Well it looks like I may need to replace my battery in Lil Devil. It is 6 years old with 63k miles on it.

I've been reading up on replacing the battery and open for any suggestions.

Duane what were the 'non' recommendations you were giving me yesterday?

If anyone has good instructions on how to get the battery out of the battery compartment it's in I would love hearing them also, hopefully I can figure it out myself anyway.

I've been reading about having to 'register' the battery to the car if I go with a different brand than the OEM version. Is that something I can do or can that only be done through the dealer?

Can't really wait to order one online since it's totally dead and will not hold a charge at all (left my trickle charger on it over night and still wouldn't start the car in the morning). So I need to find a good replacement locally and I've heard the OEM are pretty expensive.

So appreciate any information (and removal instructions) I can get.

Thanks,
Mike,

 

In my opinion batteries are expensive regardless. Especially if you haven't bought one recently.

I stayed with the OEM from the dealer. It was only a few dollars more than aftermarket and the size fit.

Unless you are doing something special with the car I don't see the need for a optima red top myself.

To get yours out you actually remove the plastic top that has the battery door. The whole piece. Not just the opening. It is for access to jump the car only.

Regardless of either OEM battery or aftermarket you are supposed to register it if you have the IBS battery system. That means you have a little square box connected to your negative battery cable. Not all R56 cars have this.

The IBS dictates battery charging so in theory if your car has been charging a dying battery then you have been charging harder and longer. Put in a news battery and you don't need that kind of charging. If the car is not updated, it keeps charging harder and should shorten the life of your battery.

 

If anyone in NYC/Northern NJ area wants me to change their battery type and/or register their new battery, PM me. I can do it for 20 bucks. I live near Giants Stadium. I bought the Carly for BMW app yesterday and registered my new battery. Everything seems to work great so far. For anyone that wants to get their own, The app and adapter cost me about $135 total. I would like to recoup what I paid. Depending if you need fault codes reset, It takes about 15-20 mins to do everything. My battery died so a bunch of fault codes showed up as Low Voltage. I had 21 fault codes due to the old battery dying and I reset everything. If there's 10 guys that want to meet up, I can do it for 10 bucks. I'm not trying to make a profit, just get back what I paid.

 

Sorry guys
Double posted by accident, don't know how to delete this post

 

If you have this box on the negative battery cable, you have to register the battery,
Otherwise your good to just put in a battery and go, like any normal car.

 

Mike,
This fall my R56 needed a battery. I just sucked it up and took mine to MINI of Omaha, which means the work was done in the BMW shop. They put in a BMW battery. It was something like $300 for the battery job, which was part of additional work they did at the same time. Annoying and expensive, but at least I'm pretty confident it was done right. They will also clean your car free while you're there, if you ask.