E53 door power failure and the solution !

[Hfevo2]

My 2003 X5 suffers from the battery becoming discharged when parked at the airport for more than a week. Last time is happened, after recharging, the front passenger door would not open and the mirror and window on that one door both failed to work.

This was strange as they are all on separate fused circuits.

The dealer told me they would have to cut a section out of the door trim to open the door and replace an electronic module in the footwell. Total cost, £500 or 800 dollars.

Later I spoke to an electronics engineer who suggested The problem might be caused by static electricity or a software clitch.

He suggested disconnecting the battery and earthing the positive battery cable to the chassis to eliminate any static electricity in the system.

It took all of ten minutes to do and it worked !

Not only that, but the automatic steering column raising feature had previously stopped working when turning off the ignition as had the automatic mirror drop feature when reversing. Both are also now fine.

This might well sort out other mysterious electronic glitches and as it's so simple it's well worth a try on any model of similar age.

By the way, I've been so fed up with flat batteries that I've now fitted a battery isolator switch so I can disconnect the battery completely when leaving the car at the airport.