Loss of all power mid-drive

[jtran14]

Question folks,

I've got a '10 30i with about 30k miles on it, and its been at bmw for 5 days now due to loss of all electric power mid-drive, twice (pretty scary in mid traffic). I took it to them a few months back due to our recall, so I'm suprised its doing this post-recall fix. The service center is still trying to diagnose it, but I'm getting a little nervous since I only have about 6 months of warranty left and its already been serviced twice for brake squeal. My question is if anyone else has experienced this and what would you do in this situation? Its already paid off and I don't want to be stuck with a problem child after my warranty ends. Thanks in advance!

[BMWZ4RIDER]

If you are going to keep it, the BMW Extended Protections Plans are worth checking out adding 3 more years or upto 70K or 100K mikes. Cheap coverage and cost insurance IF you have to use it.

[nicknaz]

Total power loss could have resulted in a bad accident...

Call up BMWNA let them know of the situation and recall + repair attempts and see if they will help you out with an extended warranty or a really great trade in value to get into another car.

I personally wouldn't keep the car without warranty since electrical gremlins tend to consume a lot of time and money to find and fix

[jtran14]

Thanks for the suggestions, Im looking into it now now and I'm hoping to get my baby back soon! This 328i loaner just isn't doing it for me...

[vasmir]

Yeah could be lots of things... unfortunately electrical issues are sometimes the hardest to diagnose.
My last car had a faulty cam shaft sensor that died in exactly the same way; the car would just shut off randomly. It was a few years ago, but I remember it being a couple hundred $$ to fix.
Hopefully they can trace it down to one specific thing. Good luck, let us know.

[mikeinaustin]

Did you lose electrical power or did the engine stall causing loss of power? If the engine stalled, there is a known issue with the engine management software. This was fixed by Bmw in 2010. There is a tsb about this. As you know, random engine stalls could cause loss of life. Bmw should have issued a safety recall but did not. Also the stall did not through any fault codes and that made diagnosing much harder. The hotter the weather, the more likely the chance. Also, sport mode made things much worse.

[jtran14]

I lost electrical power, coasted a short time (1-2 secs), power came back on, stopped the car in traffic, started up the engine again and turned home. I had a full tank on smooth straight road driving in normal mode. Still no new updates, but they did tell me that they saw the fault codes on when it happened, but can't reproduce it. It's been six day now...

[ManiacGT]

So you've had the power cable recall done already?

[jtran14]

Yes, I took care of that a few months back

[CedarZ4]

Originally Posted by ManiacGT

So you've had the power cable recall done already?

Kind of off-topic but no point in creating a new thread since it's not that big of a deal... What exactly did that recall change? Because when I brought in my car for the recall, when my car came back it was missing the red cover for the battery terminal... now it's just exposed. Did the recall have anything to do with that area?

[jtran14]

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013...cable-problem/

[bmwmick]

Originally Posted by CedarZ4

Kind of off-topic but no point in creating a new thread since it's not that big of a deal... What exactly did that recall change? Because when I brought in my car for the recall, when my car came back it was missing the red cover for the battery terminal... now it's just exposed. Did the recall have anything to do with that area?

No,

The recall pertains to the large red insulated positive cable that feeds 12V to the fuse panel in the passenger footwell. From looking at ours, it appears that they simply cut that cable and add about an 8" section with a new connector on it to the fuse panel. They cover the splice with black heat shrink tubing that can be seen when you remove the trim panel hiding the fuse panel. It IS possible that they disconnected the battery during the recall work but it's not mandatory. They would most likely disconnect the negative cable and not the positive (much safer).

Mick

[jtran14]

So, I finally got my car back and they said it required a dme reprogramming. They didn't really give me details so I guess I'll just have to trust them and hope the gremlin's gone.

Side note, just replaced my rear rft's with Michelin pilot sport A/S 3 and the ride quality is already so much better!

[ManiacGT]

Glad it's sorted. Are the michelins also RFTs or non RFTs?

[jtran14]

Non rft, I have a mobility kit now along with the michelin promise plan. Here's a little bit more info on the tires if you're interested:

http://www.topspeed.com/cars/car-new...-ar158814.html