Start/Stop button slowly flashes orange

[morganrg]

Hi,

My 2.5 year old BMW i3 has just started showing the following symptoms when locked (or unlocked)

-Start/Stop button slowly (once per second) flashes orange - in a slow brighter/fade manner.
-the park brake light in on
- the warning triangle is on

There are no warning messages on the app nor on the display - and the car starts and drives just fine.

It is a little cold (-2c) outside but its been colder.

Any ideas?

 

[alohart]

The Owner's Manual includes descriptions of the start/stop button lighting:

Lighting pulses orange
▷ After unlocking and opening the door.
▷ After switching off drive-ready state.
When the brake pedal is depressed, the lighting becomes more intense.

Various interior lights turn on and off for reasons that I don't usually understand. I suppose their behavior means something, but the Owner's Manual isn't very description and information can be difficult to find.

 

[EvanstonI3]

You seem to have only just noticed these "symptoms". My 2017 BEV does this. I just checked it.
This is perfectly normal because once you unlock the car, or lock the car or just close the doors and walk away, the car remains in "Accessory Mode" for about 10-15 minutes. This keeps the 12v power ports energized as well. After that time period it times out and all those lamps you see "on" will go "off".

 

[Lars]

Did you find any fix?

My 2017 ev also has this behavior. Started couple of weeks ago. It’s also “updates” every 4-6 hours by its own in the app. It has never done that before. Just when I locked the car. Also noticed this drops the high voltage battery percentage over time.

I saw this flashing lights many hours after I locked the car. No key in close proximity.

I really don’t know what’s wrong. My best bet is that the car reacts to low voltage on the 12v, and starts charging.

Also may be a hangup elsewhere which activates the car. From bmw server or the car itself.

I’ve ordered a new 12v Battery. Installing tomorrow.

 

[Lars]

Update:
It fixed itself after I hooked it up on a charger at the airport. The car was connected to the charger 4-5 days, and the problems went away after that.

When i checked my energy consumption from the app, it had used over 36kwh from the charger, and I parked it with around 50%. So it definitely had a problem somewhere. I have a 94ah and the 36kwh is more than Max capacity of the battery

I remember the bmw salesman told me a “full cycle” on the charger may reset some hangups.

FYI

 

[Mondomensch]

I remember the bmw salesman told me a “full cycle” on the charger may reset some hangups.

FYI

Iirc, when the battery gets fully charged, the charging system will recalibrate (?) one of the battery pack’s cells, dealing with minor changes to its health so as to keep the overall pack balanced. Otherwise, a single cell behaving differently enough from the others can cause charge/discharge problems.

Perhaps the unusual lights were indicating that such a full charge calibration was needed?

 

[alohart]

Update:
It fixed itself after I hooked it up on a charger at the airport. The car was connected to the charger 4-5 days, and the problems went away after that.

When i checked my energy consumption from the app, it had used over 36kwh from the charger, and I parked it with around 50%. So it definitely had a problem somewhere. I have a 94ah and the 36kwh is more than Max capacity of the battery

A bad 12V battery might be causing this problem. The HV system can wake up for 1 hour to charge a 12V battery whose voltage is low. That discharges the HV battery pack a tiny bit. However, if the 12V battery is bad, this automatic charging could happen repeatedly which would eventually discharge the HV battery pack noticeable. Leaving it on a charging station for 4-5 days might have fully charged the 12V battery, at least temporarily. I suggest being ready to replace the 12V battery if this problem returns.

 

[Lars]

A bad 12V battery might be causing this problem. The HV system can wake up for 1 hour to charge a 12V battery whose voltage is low. That discharges the HV battery pack a tiny bit. However, if the 12V battery is bad, this automatic charging could happen repeatedly which would eventually discharge the HV battery pack noticeable. Leaving it on a charging station for 4-5 days might have fully charged the 12V battery, at least temporarily. I suggest being ready to replace the 12V battery if this problem returns.

That was my thought, and I replaced the 12v battery. That didn’t immediately fixed my problem. Maybe the combination of new 12v and a full cycle charge was the medicine.

 

[mojo]

Did you charge the new battery before fitting it? They are typically part-discharged when supplied new, and I've had quite a few that are more than half-discharged on arrival (e.g. with a resting voltage of ~12.3V) so it would probably have taken a while for the car the get it fully charged up if that were the case with yours.

 

[Lars]

Did you charge the new battery before fitting it? They are typically part-discharged when supplied new, and I've had quite a few that are more than half-discharged on arrival (e.g. with a resting voltage of ~12.3V) so it would probably have taken a while for the car the get it fully charged up if that were the case with yours.

No, I did not. But according to the BimmerLink app, it had a good state of charge. But of course, it could be that the 12v needed a top-up, and the days spent on the charger was it.