I have a friend who’s now convinced that she needs to see her priest, thanks to our long-term BMW 730d.
Not that I can blame her; she was having quite the week. On the Monday she got stuck on some deserted residential road and had to have her Polo towed. Five grand, a new clutch plate and a service later, and the Polo’s back in Sandton traffic.
But while the Polo’s innards were getting examined, my dear friend was forced to hire a car to get around. Only to be rear ended in the rain, by a rather large SUV, which simply chose not to stop at an intersection. Did I mention that said SUV driver had no insurance?
So, being a good friend, I thought a visit would be a good idea, followed by a little drive around Lenz, my old stomping ground, in our grand dame 730d. Until I tried to start it up again after a stop at a fuel station, that is.
I thought my pupils were dilating when a little warning triangle came up on the instrument cluster, accompanied by a exclamation marked message saying “Next press of button starts engine”.
Well, not quite.
Next press of (start) button was a wheezy cough from the starter motor, the kind you get when the battery’s kaput and doesn’t have enough charge to turn the starter. Needless to say, said friend was not exactly impressed – sense of humour failure was more like it, and I was left speed dialing BMW on call for assistance.
Now as luck would have it, Jay, the operator at the call centre in Midrand, lives in Lenz – not far from where the 730d had given up the ghost actually. Which was good news as by now it was around 9.30pm on a Sunday night, and the last thing I needed was to explain how to get to where I was.
And, to be honest, the on-call service from then on was top notch. A technician from Roodepoort (Lenz has just about every car dealership, including Tata, but not BMW) arrived on a motorbike about half-an-hour later, but his jump-start equipment showed that the battery was fine.
So we debated possible causes. He suggested that perhaps the key lost its coding, but then it wouldn’t have allowed the car to go all the way to the starting stage. Dirty diesel perhaps? Unlikely as I’d already gone through half a tank since the last top up.
Possibly the starter motor then? Which is not exactly reassuring for a car costing over a million bucks with 10 902km on the clock. Or the computer registered some type of error code and issued the brace command to the starter. Either way it became apparent that we were stranded.
The technician then removed the cupholder tray and below it sat an emergency gearlever (very James Bond), which allowed the Beemer’s gearbox to be put into neutral for the flatbed, which was on its way. Another half-an-hour later and the AA’s flatbed was there, a sad looking 730d loaded, and in tow was an on-call car which took me home.
According to BMW (after spending ten days with the car) they found a number of under-voltage fault codes relating to a tamper protection function on the door handles, which it seems was draining the battery. The battery was low, but upon recharge seems to be in perfect working order and is back in the car.
It was also found that the key was indeed faulty, causing the vehicle’s electronic system to never fully shut down and further drain the battery. We’ve thus been given a new key. The door handles have since been checked for intermittent faults but none have been found.
As for my friend, she’s convinced that the car gods are not happy with her, and I can see nine Saturdays of fasting in her future – which means I won’t be saying howzit to her on a Saturday.
She also mentioned something about somebody “putting eyes on her”. To be on the safe side, I think I’ll keep her away from our Seven too. I’d be interested to know of any hassles you’ve had with your latest-generation 7 Series. Drop me a note at [email protected].