The trunk light in my 2007 328xi does not time out. According to the user manual it should. I called the dealer and spoke with someone in service. He did not have any idea as to the proper operation. I had planned to connect leads to the battery for connecting a battery charger. This would avoid the need to open the hood and attach to the terminals in the engine compartment. Should the trunk light time out? If not, is there a simple way to disable the light while the charger is attached? Thanks
You're saying the trunk light stays on anytime the trunk is open, yes? If there is no control to make the light time out, which may well be the case, then perhaps your only simple choice is to remove the bulb or one of the wires powering the light. I suppose if you wanted to get really ambitious you could wire in a switch to the wiring going to the light, or come up with your own time-out setup (ymmv). If your charger wires aren't too big, it probably won't hurt anything to close the trunk and have them squeezed between the trunk lid and gasket. Of course, if it's on a charger, you're not going to wear down the battery by the trunk light being on, it will just decrease the life of the bulb.
Thanks, I have found that I can turn the light off by tripping the latch in the trunk lid. I am still curious as to why the light does not time out.
How much time did you give it before you determined that it would "never" go off? On most recent bmw's, if you leave doors, trunk, etc. open, the body computer will de-energize all of the lights after about 15 minutes if there has been no state change in any of the doors or car systems (ie: the car decides you have left the car with everything open for some reason, so it turns it all off to save your battery). It all resets if you close all the doors and then open them again. Comes in real handy when I need to dry out the rugs (I got different problems...).
I waited about 45 minutes The owners manual indicated "To avoid draining the battery, all lamps inside the car are switched off about 15 minutes after radio readiness is switched off" Which makes me now wonder if the other interior lights will time out.
Just confirming that it works this way on both my 2006 Z4 M Roadster and my wife's 2011 335is Coupe. It takes between 15-20 minutes.
I believe that this timer may be configurable in the general module computer with the GT1 mother-ship computer at the dealer or a well equipped independent shop. If so, maybe yours can be accessed and corrected that way. Can any of our "insiders" confirm?
