Yellow Car on lift warning

[K-M3]

Originally Posted by JP10

My fault, seems I provided some poor info! I was just going off my personal experience dealing with similar symptoms.

The alternator could function fine one day, and not the next due to a faulty voltage regulator. Some days all would be good, other days I'd have to restart the car numerous times to get the alternator kicking.

It's extremely frustrating to deal with electrical gremlins. But at the same time, anything mechanical with this car is that much more exorbitant!!! I guess it's a no win situation if things start going wrong . Fortunately , it's at least a reasonably reliable and tested platform . And the forum support... that's invaluable. I haven't found any other forums (except maybe the concurs owners group for the C14) that are as helpful as this forum

[ItsGary]

Had this happen to a family friends car, connected my CTEK charger and used the recondition mode on it. Hasn't come back for a few days now.

[JP10]

Originally Posted by K-M3

It's extremely frustrating to deal with electrical gremlins. But at the same time, anything mechanical with this car is that much more exorbitant!!! I guess it's a no win situation if things start going wrong . Fortunately , it's at least a reasonably reliable and tested platform . And the forum support... that's invaluable. I haven't found any other forums (except maybe the concurs owners group for the C14) that are as helpful as this forum

Agreed this forum has literally saved me thousands of dollars since my purchase of this beast back in December. Without it I would've had to send my car out for diagnostics numerous times, as well as most likely paid shops to do the labor for these jobs because without the DIYs on here I wouldn't feel as comfortable digging into some of these jobs.

Originally Posted by serg87

I don't think you gave bad info. The battery needed to be replaced regardless. It was the original battery from 2011. I replaced it yesterday with a Duralast H8-AGM from Autozone and I plan on getting it coded and registered today. I'll have the shop see if any other codes come up. The warning light was gone after I installed the new battery last night. Hopefully that solved it.

Nice! And if you weren't aware you can code the battery in using carly, took just a few mins when I did it. Hopefully that clears everything up

[Scrippy]

Visual inspection. Nothing more.

[AdonM3]

Originally Posted by JP10

Agreed this forum has literally saved me thousands of dollars since my purchase of this beast back in December. Without it I would've had to send my car out for diagnostics numerous times, as well as most likely paid shops to do the labor for these jobs because without the DIYs on here I wouldn't feel as comfortable digging into some of these jobs.



Nice! And if you weren't aware you can code the battery in using carly, took just a few mins when I did it. Hopefully that clears everything up

Yes, I heard about carly but decided to take it to a local shop. My mechanic charged me $60 to code and register the battery. Total cost was $260 including the new battery. Better than the $600 the BMW dealer wanted to charge me. So far everything is good. No more warning light.

[Mvy]

Glad you got it worked out!

[JP10]

Originally Posted by serg87

Yes, I heard about carly but decided to take it to a local shop. My mechanic charged me $60 to code and register the battery. Total cost was $260 including the new battery. Better than the $600 the BMW dealer wanted to charge me. So far everything is good. No more warning light.

$260, not bad at all!

[MikeyDawg]

Originally Posted by deansbimmer

It's a service notification. Could be for bulb control failure, inspection interval exceeded, fuel supply malfunction, etc, etc. It doesn't indicate anything in particular, a number of faults can bring it up. Battery...Brakes..are all guesses. Usually there is a message in the check control. If you can't find it then have it properly checked to determine what it needs. Otherwise you're throwing parts at it and wasting money.

Bump!

Been noticing the yellow lift light recently. I am due for a brake flush, could this be related? (service light been on for a month of so)

I replaced the battery last year and registered through ISTA.

2 weekends ago I replaced thermostat / sensor and spark plugs.

I dont drive the car a lot but have been doing quite a few on/offs lately moving it in/out of the garage while Ive been cleaning, detailing it. I mention that b/c I read somewhere that the light could be related to excessive battery discharge due to recent (non) driving habits?

I have the Foxwell scanner and ISTA, what is the best way to figure out what the light is related to?

Thanks.

[cae93]

Originally Posted by MikeyDawg

Bump!

Been noticing the yellow lift light recently. I am due for a brake flush, could this be related? (service light been on for a month of so)

I replaced the battery last year and registered through ISTA.

2 weekends ago I replaced thermostat / sensor and spark plugs.

I dont drive the car a lot but have been doing quite a few on/offs lately moving it in/out of the garage while Ive been cleaning, detailing it. I mention that b/c I read somewhere that the light could be related to excessive battery discharge due to recent (non) driving habits?

I have the Foxwell scanner and ISTA, what is the best way to figure out what the light is related to?

Thanks.

The "car on lift" symbol is as I understand it, simply a visual indicator on the dash display of "something needs your attention" and the only time i've seen it so far is because of the "increased battery discharge" which crops up on your idrive display at the same time. When it disappears, do you still see the little "!" sign in the display? and on the console display if you go to vehicle info, do you see anything there?

Regarding the "Increased Battery Discharge" warning, in my recent experience this might be connected to a failing battery but I would not jump to that conclusion. I had a period of time where I was doing lots of short trips in mine and I started to see this error, I was able to clear it by charging the battery on a tender/charger or by smply going for a long drive (and strangely it seemed to need to be really long, like not just 10-20 miles).

When your m3 goes into this mode it also seems to shut off the comfort access features.

Also, just for information, connecting the car to the BMW charger only until it claimed it was fully charged did not clear the problem, but leaving it overnight in "tender" mode did.

It seems from what i've read, the IBD warning is the cars attempt to look at the "off state" current draw from the battery and I dont think it's very smart, so when your battery gets low and behaves differently it can throw these errors

If the battery gets even lower, I start seeing other error messages such as "increased emissions" and some bulb failures, but I assume this is just that the reference voltage for some sensors is drooping.

Bottom line for me, take care of your battery and if you do lots of short trips, use a charger/tender to keep on top of it. Dont jump to conclusions and swap out your battery until you've tried charging it properly, I assume a new battery will fix the problem in exactly the same way as chrging the existing one.

I found the Bavarian Auto tool very helpful for diagnosing stuff like this, but I'm sure ISTA and/or other scanners can be equally helpful.

[MikeyDawg]

Originally Posted by cae93

The "car on lift" symbol is as I understand it, simply a visual indicator on the dash display of "something needs your attention" and the only time i've seen it so far is because of the "increased battery discharge" which crops up on your idrive display at the same time. When it disappears, do you still see the little "!" sign in the display? and on the console display if you go to vehicle info, do you see anything there?

Regarding the "Increased Battery Discharge" warning, in my recent experience this might be connected to a failing battery but I would not jump to that conclusion. I had a period of time where I was doing lots of short trips in mine and I started to see this error, I was able to clear it by charging the battery on a tender/charger or by smply going for a long drive (and strangely it seemed to need to be really long, like not just 10-20 miles).

When your m3 goes into this mode it also seems to shut off the comfort access features.

Also, just for information, connecting the car to the BMW charger only until it claimed it was fully charged did not clear the problem, but leaving it overnight in "tender" mode did.

It seems from what i've read, the IBD warning is the cars attempt to look at the "off state" current draw from the battery and I dont think it's very smart, so when your battery gets low and behaves differently it can throw these errors

If the battery gets even lower, I start seeing other error messages such as "increased emissions" and some bulb failures, but I assume this is just that the reference voltage for some sensors is drooping.

Bottom line for me, take care of your battery and if you do lots of short trips, use a charger/tender to keep on top of it. Dont jump to conclusions and swap out your battery until you've tried charging it properly, I assume a new battery will fix the problem in exactly the same way as chrging the existing one.

I found the Bavarian Auto tool very helpful for diagnosing stuff like this, but I'm sure ISTA and/or other scanners can be equally helpful.

Thanks for your response.

I will look for "increased battery discharge" (and other messages) but yes I do see the "!" light as well but as assuming that was for brake flush service I need to get done.

Working from home, most of my M time has been short trips (< 5 miles each way) over the past few months so that definitely could be the culprit. The battery is less than a year old so I doubt it would need replacement at this point.

[BeaterM3]

You get used to getting that increased battery discharge when you park your car outside through the whole winter with temps getting down to 9 degrees and only drive 5 miles a day to work and back lol

Surprisingly, I don't think I have gotten the IBC message this winter with the M3. Definitely did with my 335 (older battery).

[MikeyDawg]

Yea, the message is "Battery discharging while stopped."

Could my lack of driving lately with a handful of on/offs be the culprit?

Also noticed I had to reset the date/time yesterday and then again today when I started the car.

[cae93]

Originally Posted by MikeyDawg

Yea, the message is "Battery discharging while stopped."

Could my lack of driving lately with a handful of on/offs be the culprit?

Also noticed I had to reset the date/time yesterday and then again today when I started the car.

yes, from my experience, your recent driving habits can definitely cause that, give it a long charge and clear all the error codes.

Since I was dealing with this on an almost daily basis, as long as I get one good drive in a week I have not seen a re-occurence (after an overnight charge on a BMW charger/tender)

[sibhusz06]

I had this happen to me as well and its the battery. In my case I just charged the battery and its gotten me by but as the battery wears, it has a hard time reaching full charge and keeping the charge retention regardless of how well the alternator condition maybe. You just have to suck it up and replace the battery and register it.