madracer 0 Report post Posted October 18, 2008 (edited) i guessed this was more maintanence than electrical. twice today i had problems starting my car but both times i got it jump started ok. The first time it died i had the heater in the car running for maybe 20 minutes without the engine on, after i jumped started i left it idling for ten minutes then started it a couple of times and then left it for maybe an hour and it woulnt start again. so my question is, is there any ways to test the barrey, or check the age of the battery? and lastly there is a lable metioning battery status im not sure how this works? can anyone help? the car is a 1998 E39 540 automatic Cheers Stuart Edited October 18, 2008 by madracer Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
greenday-rulz21 4 Report post Posted October 18, 2008 If your battery is one of the sealed for life ones it should have a little black circle/hole where you look down to check the status. Green means allgood, orange probably means get it checked and red obviously means get it replaced. I would honestly suggest not to keep jumpstarting it, as its a modern car and it has many very complicated systems. Jump starting many times may damage the electrics. My suggestion would be take it straight into BMW and let them work their magic. The date it was made should be stamped on the top of the positive or negative terminal. When i replaced mine earlier this year when I had the same problems as you mine was still the original battery from '99. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hotwire 352 Report post Posted October 20, 2008 i guessed this was more maintanence than electrical. twice today i had problems starting my car but both times i got it jump started ok. The first time it died i had the heater in the car running for maybe 20 minutes without the engine on, after i jumped started i left it idling for ten minutes then started it a couple of times and then left it for maybe an hour and it woulnt start again. so my question is, is there any ways to test the barrey, or check the age of the battery? and lastly there is a lable metioning battery status im not sure how this works? can anyone help? the car is a 1998 E39 540 automatic Cheers Stuart Running the car for 10 mins WILL NOT charge the battery - it merely puts a surface charge on it - which will soon dissapate. Hense the car will restart immediately but not after an hour. Adding to this - for a modern Calcium battery (as yours) when completely flat, it is recommended to have the battery recharged on a proper charger rather than simply relying on the vehicles alternator to recharge it. Even on a charger it can take 24 -36hrs to fully charge from flat. Bear in mind too - a battery can be fully charged but still be stuffed due to low output capacity, best get it checked by an auto sparky or similar. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
madracer 0 Report post Posted October 21, 2008 cheers for the help, the car is going into chch bmw for a full charge and check of the battery and alternator. just for peace of mind. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
