BMW E30 SI Batteries Replacement

The SI board also feeds the tach and "fuel economy" gauge. Trouble with those 2 gauges are often related to faulty SI boards.

I must admit, I tried the procedure (listed below) on my E28 M5 SI board - but with little success.

I discovered that the quality of the battery holders is critical and thus unfortuntely the repair didn't work for me.



So I then tried to contact VARTA (who supply the original SI board batteries - 2*500 RST). Via www.varta.com I obtained a contact phone number (and address) near Frankfurt Germany (near where I live):

VARTA Autobatterie GmbH
Verkaufsb?ro Frankfurt
Postfach 18 33
D-73479 Ellwangen
Tel. +49 (61 02) 77 03 64
Fax +49 (61 02) 77 03 69


I then called them to ask for my local supplier, who turned out to be:

Dickmann
Kurmainzer Str, 45
Frankfurt
069 303983

SI batteries

I promptly went off and bought two.
From the pictures you can see that they have the same solder lugs as the 500 RSTs.


SI board
I called Dickmann and as soon as I said 500 RST they said "BMW"! I was informed that this battery was no longer available and that the replacement was part number 55110201059. Price DM 12,30 each (slightly less than $8 each).


SI board with new batteries installed Installation was easy - solder the old batteries off and solder the replacements on
One slight caveat - be careful when reassembling that you don't squish the fuel guage needle!
Now my SI board works fine again.



James Munro