Anyone over 100k miles on their car?

[59er9er]

Approx 125000 miles on 2016 i3 rex. Replaced electric motor at 100000 miles, bearing went. Battery good, occasionally get reduced charging alert but otherwise ok.

What did that motor replacement cost you?

 

[Joff]

What sends these cars to the scrapyard is expensive BMW dealership repairs. It is hard to predict when it may need one of those...unless you can find someone who can work on the car affordably.. I have 110,000 on my 2014 bev and 100,000 on my rex. I bought 7 i3 over a few years. I buy them broken, damaged or bricked and fix them. There should be more people that can work on these cars as time goes on. It doesn't require the expensive tools that rebuilding a gas engine requires.

 

[Dutchi3]

I have 110,000 on my 2014 bev

If you don't mind, could you tell what the remaining capacity of the battery is after 110.000 miles or what your practical range is now? Or did you change the battery in the meantime?

 

[mfogarty]

Just to offer my numbers.
i3 mid-2020 BEV. 109,500 miles.
Mi3 app says it's SoH is 94%.
Batt.Kapa.max says 37.6

 

[Paul4A]

This thread https://www.mybmwi3.com/threads/i3-motor-gearbox-failure-help.17395/ discusses lower design life in earlier i3’s.

 

[Marscar]

104k miles on my (UK) 2018 94Ah rex. Batt kappa max usually around 29kWh. 110ish miles on full charge.

We have the same year and type, on 58k and a max read out of 29 (has crept up gradually in our 18 month ownership ... possibly because we only very rarely charge at more thsan 2.5kw?) so this is encouraging!

 

[Marscar]

.... double post :-/

 

[Joff]

If you don't mind, could you tell what the remaining capacity of the battery is after 110.000 miles or what your practical range is now? Or did you change the battery in the meantime?

I put a 94ah battery from a salvage 2017 into it when it had 74k miles. The old battery worked fine and was showing 14.2 Kwh. I just wanted to learn how to do the upgrade as that skill would be valuable as more of these cars ran out of battery warranty. I upgraded my rex battery to a 94ah as well.

 

[emjaybennett]

I put a 94ah battery from a salvage 2017 into it when it had 74k miles. The old battery worked fine and was showing 14.2 Kwh. I just wanted to learn how to do the upgrade as that skill would be valuable as more of these cars ran out of battery warranty. I upgraded my rex battery to a 94ah as well.

I looked into the viability of this when I first purchased mine. Glad someone's actually done it.

 

[Trukinbear]

I was just wondering how long they last. I have a 2014 and just hit 75k. I have put 20k on in 15 months.

 

[nickp]

I put a 94ah battery from a salvage 2017 into it when it had 74k miles. The old battery worked fine and was showing 14.2 Kwh. I just wanted to learn how to do the upgrade as that skill would be valuable as more of these cars ran out of battery warranty. I upgraded my rex battery to a 94ah as well.

How did you accomplish this? Was it very difficult?

 

[Lauris_k]

Mine is ~130K miles (210K km as its propper in EU), probably 50% of tha was done by previous owners, last part is mine. So far from major repairs just finalizing EME replacement issues (so far ~800eu for EME, ~200eu for KLE - seems like it was a failure in diagnosis so changed working, just cracked case, for other working but not yet cracked case and ~1K for work). As for batteries didn't notice any degradation on my ownership, when buying max cappa was ~15KWh. Appart that only services (oil, filters and break pads with discs) and one parking sensor. Also Parking break warrning appeared, soe far seems like ABS block will need to be replaced, but not much lokked in to that issue yet.

 

[ronbot]

I put a 94ah battery from a salvage 2017 into it when it had 74k miles. The old battery worked fine and was showing 14.2 Kwh. I just wanted to learn how to do the upgrade as that skill would be valuable as more of these cars ran out of battery warranty. I upgraded my rex battery to a 94ah as well.

I have a 94Ah also from a salvage 2017 with minor rear-end damage, no airbags deployed. My 2015 (with 110k miles) needs this upgrade/retrofit. Besides the obvious refrigerant work, what else is required?

Both had/have heated seats... donor was a Rex, my 2015 is a BEV.

 

[ronbot]

What did that motor replacement cost you?

I replaced my drive motor at 94k miles. (2015 BEV) It had gotten so loud I could not drive it any more... so it sat for 11 months... became a garage hermit.

I also took the opportunity to replace the transaxle, since I found a bargain on a new one that someone bought online and was for the BEV, but he had a REx... and could not return it. If the output bearing on my motor had gotten horribly loose, the input shaft bearing of the transaxle/transmission could have been stressed... didn't want to do the job twice.

I got my motor on eBay, from a scrapped 2018 Rex with under 100 miles... was some kind of a Legal required scrap as it was a test vehicle, zero damage, never registered the VIN. When I got the motor and separated it from its Rex transaxle, the motor spline grease was still white - like it was brand new. It's been in the car now for about 8k miles and still runs perfectly and silent... I had forgotten how silent these cars should be.

I'm about $5k total into the repair... found a local BMW specialist shop, paid $2k for labor and some minor supplies and coolant. My original transaxle actually was not damaged, still in good shape... and the 2018 Rex transaxle is of course like new... so I should be able to sell those for something.

My original quote from BMW to replace the motor was $7500, but that's been over a year ago now... so probably over $8k by now.

 

[Nanniepoo]

2015 Rex, 85k miles and still get estimated range of 82 miles from time to time.

In the same boat as others, between the little to no rust potential and effectively no maintenance, I don't ever want to get rid of it. However we're a family of 4, maybe to be 5 God willing, it's quickly going to become a bit impractical for our family outside of running a few errands here and there. But hate to move on from the car.

 

[ing007]

2014 REX 261k km (162k miles), electric range 90-110 km

 

[i3m3fan]

196k first reg Jan 2015, i3 60ah bev