Bang, then shut down, drivetrain malfunction error.....

[Sparky]

Update:
Went down to the dealer and spoke to the service tech. He showed me the mark from an arc on the cover of the EME. The arc came from the inside of the controller. They HAVE seen 4 others, some with a dime sized hole through the case. I don't know if BMW engineers know the root cause of the arc, maybe they do.

When this happens, they replace the EME and the battery pack. Even though the batteries are protected by fuses, they replace them anyway.

Good news: they located a battery pack in the U.S., so all parts should be available in a week or so, and I'll be back on the road Ina couple of weeks. Driving an X1 loaner.

Did your dealer give you a suggested procedure for getting the car into neutral or otherwise out of harms way? Any sort of official response to "dead car in the middle of the road".

Didn't explicitly ask that question. I believe you need to have the car in the ready mode to engage neutral. I'm assuming when the EME is taken out of service, ready is NOT available and no amount of trickery will let you engage neutral. I'll let you know the next time it happens. :roll:

 

[jadnashuanh]

Did your dealer give you a suggested procedure for getting the car into neutral or otherwise out of harms way? Any sort of official response to "dead car in the middle of the road".

As I said, the procedure IS in the app version of the user's manual AND it is also IN the car's electronic version of the owner's manual easily found with the search function (I just did it, it took me less than 10-seconds to find). Now, should the dealer and the iConcierge know this and be able to relate it to a caller, certainly, but as many have found, they are not always the greatest sources of quality information!

From what I can tell, it takes more time to read the instructions than it would be to actually do it...the whole thing would probably take all of 10-seconds. Personally, I could not tell you how to use the tire sealant and the air pump without reading the instructions...why is this emergency situation different?

I'm not sure where my printed manual is at the moment, so I can't look through there.

 

[Sparky]

Did your dealer give you a suggested procedure for getting the car into neutral or otherwise out of harms way? Any sort of official response to "dead car in the middle of the road".

As I said, the procedure IS in the app version of the user's manual AND it is also IN the car's electronic version of the owner's manual easily found with the search function (I just did it, it took me less than 10-seconds to find). Now, should the dealer and the iConcierge know this and be able to relate it to a caller, certainly, but as many have found, they are not always the greatest sources of quality information!

From what I can tell, it takes more time to read the instructions than it would be to actually do it...the whole thing would probably take all of 10-seconds. Personally, I could not tell you how to use the tire sealant and the air pump without reading the instructions...why is this emergency situation different?

I'm not sure where my printed manual is at the moment, so I can't look through there.

Have you tried this with the EME disconnected?

 

[Sparky]

I'll ask the i3 tech working on my car, what can be done to access neutral when the EME and battery pack have failed.

 

[Sparky]

Page 39 of this document:
http://www.kneb.net/bmw/I01/06_I01%20High-voltage%20Components.pdf
Explains that the parking lock module is controlled by the EME (Electric Machine Electronics).
I'm pretty sure that if the EME has a catastrophic failure the parking module is SOL.

 

[I33t]

Page 39 of this document:
http://www.kneb.net/bmw/I01/06_I01%20High-voltage%20Components.pdf
Explains that the parking lock module is controlled by the EME (Electric Machine Electronics).
I'm pretty sure that if the EME has a catastrophic failure the parking module is SOL.

Printed Manual. P35, "Controls; Opening and Closing":

Activating ready to drive function by special id of remote control.

If the corresponding check control message appears, hold the remote control to the mark on the steering column vertically, depress the brake and press the start/stop button within 10 seconds.

Printed Manual, P196, "Mobility; Help in the event of a breakdown":

Pushing Vehicle.

To remove stopped vehicle from a dangerous area, it can be pushed over a short distance at a speed of maximum 10 km/h, approximately 6 mph.
The vehicle can only be pushed with selector lever in N position.
So that vehicle can roll, proceed as follows:

• 1. Switch on Radio Readiness or ready-to-drive function
  2. Depress brake pedal
  3. Engage selector lever position N

With electrical faults is may be possible that a change of selector lever position is not possible.

Bet you are correct that this would be the case in your situation, Sparky.

 

[WoodlandHills]

Did your dealer give you a suggested procedure for getting the car into neutral or otherwise out of harms way? Any sort of official response to "dead car in the middle of the road".

As I said, the procedure IS in the app version of the user's manual AND it is also IN the car's electronic version of the owner's manual easily found with the search function (I just did it, it took me less than 10-seconds to find). Now, should the dealer and the iConcierge know this and be able to relate it to a caller, certainly, but as many have found, they are not always the greatest sources of quality information!

From what I can tell, it takes more time to read the instructions than it would be to actually do it...the whole thing would probably take all of 10-seconds. Personally, I could not tell you how to use the tire sealant and the air pump without reading the instructions...why is this emergency situation different?

I'm not sure where my printed manual is at the moment, so I can't look through there.

As you suggest, the dealer is often a poor source for accurate information about the i3, but surely the iConcierge should know all about it. After all they are being paid to do so.... If the iGenius cannot be bothered to learn the manual despite being paid an hourly wage as an expert, then why fault the owner for the same failing? This is not the first time that a similar situation has arisen: the iGeniuses at the dealer or at iConcierge being just as clueless as the rest of us. If BMW is going to offer and advertise this informational service then it would behoove them to do it in a competent fashion, to do less than that is both an insult and a disservice to their customers.

 

[I33t]

I think the point is (apart from the likelihood that the procedure wouldn't work in this case anyway), that unless you already know the procedure, you're not going to have time to read the manual while directing traffic around your car stuck in the middle of a busy road.

It took me a few minutes to find the relevant section in the manual, with no traffic stress.

 

[Boatguy]

I think BMW owes us, and probably also the NTSB, an explanation of how a driver can best respond to this situation.. RTFM doesn't cut it when you're stuck in the middle of the road. The answer may be "get away from the vehicle" and to a position of safety, or maybe hold the key to the shifter for 10 seconds, shift to N and push the car.

In any case, it's a simple question. We may not like the answer, but the OP is not the first owner to experience this, and probably won't be the last.

 

[jadnashuanh]

FWIW, the i3 is not unique these days...many vehicles use electronically controlled transmissions, and many of them could have the same issue if there were some fault locking it in park.

 

[psc]

I'll ask the i3 tech working on my car, what can be done to access neutral when the EME and battery pack have failed.

Probably this :

4.3.6 Emergency release
To release the electromechanical parking brake in emergencies, the actuator must be removed and the
spindle turned back mechanically via the spindle drive. For details of the emergency release procedure
for the electromechanical parking brake, refer to the current repair instructions.

 

[Sparky]

Interesting, I went to read more about this topic after the last post and found that document about the i3 is not on the server.

"The requested URL /bmw/I01/06_I01 High-voltage Components.pdf was not found on this server."

Could it be that BMW is actually reading this forum?

 

[psc]

Looks like all the BMW information has been removed (Take down notice ?) - It was there this morning

 

[Sparky]

We are now officially members of the mushroom society........feed 'em sh*t and keep 'em in the dark

 

[Eikon]

Ever since they fixed the car, the

Charger unlock feature at 100% to allow hospitality charging (charger sharing)

is not working for me anymore.

The car still has the March update since I can see the SOC, but the charger stays locked into the car even when the car has been fully charged unless the door is unlocked.

Has anyone else noticed this after the drivetrain malfunction repair?

I am aware that the charger unlock function isn't 100% reliable, but this started happening after the repair.

Does anyone know if this is something I can code?

 

[jadnashuanh]

Ever since they fixed the car, the

Charger unlock feature at 100% to allow hospitality charging (charger sharing)

is not working for me anymore.

That change has not hit the USA market yet. I thought that it had on mine for awhile, but it ended up being that the lock mechanism itself was broken and had to be replaced (IOW, it never locked!). At one point, mine would not reliably unlock regardless of what you did, and that's when it was actually replaced. The emergency unlock cable at one point got jammed as well, making it dicey. Locking and unlocking the car about 5x eventually got it to release the cable. Would have been a real hassle as the car won't run with it in, and to tow it, We would have had to remove the EVSE from the wall and cart it along, too! Been working fine since the replacement.

 

[jadnashuanh]

Interesting, I went to read more about this topic after the last post and found that document about the i3 is not on the server.

"The requested URL /bmw/I01/06_I01 High-voltage Components.pdf was not found on this server."

Could it be that BMW is actually reading this forum?

FWIW, those documents are copyrighted, internal training documents of BMW...not intended for public release. Not saying that they aren't interesting, or potentially useful if you want to learn more about your car, but they were not intended for public release, and BMW has every right to keep them internal and thus have them removed should they desire. WHy make proprietary information available to all competitors, too?

 

[Sparky]

Batteries are in! EME ordered Friday, has to ship from Germany. Two days to two weeks, depending on customs.

 

[alohart]

EME ordered Friday, has to ship from Germany. Two days to two weeks, depending on customs.

In 2002, I bought a limited production, radical new design 2000 Honda Insight, Honda's first gasoline-electric hybrid and Honda's only all-aluminum car other than the NSX, which makes it similar in these respects to the i3. It had a few early teething problems with battery and motor controllers that led to early battery pack failures (although it seems to have had far fewer problems than the i3 has had). My Insight's battery pack and controllers were replaced twice under warranty. Repairs were completed in no more than 24 hours after waiting no more than a week for parts to be shipped from the mainland U.S. to Honolulu. Parts never had to be shipped from Japan even though less than 10,000 Insights had been sold when my warranty repairs were performed. I still own our Insight but it's now in Sweden where Insights were never sold. Yet I can get replacement parts through my local Honda dealer within a couple of days because these parts are stocked in Honda's European parts distribution center.

So BMW's handling of replacement i3 parts is just unacceptable! We have read about multiple EME failures on just this forum which represents a small fraction of i3 owners, so the number of EME failures must certainly warrant stocking a supply in every i3 market along with other parts that have been failing repeatedly. We have also read of multiple owners losing the use of their i3's for weeks waiting for parts from Germany. Very disappointing and worrying for the future!

 

[Sparky]

I agree with your concern. I'm hoping that in the case of the EME, replacement parts are not stored locally because the design has been changed and tested, and fewer parts are initially available. Wishful thinking?

I'm assuming that the design incorporates difficult analog power chips that do the DC to AC to DC conversions. All that power loss is difficult to dissipate. I'm willing to bet this part maybe subject to recall in the future, given the nature of the failure.