend's 2019 F56S (original alternator), and I suspect in yours (can you confirm via the sticker?) is a Denso 150A unit.
  • The upsize on BMW's part could be for a lot of different reasons.
    • BUT the most obvious reason would be that the 150A is too small, which would lead to undercharging and MINIs eating batteries (which they have a rep for doing and have done to me and my friend), as well as other electrical weird (like you and I are having).

Worth noting that there is a TSB about intermittent loss of power steering. Consulting it will get you a run of the related codes, they'll correspond to what you've seen (I get the full list except one when the power steering assist goes out).

• But the net takeaway is "update the software and then run diags." If that yields nothing you can expect a shop to start talking about replacing the steering rack, which is not a reach because this is a "thing" on certain BMW-branded cars (in at least the case of 2 models there is/was a recall).
• I don't think the steering rack OR the software is your, my or my friend's actual problem. I think the alternator is undersized and/or has had enough (maybe due to being undersized), needs repair to get to pseudonormal, and if it is a 150A alternator frankly needs swap-out to a bigger unit (like the 180A one). The software may change how things respond to that situation but in the end, lack of required electrical power is lack of required electrical power, and any computerized component is going to get weird first rather than simply conking out wholesale. In fact, the issue with your power steering assist going out isn't that it's dying. It's that cross-checks at engine starts (certain starts, driven by conditions blah blah) involving EPS (Electronic Power Steering) fail, and since they fail, the system says "EPS doesn't look right turn that thing off" and then... turns that thing off (until the codes are cleared either manually or a self-test passing or whatever letting the car go to sleep does).

VERY much interested in what your alternator label says...

 

My alternator label says Denso 14V150A.

 

Ok - based on that I'd say we're in the same boat.

Voltage regulator is supposed to arrive today. Alternator brushes are late and somewhere "in the network" (thanks USPS). When I have both parts in hand I'm yanking the alternator and doing the regulator and brush swap.

 

Update - regulator is in-hand, just waiting for the brushes now.