XSeries-forum

Right, my XDrive system failed last week, and the garage has claimed it is a battery drain. As i had driven circa 300 miles at the time of the failure, they agreed this couldn't be right.

They than tried to blame the battery drain on the non-bmw tow bar i've had fitted. This has to be bollocks doesn't it

Yeah will have to agree with you, the stealers will try to blame everything else first, battery drain seems to be a common problem according to other forums, some due to faulty batteries or leads. if possible and not in use atm disconnect the tow bar electrics and see how it goes just to prove them wrong.

Smatty, this is not the first time an e70 owner has had battery drain issues and I'm sure not the last. Always very easy for a dealer to blame non-BMW fitted parts first as most seem to be completely unable to sort electrical issues out 1st time around

How can tow bar electrics drain a battery of course I am asuming no trailer was fitted at the time of course.

Did the tow bar fitter use the BMW wiring loom when installing your bar? if so its back in the dealers hands to sort this out or try another dealer

A common problem with the E70.

From my experience the E70s don't seem to like having non factory stuff put on.

My car went back at least half a dozen times with this fault and I kept tellling them it was the BMW approved tracker (RAC Trackstar)

They had it back trying something each time and I insisted it was the tracker.

After demanding that they stopped fucking around and rip it out and put it in another tracker make (which I had on my 535 without problem) the problem all but disappeared. And I think I have seen it once or twice only after that in the depths of winter having used all the electrical items and done small journeys.

I don't think the battery was actually low but it puts the car in to a 'shut-down' state and the welcome lights don't work, the clock looses time etc etc

There is a chap with an E70, don't think he is on here, that put in a heavy duty battery and he claims he hasn't had any problems since

Good luck

PS you don't have the pan roof aswell do you !?