I recently had my battery go bad in my 2014 Justa. The car was completely dead, couldn’t even use hazard lights. I swapped the battery out, and now the entire OS for the car is the BMW standard OS.

I tried to find another post or someone else with the similar problem, but came up short.

Is this something I can fix myself? Is it a symptom of a bigger problem? I would have assumed there would have been a backup battery for the computer.


My Mini having a identity crisis.

 

 

More than likely you need to have the battery registered to the ECU. If there is a small black rectangular box thingy on your battery cable, then you have the intelligent battery system and a new battery will need to be registered or else it can cause all sorts of gremlins. The dealership wants a truly outrageous amount to do it. You can do it yourself if you or someone you know has a Schwaben scan tool or Carly

 

Awesome, my Carly just arrived today. I’ll update after I mess with it.

 

You can add $10k to the value and sell it as a one off Beemer. Curious to see how this gets fixed.

 

One of those gremlins that I have read about is that the new battery will have a limited life if the ECU isn't told it has a new battery in it. Something about the charging rate that the ECU learns over the life of the 'old' battery and how it will improperly charge the new battery and decrease its life. I am dreading the day this will come, but know it is on the way at some point as I pass my 3yr mark of ownership.

 

I still can’t get over how much the dealership charges to do it. It seriously takes less than 5 minutes. And for the price they charge, a person could buy the Schwaben scan tool and still have money left over. Then do it themselves and they will have an excellent scan tool for their Mini on top of it.

 

+1 ^^ this. You only need the dealership for coding and flash updates. Other then that our Schwaben Tool covers the other stuff.

 

its sad the dealerships don't understand "Goodwill". look at what free software upgrades did for Apple.

 

Okay, I wish this had a more satisfying conclusion.

I gave my car a break the past couple days and just drove my wife’s car. (Also a Mini, I’m not crazy!) Popped in my car this morning to code the battery with my new Carly. Everything was back to normal. I still coded/registered the battery and went about my business.

Sorry guys, this turned out less juicy than I expected.

 

Hey, if it’s back to normal..... just roll with it! Ha ha
Glad to hear it’s ok now.

 

Can this be done with Bimmercode too?

 

Honestly I don’t know, I think so.

 

Bimmerlink can register the battery. I have both Bimmerlink and Bimmercode and battery registration via Bimmerlink is a simple single button press.