Sold / Withdrawn 2015 BMW i3 BEV - New Battery - Honolulu, Hawaii

[chootieunit]

2015 BMW i3
80,000 miles
White
All electric
Purchased used in 2019
Selling to buy a newer BMW i3
Clean title
No accidents
Registration current (expires 08/25)
Safety current
Driver assistance package
-auto/self parallel park
-backup camera
-front and rear sensors
-adaptive cruise control

Pro’s
-New HV battery replaced by BMW Honolulu on August 29, 2023 ($14,000)
-Currently gets 90-100 miles of range
-New tires from Costco in April 2024 ($1200)
-Replaced left rear motor mount November 2023 (a common issue with older i3)
-AC works and cabin air filter was replaced recently
-Paperwork available

Con’s
-Roof repair DIY as these carbon fiber roofs peel off over time
-3G discontinued and GPS inside car does not work (use cellphone Maps instead)
-Headliner was sagging, so push pins holding it up
-Interior shows signs of use
-Driver-side window tint is peeling
-Daylight driving light is out on passenger side (have not disconnected driver side yet, headlights and brights work)

Selling through KeySavvy to get you a discounted price of $5,800 (they process the EV tax credit). Basically, I would list for $8,000 but a dealer can get tax credit (not a private party) so they collect $5,800 from buyer and send me the $8,000 asking price and they keep the EV tax credit.

 

[Mondomensch]

Wish a white one was available when I was shopping for my used i3. Didn’t realize so many cool looking i3’s were living the good life in Hawaii

 

[alohart]

Wish a white one was available when I was shopping for my used i3. Didn’t realize so many cool looking i3’s were living the good life in Hawaii

With no temperature extremes or extended high-speed driving, with lots of PV electricity, with high gasoline prices, and, in Honolulu, with tight parking spaces and lots of traffic, Hawaiʻi is an ideal place to own an i3. Including ours, 2 i3's are owned by residents of our 229-unit apartment/townhouse complex. At least 4 i3's are owned by residents along a 2-mile route where I walk several times each week. i3's are quite common here.

 

[chootieunit]

With no temperature extremes or extended high-speed driving, with lots of PV electricity, with high gasoline prices, and, in Honolulu, with tight parking spaces and lots of traffic, Hawaiʻi is an ideal place to own an i3. Including ours, 2 i3's are owned by residents of our 229-unit apartment/townhouse complex. At least 4 i3's are owned by residents along a 2-mile route where I walk several times each week. i3's are quite common here.

Aloha Art, a 2017 protonic blue i3 with larger battery came up for sale. Just so happened to be a neighbor on the next street over. Bought that one and sold this one.

 

[808Pants]

Aloha Art, a 2017 protonic blue i3 with larger battery came up for sale. Just so happened to be a neighbor on the next street over. Bought that one and sold this one.

Is the story behind the dealer HV pack replacement a simple and amiable one, or full of wrestling and recriminations? What was their evaluation process?

 

[alohart]

Is the story behind the dealer HV pack replacement a simple and amiable one, or full of wrestling and recriminations? What was their evaluation process?

I haven't been through it myself, but I know 4 60 Ah i3 owners whose battery packs were replaced under the capacity warranty by BMW of Honolulu.

There was an upfront cost of ~$500 for a system software update followed by the capacity test. The integration level must be increased only if it is below a certain level, but I don't know whether BMW of Honolulu checked or just increased the integration level regardless. I know that the integration level of our 2014 i3 was high enough that it would not have been necessary to increase it, so I would have insisted that the integration level not be increased with the cost being reduced appropriately. Doing so might at least temporarily increase the usable capacity resulting in a passed capacity test despite sufficient battery cell degradation.

I am not certain about the capacity test procedure. I have read that it involves charging fully followed by a slow discharge to empty under the control of ISTA. Another full charge under the control of ISTA might occur so that the energy discharged and charged could both be measured. If that amount of energy is less than 70% of the new nominal usable capacity, 18.8 kWh, the capacity test fails. There might be a bit more nuance to a failure. A failure might occur if one or more modules fails rather than the battery pack as a whole.

No one that I talked to reported any problems with BMW of Honolulu. This almost certainly depends on the dealer, but maybe they're paid enough for a battery pack replacement that they welcome the work.

 

[808Pants]

Thanks, Art. I would think that with the number of EV mfrs offering very long warranties on HV packs, there would by now also be a cookie-cutter means to test...that is, something that isn't behind a "paywall" demanding a $500 owner wager followed by a dealer-performed-in-private test without any mystery to the owner. Seems it could even be a programmed test routine, with dash-display telling the driver that the pack is performing as expected, or below expectations.

 

[alohart]

I would think that with the number of EV mfrs offering very long warranties on HV packs, there would by now also be a cookie-cutter means to test...that is, something that isn't behind a "paywall" demanding a $500 owner wager followed by a dealer-performed-in-private test without any mystery to the owner. Seems it could even be a programmed test routine, with dash-display telling the driver that the pack is performing as expected, or below expectations.

I've read that BMW's maintenance software, ISTA, is used to perform the battery pack capacity test, so its software could be incorporated into an i3's software. However, the test takes many hours to complete during which time an i3 cannot be driven. BMW doesn't seem to encourage DIY maintenance, so they wouldn't incorporate capacity testing software into an i3. I'm not aware of any EV manufacturer that does, probably because it would be used so infrequently.

An i3 owner who wants to measure the usable capacity of her battery pack could install a bootleg copy of ISTA on a Windows laptop and buy an inexpensive OBD to Ethernet cable to connect her laptop to her i3's OBD port. Her i3 would have to be at an integration level that includes capacity testing software. I can't recall at what integration level that was added.