I finally fixed my battery issues with the Mini... no it wasn't a fix done after the multiple times I've inquired about the it during service visits, my solution was a visit to Kragen and picking up an Autolite. There are better batteries on the market but at $78 and it being in stock locally, it was a bargain not to be bothered by the start-up issues anymore.

Are all BMW/Mini batteries crap? I'm shocked at how many batteries I've replaced over the years in the Bimmers and now the Mini. We're talking new models going kaput after a few years, what's the deal?!?!?!

Just like with my windshield, third-party products save the day again.

 

BMW batteries are / were made by Varta. The German equivelent of Lucas it seems.

 

im still using the same stock battery since 2003.... 5th year this month.

you just need to keep charging it every 10 days or so if the car does
not see much drive time. the car has a lot of parasitic drain.

 

A rhetorical question if I ever heard one

Frequent battery tender usage didn't seem to help at all; maybe once it really dies it just declines from there (the dealer really drained the battery down during a service), or, who knows, maybe the battery from 03 is better.

Seriously though, every BMW we have had MY 1999 and onwards had weak batteries prone to dying, not so with other brands driven the same way and not even trickle charged.

 

going on 4 yrs. and winters out in the cold .

 

The 02 still has the original battery and for three of those years it wintered outside in Norfolk.....now experiencing Florida summer. I think it is probably approaching time, but it pulls fine. No complaints here

 

You know, come to think of it I don't recall having any issues with our 03 MCS (although we didn't own it for that long before we got the 05) - perhaps the car ECU on the earlier Minis is different in that it doesn't wake up the systems for a check as much (which is what service told me is why the batteries go so quickly)? Other then the battery itself being different I can't think of why the older cars are different.

 

OEM is fine in my '04, no battery tender use and sporadic useage.

 

Being a former MG owner this is a great response.

 

My '03 battery was toast by the end of last year, I replaced it this spring with an Optima Yellow. Prior to that the battery would die off on it's own (not the fault of parasitic drain) within a week of non-use. No problems at all with the Optima, the car has sat over three and a half weeks without use, no problems starting.

 

i think this Fall would be a nice time to change my out mine to my yellow top
as well.

 

03 MC w/52535 miles. Original battery was already gone when I bought the MC with 16k on it, and I just put a new battery in last week. Seems the replacement battery was slightly shorter then the oem battery. Because of the shortness issue the neg. cable was placed on the battery on a slight angle which I am gathering caused it to crack right where the cable attached to the post. :( I purchased the correct battery according to the parts store but it too was about 3/4" too short. Had to put a rubber mat to shim it up to the correct height..
Anyone else run accross this problem or did they give me the wrong battery??

 

I guess this falls into the class of more problems than one would like to see, but not a huge amount of early failures.

I'm an optima Red-Top, but I think Mini is switching to a similar construction battery sometime in the 07-08 time frame.

Matt

ps, my original is fine, just a data point, but surely not statistics!