A puddle of gas under the rear of the car.

[Drew001]

That's a bad thing, right?

Walked to my car for a short trip and saw a largish stain on the ground just under my bumper. Didn't think much of it (Downtown Los Angeles, 80 year old parking lot not in great shape).
Got the familiar, "Possible to continue your journey..." message for the maintenance cycle, clicked "OK", but it didn't start and the message popped up again.
I completed my errand and drove home and there was the message again - now I remembered the stain in the ground.

I'm not driving the car until this gets looked at, but what would be the cause of this and what kind of repairs am I looking at?

 

[spartacus68]

You might have jumped to conclusion. Are you sure it was from your car? Is the fuel tank empty. The fuel tank is in the frunk under the plastic hold-all.

Any pictures, and is it flagging check engine light on the dash. If you got main BMW dealer they are going to charge to scan the car. Could be unrelated and fuel pump relay which lives under the passenger glovebox area.

A copy of ISTA+, OBD cable and a laptop and you can investigate yourself.

 

[frictioncircle]

Questions for the OP... was the puddle under the front bumper or the rear bumper? How were you able to determine that the puddle was gasoline?

Going on year eight of owning i3s, they drip condensate (water) much more than any other vehicle I've owned.

With the heat and humidity that we've been hit with over the past few months out here, could it be possible that your REx's maintenance cycle came up on a day that you were heavily using air conditioning ( = puddle)?

Having been on this forum for quite some time, I don't ever recall someone posting about a REx fuel leak.

 

[Drew001]

spartacus68, you could be correct that I jumped to a conclusion. The gas is low, but I haven't been driving the car much since I'm not commuting to work anymore.
I've got a big exclamation point on the dash and it keeps trying and failing to run the maintenance cycle.

I've got BimmerCode and BimmerLink and I've going to see what information I get from those later this afternoon.


frictioncircle, the puddle was under the rear bumper and it smelled like freshly spilled gas.
I WFH nowadays and only drive the car for groceries, errands and to keep the battery happy. I had not driven the car in two days and not at all that day.

I think my assumption about it being my gas might have been influenced by reading about the pressurized fuel system and subsequently reading about the rare fire that has occurred in the past.

It's kind of been a better safe than sorry thing, I guess.

I'll run Bimmercode/Link to figure out the error I'm seeing on the dash, check the car over and maybe go fill up the tank with gas and see what the result is.

Thank you both for your replies.

 

[MagicCarpet]

there has been a recall fault on some models where the fuel return line gets cut open by chaffing on a HV line plastic conduit, the area for this concern is forward of the Rex engine and between the electric machine and the Rex. If this happens while the Rex is running it can lead to the car burning to the ground.

If your i3 has spilled fuel then it may have emptied from either the feed line, return line or part of the fuel injection system on the Rex.
Certainly a caution on the dash indicates it cannot run the Mtce cycle either due to no fuel pressure or low fuel level, various Rex faults or too high state of charge.

 

[Drew001]

Thanks, MagicCarpet. That recall was part of what caused my concern.

But all seems well.
I looked inside the frunk, checked under the car front and back and found nothing obvious. Took it for a drive and the maintenance cycle failed again.
I stopped and filled up the gas tank - it took just over a gallon. Once back in the car, I got the message to OK the maintenance cycle and it started and completed just fine. The error on the dash went away too.

I guess I just needed some gas?

Thanks again for the replies everyone.

 

[frictioncircle]

Glad to hear that you're OK!

 

[airman2482]

I had a puddle of gas leak under my car this morning I was filling from a 2 1/2 gallon can of premium and poured nearly half the 2 1/2 gallon can into the i3 filler spout… after the gas can was half full, I thought this was odd because the REX motor only went through a couple of maintenance cycles.

I kept on pouring gas into the tank and noticed that there was a huge spill in front of the car.

I’m curious, I thought the gas was supposed to come out of the vents near the gas cap and not out of an overflow under the car.

Could there be a broken fuel line or vent line?

FYI: I was “trickling” the gas in very slowly…

I hosed down the area under the car and in front on the driveway after seeing probably a gallon and a half of gas spilled, just to dispel any fire hazard.

Curious.

Thanks for anyone who can answer.