My 2012 r56 hardtop just experienced SBDS or sudden battery death syndrome.

The battery is the OEM unit that came with the car. It's only 2 1/2 years old with about 25000 miles. With no warning at all it just failed to start. MINIs sure do strange things when the voltage gets low ! The starter would not turn or even engage. The auto trans would not move out of park. The CD player would spin up and spin down by itself. Sometimes the radio would turn on other times not. I think I've seen every warning indicator possible. The wiper blades moved real slow. The gas gage would go empty to full and back to empty, over and over.

MINI roadside assist did work. A local tow got to me within maybe 15 minutes. We did successfully jump start it and it ran fine. I could have driven it home, I think, but I decided to just have the tow take it to the dealer. We will see what they say when they open tomorrow morning.

I have heard AGM batteries fail this way but I have never actually had one fail before. 2 1/2 years also seems like a rather short life unless the failure itself was caused by some kind of wiring harness fault.

Arrrrgh ......

 

Here in AZ, the heat kills batteries rather quickly (around 3 years). And yes, they can be great one day, the next kaput. Probably a cell went bad. As you saw, weird electrical things happen when it's marginal. That why when a member posts electrical problems, a lot of responding members will first ask, is the battery known to be good?

 

Is the MINI OEM and AGM battery?

 

If you are asking if the original battery was an AGM, The battery is whatever was delivered by MINI. If it is an AGM or not, I guess I just assumed all recent MINI batteries were/are AGMs. ICBW

 

The OE batteries for the "S" cars are VLRA/AGM. Not sure on the non "S" cars.

 

Dealer says bad cell. Battery replaced. Total out of pocket cost was $0.00. Not bad, except for the inconvenience.

I did learn something interesting while contacting MINI roadside assist. The operator knew my exact location without me telling him. Seems like MINIs broadcast their GPS location. Not sure how I feel about that.

 

Does your car have Nav? Mine does not, and the one time I called MINI roadside assist, they had no idea where I was. (I cancelled the call because it was going to take them way too long to get to me; I got the tire repaired by a shop in the same block where I had parked.)

 

The Mini doesn't broadcast location via GPS I don't think. I have a dealer add on called Lojack, which does broadcast location so the car can be found by law enforcement in case of theft. If you don't have that they probably found you via your phone. BTW you just got a battery with a bad cell. I'm in Arizona and my 2007 MCS still had the OEM battery when I traded it in last year with 70k miles on it.

 

FWIW I've had 2 new cars in the last 5yrs that had their batteries fail in the first year of ownership. One was a BMW 328i and the other was a Volvo V50. In both cases the cars were towed and the batteries were replaced without charge (or explanation).

 

seems to be a mix of battery options, my 13 clubman came with a 640CCA AGM, wifes 11 MCS came with a 440CCA AGM and very similiar options so no idea why the different sizes.

A note I had my battery replaced because ?? Who knows, for a error I was getting that had nothing to do with it BUT they tried to sneak a 460 plain battery in, I was like NO NO you don't, went back and got a 680CCA AGM . Gotta pay attention.

Wifes new to us 12 R57 had a smaller original AGM, we had them pull the newer, larger AGM from our trade in . Always prefer a larger battery unless you have a track car and are concerned with weight.

In all MINI's seem to go through batteries faster than any other car I've owned, I assume it's all the modules in BMW cars.

 

No sat nav, no LoJack but I did have my cell. Would BMW have real time access to cellular tracking ? When I asked the MINI road assist, he did specifically say "GPS".

Batteries do randomly fail internally. This is the second one I've had in 40+ years of driving. I will not fault MINI, Unless it happens again!

 

+1

Nice!

 

MAN that is freaky.

It has to be the Lojack.

 

Could be an iPhone to iPhone with the "share my location" function activated?

 

LoJack was a radio based system. A transmitter in each car and a special receiver in LoJack equipped police cars. These days the cellular net or satellites could do the same thing. Is LoJack even still in business ?

 

I think dealers put tracking devices in cars, so that if you do not make a payment, they will know where the car is, and reclaim it. I do not think they make this knowledge public.

 

Son-of-mini and his pet, Kitty-of-mini.

 

I will trying it by stopping the payments

 

Let us know what happens. Lol.