F45 225Xe - "My BMW" App (on both Android and Apple) displaying the wrong charge status

[Tech-Jock]

Hello all,

 

First post - and I admit not a joyous one but hey can't help that.  Scared what BMW will tell me tomorrow...

I've been using the "My BMW" app for quite a few months now, both on my personal Android and on my work iPhone 13. Last month I had to replace my old Android with a new one but I'm not sure this fact has anything to do with the issue I'm writing about here though.

As I say, I've been using the app for a while and it has reliably notified me when charging starts and ends, as well as the current state of charge at any given time (along with the other functions the app offers).

I was away in Asia for all of November and when I came back, I proceeded to put the car on charge. However no notification happened via the app on either of my phones and both reported that the car was not plugged in and had only 59% charge.

Over the course of a day and a half, I went out and unplugged the charger, played with the buttons on the controller thingy in the charge cable and generally tried to fool it back into working. However, the apps (on both android and iphone) remained stubbornly unresponsive and the percentage charge did not change from 59%.

Sunday, I went out in the car and was surprised to see that the charge was 100% (it had been around 48% when I left it). So this implies that charging was in fact happening but that the car was not reporting this charging to the app(s).

Has anyone seen this behaviour before? Any easy fix?

BTW - the car is getting a new 12V battery at BMW tomorrow morning, so I will also ask them if they have any idea about this (but scared what they will say).

Cheers!

TJ

[Greydog]

Morning Julian

Welcome to the Forum

Well as they say "every day is a school day" never heard of this but here are my thoughts for what they may be worth.

The charge is to the Traction Batteries if the 12v battery is down on power or failing it will divert all power to essential functions, communication with the Phone apps will probably be way down the list.

Hope it is an easy fix (ie) New Battery and Reset

Let us know the outcome

Dave

[Tech-Jock]

12 hours ago, Greydog said:

Hope it is an easy fix (ie) New Battery and Reset

Let us know the outcome

Dave

Hello Dave,

Thanks for the reply.

As often happens, the damn thing fixed itself (actually it's a wonderful thing I should say).  I arrived at the dealership and had just handed over the keys when I remembered I wanted to ask them about the app.  So I re-approached the service rep, pulled out the phone and started asking about why the app might not update.  And of course - you knew it - the app had updated lol!

That was before the 12V battery replacement (now £290+ quid lighter as a result) but who knows?

I was interested in the fact that they apparently used my key to initially check the state of the car (?).  I had asked them to be sure that the battery really needed replacing before just doing the work and they produced a printout saying that the data from the key had confirmed that the 12V battery was low.  I had no idea the key held that kind of data.

I was also interested that they didn't run a diagnostic on the car to try to up-sell me on everything else that is wrong with the car (there are a lot of potential issues).  Anyway, now the 12V battery is replaced, I will clear all the codes and drive it for a day then see what codes come back.  I haven't shared the Bimmerlink output that my friend did for me yet, but it wasn't fun reading.  I only asked him to do it because I don't seem to get any cabin heat when driving on battery.  I will re-look at that after the redo of the Bimmerlink diags.

Cheers again!

TJ

[Greydog]

Hi Julian

BMW's have been power hungry beasts since the 90's when Bus systems became the way forward. With the 12v battery replaced you will probably find the other "scary" list has gone or shows as Fault not Present so clearing the memory will do it.

Dave