Electrical issue / CCC?

[paulbryson75]

Please help! (2007 e70)
Yesterday driving along, satnav / Idrive screen went off and radio went off. Stopped car, went into a friends for a few hours back out and all appeared ok. Driving home sat nav went off, radio went off?
This morning went to start the car, low battery alarm but started ok? No sat nav, no pdc, no radio no chimes or seatbelt alarm and sos failure?
One weird thing that I noticed this evening when trying to fault find is the red back light behind the radio controls stays illuminated- even when car shut down (assume why I had low battery this morning?) ie the radio buttons all look on, even when Car is shut down and sleeping.
Any ideas - forum search / google showing CCC failure - or TCU ? Neither very good news!
No one seems to mention the red back light remaining on indefinitely though?
Any ideas greatfully recieved.

[Leslie]

These cars tend to turn things off to save electric when they senses a problem with charging or the battery . Id meter the battery voltage while its off and with the engine running to see if its actually charging and see if there is a date on it while you are in there as it may be very old and about to fail now its got a bit colder.
The intelligent battery sensor lead was the cause of a lot of issues like this in the past too

[paulbryson75]

Leslie - I did that too, battery seemed ok though did ‘dip’ a bit at start up down to 10ish V - upto 14.9/15v when running and 14.4v when revved. My initial thought was battery or alt but all a bit weird - particularly the red light / back light remaining on the radio module

[X5Sport]

Check the battery 4 hours after last use. Use the under bonnet points to work from. Best thing to do is pop the bonnet and then lock the car and walk away. The time delay means that the car is asleep and any stray charges from the alternator have settled. Don’t unlock anything before checking the voltage as these cars have significant power draw when awake. The battery should show better than 12.2V, ideally around 12.6V. Anything below 12V means a dying battery is likely.

Most car batteries last up to 6 years. Beyond that you are doing well. Cold weather will always find a bad battery

[paulbryson75]

Thanks x5sport - will try that tomorrow. Suspect though with the radio module being on though I may have a flat? Surely it is drawing on my battery

[X5Sport]

Not seen that in mine. It does sound as if something is staying awake. Will it turn off at all? If not then it’s going to be a fuse hunt! You could try disconnecting the battery for 20 mins and see if that ‘resets’ something.

[paulbryson75]

Update on this - currently at the local BMW independent who have diagnosed the CCC as failed. Options are to have repaired or replace with a new unit that needs coded. Neither option is cheap

[Leslie]

Can you not get a used one ? I was looking for a satnav drive as mine wont read discs and a repair was £180 plus post but a brand new genuine one was only £230 so a repair was hardly a bargain as it would still be 10 years old !

[paulbryson75]

Leslie - the new price of the CCC unit was well over 900 + vat + potential issues with having to go to dealer to code once fitted.
Second hand units are not an option apparently- these are individually coded to the car.
I’ve done a lot of research over the past couple of days, it’s the idrive / sat nav / audio brain for the whole car - not an uncommon failure either according to my research.

[Leslie]

Ouch that's a lot , I think the satnav drive is just plug and play but the other bits could well need coding but I'm sure a good specialist code recode a secondhand unit if needed but then you are buying 10 year old stuff too so it really needs to be cheap to take a gamble on it.