What have you done to your BMW today?

[Pizzaeatingking]

The Gauge said:

Are most BMW batteries AGM?
I'll be wanting to connect my CTEK to my 2014 F01 730d when we go away on holiday, the CTEK has an AGM setting and I hadn't even considered the cars battery type to be fair!

My 2009 E90 has an AGM battery, it's a BMW branded one but I don't know if it's OE or not.

[danb79]

The Gauge said:

Jakg said:

Unfortunately the battery on an M4 is much more than £300 - it's lithium, not AGM.

Are most BMW batteries AGM?
I'll be wanting to connect my CTEK to my 2014 F01 730d when we go away on holiday, the CTEK has an AGM setting and I hadn't even considered the cars battery type to be fair!

Yours will be an AGM so use that setting. CTEK do a specific AGM trickle charger too, I have that one and the MXS 5.0 so my E39 and the F31 are covered

[Uncle Meat]

Slight thread hijack.

I've got the Ctek 10A to charge my 105AH AGM battery which it seems to take a day to do about 5%! Duff battery or is there some setting on the charger I've missed? Or is this normal for such a fat battery?

[JakeT]

Uncle Meat said:

Slight thread hijack.

I've got the Ctek 10A to charge my 105AH AGM battery which it seems to take a day to do about 5%! Duff battery or is there some setting on the charger I've missed? Or is this normal for such a fat battery?

Sounds wrong. At 10A it would take 10 and a bit hours to charge a totally flat battery. My 5A one can take a while to bring back a dead battery, but never more than a day. Does it ever fully charge it?

[illmonkey]

JakeT said:

Uncle Meat said:

Slight thread hijack.

I've got the Ctek 10A to charge my 105AH AGM battery which it seems to take a day to do about 5%! Duff battery or is there some setting on the charger I've missed? Or is this normal for such a fat battery?

Sounds wrong. At 10A it would take 10 and a bit hours to charge a totally flat battery. My 5A one can take a while to bring back a dead battery, but never more than a day. Does it ever fully charge it?

It's not as clear cut as this though.

Uncle, I suggest you get the manual and read, different stages can take up to 20 hours, so it maybe conditioning or what ever, which takes time. I have a MXS 5 and if you take the max times for each section it can take over 42 hours to get to "full"

[Uncle Meat]

Thanks guys. It has had a few 24 hour plug ins over Christmas and a few long drives and it's gone from 51% to 81%. I assume if it was a completely duff battery it wouldn't charge at all? The battery is about 5 years old.

[The Gauge]

danb79 said:

Yours will be an AGM so use that setting. CTEK do a specific AGM trickle charger too, I have that one and the MXS 5.0 so my E39 and the F31 are covered

Thank you

[bigdom]

Uncle Meat said:

Thanks guys. It has had a few 24 hour plug ins over Christmas and a few long drives and it's gone from 51% to 81%. I assume if it was a completely duff battery it wouldn't charge at all? The battery is about 5 years old.

That battery seems fine. Once a year you can use the reconditioning function.

[H6CJF]

danb79 said:

Very; x4 T50 bolts (very tight); the seatbelt retractor clip, the seatbelt T50 bolt and one large plug - done and dusted. Just got to remove and then refit carefully as it's so easy to scratch the car with the runners!

And yes very satisfying; it was already clean as that's my MO; but this needed doing as the ingrained dirt needed to be removed

Did you disconnect the battery as well? (Videos I’ve seen seem to suggest concerns about air bags if you don’t)

[bodhi]

Had it picked up this morning for a fresh MOT. Was supposed to be going in at 11, hence me regularly checking the Government MOT website periodically to see how it was getting on - maybe a bit too often given how often I triggered the "Are you human?" Protection

Nothing by 2 so was getting a little confused, then me mate rang. First MOT tester called in sick, then their emissions machine broke....sounds like one of those days.

Hopefully will get an MOT on it tomorrow. Ma mate has lent me a Mini so no big rush tbh.

[E92_325]

Had the 325i serviced. I provided the oil as I wanted to carry on using Fuchs GT1 Flex 3 5w40 which my old Indy used to use and I found it near enough eliminated lifter tick and improved oil consumption.

Also had the condition of the coolant hoses and the rear subframe (it s quite crusty) checked. The specialist was happy with the condition of both. He also mentioned the sump leak, which I knew about, was very minor and nothing to worry about yet. That s a job I ll happily put off whilst it s only a minor leak.

[JakeT]

illmonkey said:

It's not as clear cut as this though.

Uncle, I suggest you get the manual and read, different stages can take up to 20 hours, so it maybe conditioning or what ever, which takes time. I have a MXS 5 and if you take the max times for each section it can take over 42 hours to get to "full"

I did some reading, promise! CTEK even say that here:
https://www.ctek.com/uk/news/how-long-does-it-take...

[illmonkey]

JakeT said:

illmonkey said:

It's not as clear cut as this though.

Uncle, I suggest you get the manual and read, different stages can take up to 20 hours, so it maybe conditioning or what ever, which takes time. I have a MXS 5 and if you take the max times for each section it can take over 42 hours to get to "full"

I did some reading, promise! CTEK even say that here:
https://www.ctek.com/uk/news/how-long-does-it-take...

Wasn't trying to lecture! Just from experience they can take longer.

The heading on the link is "Typical", maybe his battery not in the best health

[bodhi]

E92_325 said:

Had the 325i serviced. I provided the oil as I wanted to carry on using Fuchs GT1 Flex 3 5w40 which my old Indy used to use and I found it near enough eliminated lifter tick and improved oil consumption.

Also had the condition of the coolant hoses and the rear subframe (it s quite crusty) checked. The specialist was happy with the condition of both. He also mentioned the sump leak, which I knew about, was very minor and nothing to worry about yet. That s a job I ll happily put off whilst it s only a minor leak.

Funnily enough it's the subframe on my 125i I'm most concerned about for the MOT. I had a look underneath a couple of weeks ago and there is definitely some surface rust - gave it a nudge with my knuckles along the rusty bit and it all seemed solid, so fingers crossed.

Also interesting on the oil. Mines the updated N52 so has never suffered from lifter tick, but being an old N52 it does like a drink of the stuff. Believe it or not I've found the best for oil consumption is the Tesco own brand stuff. No idea who makes it for them, but oil consumption is noticeably lower with it compared to the big brand stuff - albeit I'm still on 5W30...

[The Gauge]

danb79 said:

Yours will be an AGM so use that setting. CTEK do a specific AGM trickle charger too, I have that one and the MXS 5.0 so my E39 and the F31 are covered

Just noticed my MXS 5.0 doesn't have the AGM setting that I thought it had, think I'll buy the newer version that does. Seems AGM batteries need precise voltage control to stay healthy.

Edited by The Gauge on Monday 12th January 17:55

[E92_325]

bodhi said:

E92_325 said:

Had the 325i serviced. I provided the oil as I wanted to carry on using Fuchs GT1 Flex 3 5w40 which my old Indy used to use and I found it near enough eliminated lifter tick and improved oil consumption.

Also had the condition of the coolant hoses and the rear subframe (it s quite crusty) checked. The specialist was happy with the condition of both. He also mentioned the sump leak, which I knew about, was very minor and nothing to worry about yet. That s a job I ll happily put off whilst it s only a minor leak.

Funnily enough it's the subframe on my 125i I'm most concerned about for the MOT. I had a look underneath a couple of weeks ago and there is definitely some surface rust - gave it a nudge with my knuckles along the rusty bit and it all seemed solid, so fingers crossed.

Also interesting on the oil. Mines the updated N52 so has never suffered from lifter tick, but being an old N52 it does like a drink of the stuff. Believe it or not I've found the best for oil consumption is the Tesco own brand stuff. No idea who makes it for them, but oil consumption is noticeably lower with it compared to the big brand stuff - albeit I'm still on 5W30...

From reading, these rear subframes are strong, so hopefully it’ll last for a good while yet. I’ve seen some members here wire brush and treat theirs so that’s an option. I did ask the specialist about it but they didn’t seem to think it was necessary right now.

With the oil, there was a noticeable reduction in consumption when I switched to 5w40. Looking at the notes I’ve jotted down, the last litre of 5w40 the car used took me 2.7k miles. It was around 1L per 2k miles with 5w30. I recommend trying it if your oil consumption is annoying enough.

I did attempt to look into the differences in formulation between the brands and did some reading on bobistheoilguy but everything went over my head haha. The Fuchs oil has been good so I’ll just stick with that.

[JakeT]

illmonkey said:

Wasn't trying to lecture! Just from experience they can take longer.

The heading on the link is "Typical", maybe his battery not in the best health

It’s all fine. Also CTEK chargers are great or bloody annoying. There’s no in between!

E92_325 said:

From reading, these rear subframes are strong, so hopefully it ll last for a good while yet. I ve seen some members here wire brush and treat theirs so that s an option. I did ask the specialist about it but they didn t seem to think it was necessary right now.

With the oil, there was a noticeable reduction in consumption when I switched to 5w40. Looking at the notes I ve jotted down, the last litre of 5w40 the car used took me 2.7k miles. It was around 1L per 2k miles with 5w30. I recommend trying it if your oil consumption is annoying enough.

I did attempt to look into the differences in formulation between the brands and did some reading on bobistheoilguy but everything went over my head haha. The Fuchs oil has been good so I ll just stick with that.

The subframe is getting grizzly on my 2005 330i, but solid still. I sand and paint it yearly in the summer, to try and buy it some time. At 240k it also likes a drop of the black. A litre of 5w-30 around every 3,000 miles. I can’t fault it that really.

[Uncle Meat]

illmonkey said:

JakeT said:

illmonkey said:

It's not as clear cut as this though.

Uncle, I suggest you get the manual and read, different stages can take up to 20 hours, so it maybe conditioning or what ever, which takes time. I have a MXS 5 and if you take the max times for each section it can take over 42 hours to get to "full"

I did some reading, promise! CTEK even say that here:
https://www.ctek.com/uk/news/how-long-does-it-take...

Wasn't trying to lecture! Just from experience they can take longer.

The heading on the link is "Typical", maybe his battery not in the best health

I had read the manual, just wanted some clarification from other users if charging had taken that long for them. As it's got to above 80% (after many days charging!) I'll keep the battery for a bit longer.

This is for an X5 with the 105Ah in the boot and there is another, smaller 12V battery in the front. I'm charging from the pos 'jump start' terminal under the bonnet and an appropriate ground, I assume this is the best way to charge?

[Mr Tidy]

JakeT said:

The subframe is getting grizzly on my 2005 330i, but solid still. I sand and paint it yearly in the summer, to try and buy it some time. At 240k it also likes a drop of the black. A litre of 5w-30 around every 3,000 miles. I can t fault it that really.

I got an advisory for subframe corrosion on my 2005 330i in 2024, but not in 2025 so it can't be too bad!

Mine also uses a litre of 5W/30 every 3,000 miles or so, even though it has only done 130K.

[Swervin_Mervin]

I've just this year had an advisory for the rear subframe (2006 330i) but for the first year no advisories for covers fitted that obscure the view. Can a man not get a green MOT ffs? Subframe is still solid as - it's just surface grot.