[Treize]

Hey guys,

Last week and today I had a strange electrical problem that I'm wondering if anyone here has experienced. I have a manual transmission 2009 e92 335i that recently had a brand new battery installed (mid August).

I inserted the key fob and pressed the start button once and all lights came on as normal. I usually wait a second or two after this and then press it again with the clutch disengaged to start the car. As soon as I did this (there was no battery warning or anything), the car lost all power. They key is now stuck in the slot...

Most posts I saw were saying it's most likely a loose wire and to try and jiggle some cables behind the fuses in the glove box. Tried my best to reach back there but it's very difficult with big hands.

I figured maybe it's a loose wire in the trunk from when the new battery was installed. Since the power was out, the trunk release inside the car doesn't work. And thanks to the changes for 2009+, there is no key hole to manually open the trunk. Also the rear seats can only be folded down from inside the trunk. So you can't actually access the trunk to check the battery if the battery is potentially dead... great design.

I called CAA and they gave me a boost and everything started working again. I drove the car for a week with no issues since then. Recently I did a long trip (approx 600km each way) and there were absolutely no issues for the duration of the trip. I tried to start the car the next morning at home and bam, same issue again. I'm trying to charge the battery now but it feels rather slow or maybe even stuck.

I'm starting to think it was never the battery that had problems. I was experiencing these issues with the original battery just before getting it replaced.

I'm having the car checked tomorrow and will report back but also hoping to hear from you guys.

Thanks for reading!

[Treize]

Turns out it was a loose connection on the positive terminal when the new battery was installed... ha