Battery Replacement Under Warranty

[oldGreyCat]

Thanks again. Very useful.

 

[oldGreyCat]

If I were buying a used i3, I would not buy an i3 earlier than a 2017 model because that's the first model with the 94 Ah battery pack which seems to be degrading much more slowly than some 60 Ah battery packs. However, the price would be higher.

If it comes to a battery pack replacement after the 8 year warranty expires, how much does that cost?

 

[Anonymous]

If it comes to a battery pack replacement after the 8 year warranty expires, how much does that cost?

$16,000 according to BMW

https://enrg.io/how-much-does-a-bmw-i3-battery-replacement-cost/

But people who have done it in Europe, are saying $7,000 to $10,000 if you go 3rd party and salvaged battery. BMW at one time sponsored an upgrade path as a pilot in the EU with a cost of around $8,000 for the battery upgrade, but has since discontinued it as interest wasn't there.

And apparently it's not an easy job - not just sliding out the battery tray, taking out the old cells and dropping in new ones. The whole cooling system has to be disconnected and re-connected, control units need to be replaced and re-programming done. I know of one dealer doing a warranty battery swap on an i3, after four months in the shop, and putting in three different battery packs (each one air-freighted in from Germany) they couldn't get to work, BMW finally flew in two engineers from the factory in Germany to do the job.

 

[oldGreyCat]

This "deal" is looking less and less likely by the minute. Thanks. This has been really helpful.

 

[Anonymous]

This "deal" is looking less and less likely by the minute. Thanks. This has been really helpful.

Don't overthink it. How many miles do you expect to drive in a day? (Is the car a REx?)

I have a 2015 REx. Bought it with 10K on the clock, and it now has 22K. Most of my 'day' driving I rarely log more than 15 - 20 miles. I have occasional days that I hit 30 maybe 40 miles. I've had only two times in 2 years that when running multiple errands, I had the REx come on, and both those, I deliberately kept running around just to see the REx come on. After several days of very short 5 - 10 mile trips, depending on outside temp. my range after charging that night might be 55 - 60 miles. If I take a longer drive of 30 - 40 miles, and charge it up, next day my range is 75 miles (and the car is rated at 71 miles max range in the literature). Oh, and I always drive in Comfort mode - never use Eco mode. If after several years of ownership, even if my range drops to 50 miles max, I'd still be using the car exactly as I do now - do my daily drive, plug it in at night to charge as needed. Seems like the price you are getting is good, and if the battery is currently showing decent range, and you don't have a high mile commute that is pushing the limit of the car, if it was me, I'd not be worrying about a 'what if' that will have almost zero impact even if that unicorn event of a degraded battery pack actually happens. After a longish trip to and from my daughter's house (40+miles) for Thanksgiving, plugged it in overnight, and when I backed out of the garage, it showed my range at 80 miles. Of course that dropped immediately to around 70, but still - 70 miles is about what the car was rated at brand new. With the car fully charged, and using 'conditioning' during the charge - what is the range showing?? On the BMW i3 board there are lots of owners with over 100K miles on their 2014 and 2015 i3's with little appreciable drop in HV battery performance, some even over 200K.

 

[oldGreyCat]

My commute is 20 miles each way, 40 miles total with a charger at work that has to be shared among vehicles. Occasionally, I'll drive to a local music gig after work and then home, so those are the only days I would have to be sure to charge at work. Report from the dealer is that they changed the 12V battery, not one of the HV modules. I will talk directly to BMW tomorrow to see if I can get any information about the current capacity of the battery.

 

[avasu01]

Newbie here....

I have a 2015 i3 Base with 55k miles. Car was purchased from someone in California and I had it delivered on a truck to Georgia. When it was unloaded from the truck, the car wouldn’t turn on. I had it towed to a charging station and charged it overnight to 100%. It’s now giving me 9 miles of range.

I did the Kapa test and it’s saying 2.2. Will BMW replace the battery given these circumstances?

 

[jadnashuanh]

This sounds like a true battery failure and, if testing verifies, should qualify for a replacement battery. The estimated range and hidden menu readouts can be fooled, so you should drive it a bit to see if that changes.

 

[alohart]

I have a 2015 i3 Base with 55k miles. Car was purchased from someone in California and I had it delivered on a truck to Georgia. When it was unloaded from the truck, the car wouldn’t turn on. I had it towed to a charging station and charged it overnight to 100%. It’s now giving me 9 miles of range.

What do you mean by "wouldn't turn on"? Totally dead with no instrument lights, not able to unlock with the fob, etc.? If so, the 12 V battery's charge might have been too low. Charging the battery pack will also charge the 12 V battery.

With a low 12 V system voltage, weird things can happen until the car "resets" itself which could take a couple of days. If it doesn't start behaving normally after a couple of days, take it to a BMW dealer and be prepared to pay a diagnostic charge (a few hundred dollars). If the battery pack is defective, it should be replaced under warranty with your diagnostic charge refunded.

Hopefully, you have some assurance from the seller that everything was working normally before your car was shipped.

 

[bum55]

Adding my situation regarding battery degradation. 2014 Rex built 12/1/2014, bought new inservice date July 2015. Currently at 40,000 miles so figure my 8 year battery warranty runs through July 2023. Our full charge mileage seemed to be getting lower so I've started tracking the bat/max level in the "secret menu". It was 13.7 a year ago, had one reading as low as 12.1 this winter, and the latest reading was 13.0 this April 2021.

My experience to date in discussing this with my dealer is not any different than many of you have experienced. Willing to run the test for $300 but I'll have to pay for it if it comes back above the 70% or 13.15 reading. Dealer does not seem very excited about the prospect of dealing with this and encouraged me to wait since I still have time left on my warranty. They are very hazy about providing specifics about their history with warranty claims like this or the specifics of what I can expect to see regarding the test results I'd be paying for. I am concerned that even if it tests below 70% now and they actually change a module that I'd be back in the same situation again during the next two years of warranty coverage. So I figure waiting and continuing to monitor the reading is my best course of action for now and make sure it will read below the "normal" acceptable range when I do get the test done.

Any one see any reason to do otherwise at this time? I'll keep the. group updated as this moves along. Besides replacing the 12v battery myself and replacing the rear trunk latch, saving about $800 in dealer charges, we have had no major repairs during the 6 years of ownership and we really love the car. It's used only for around town errands by my wife so we've made no long trips with it and it's never been charged anywhere but in our garage using a 30 amp "charger".

 

[lopezjm2001]

Just wandering if anyone has done their own HV battery health test using the BMW diagnostic software ISTA+. It involves fully charging the HV battery and then fully discharging the battery using the air-conditioning with the windows open. You can get this software on the net for a reasonable price from https://www.bcables.com/. Just need a OBD2 to ethernet cable.

 

[Joff]

Just wandering if anyone has done their own HV battery health test using the BMW diagnostic software ISTA+. It involves fully charging the HV battery and then fully discharging the battery using the air-conditioning with the windows open. You can get this software on the net for a reasonable price from https://www.bcables.com/. Just need a OBD2 to ethernet cable.

I have a laptop loaded with ISTA software and cable. It has helped me troubleshoot wiring damage, but I am no expert. Do you have any instructions on how to use it to test HV batterie state of health?

 

[rcyyan]

For everyone in CA, CT, ME, MD, MA, NJ ,NY,RI and VT....I'm guessing we have 10yrs and 150k mi. Or am I reading this incorrectly.

From the owners manual under the emissions warranty section:

Manufacturer’s Warranty Coverage
(California, Connecticut, Maine,
Maryland, Massachusetts, New
Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, or
Vermont ONLY):
– For 15 years or 150,000 miles, whichever
occurs first**:
**Except High-Voltage Battery (Traction Battery),
which is covered for 10 years, or 150,000 miles,
whichever occurs first.

 

[eye3guy]

I recently bought a 2014 i3 BEV (a couple of days ago), however it is actually still with the (independent, non official BMW) dealer. Apparently the a/c wasn't blowing so cold, which is why they stated that they would keep it, and fix it for me since the local dealer I bought it from has their own 30 day warranty. This doesn't seem relevant now, but just bear with me-

Now...The Carfax report provided by the dealer shows that the car started out in CA, then made it's way to Phoenix, AZ. in fact funny enough the dealer was "Chapman BMW". This dealer was in possession of the car twice. I say it's funny because I've been sort of lurking, and noticed that some board members are from phoenix, and even noticed someone bought their 2014 i3 from the exact same dealer! (maybe mine?)

The car has found it's way to Houston, where I have now bought it. Anyways...the point is that, I was supposed to have my car delivered to me by the local Houston dealer yesterday. However, the guy calls me and says "hey man, so sorry, but they are still working on the a/c" then he asks, "do you live more than 35 miles away?" lol...That second part, his question about how far I was raised a pretty massive red flag.

What I noticed while I was test driving the vehicle is that the battery gauge was around 60% full, (from eye balling the lines at the bottom of the instrument panel), but the range remaining, said 19 miles...hmm...That seemed a little low to me, however in Houston these days, reaching close to 100 degrees is common, plus the car may have been sitting for some time, since it was sent from AZ to TX, and doesn't seem to have had a previous owner for a couple of weeks. So i just sort of chalked it up to a more or less inaccurate range calculation. But, I have a few curiosities, and a few facts. Might anyone be able to help me out?

Facts:
-Car has been minimally driven (if at all) for at least 2 weeks.
-The a/c was NOT blowing cold when I test drove the car
-The battery meter was around 60%
-At the same time, the range was 19 miles
-It's hot as crap in Houston
-I found 2 pictures (of my exact car by VIN) from 2018 of the instrument panel showing the range as being really, REALLY bad from the cars past life. Both in AZ, and both within a few miles of each other. I will post them after this.

Curiosities:
-if the a/c went out in AZ, where it's SUPER hot, is it possible that the batteries got overheated, since they surely need the a/c working in AZ in the summer to cool them down?
-Could this just be the 12v battery needing to be replaced?
-Could the car's software be factoring in the short dealer test drives here and there, with minimal charging, thus showing a below normal range? Like how the range can be skewed in a gas propelled vehicle if you reset the mpg meter, then instantly hit traffic showing worse mpg than what it is in reality.

The car is still under BMW battery warranty, however, I'm a bit worried based on what I've read here that they wouldn't help me anyways. It is also under a 30 day warranty (powertrain and drivetrain) from the small Houston dealer too, under which the battery should be covered.

It seems like they didn't want to attempt to deliver the car to me because the range was likely showing 35 mile range AT FULL CHARGE. and I would just send it right back under their 30 day warranty, plus leave all sorts of bad reviews (potentially, I'm guessing from their perspective).

Now...I'm no mathematician, but regardless of what the secret menu says (which I wasn't aware of until AFTER I bought the car. A 35 mile range at full charge would be WELL within any sort of threshold for a BMW warranty. But I just don't want to neglect any other factors before potentially having to raise to the issue with BMW or my local dealer, and having to pay to have it tested. Any advice? (sorry for the novel).

 

[eye3guy]

The two pics as promised. Based on the report that I pulled for one of the pics is from 2018, and considering that they are only a few miles within each other on the odometer, I am assuming that both pics are from 2018.

Any thoughts or ideas would REALLY be appreciated!

 

[Anonymous]

The AC is critical for heat management. cooling the HV battery. If the those pics show that the previous owner drove the car with no AC in Arizona for several years, the HV pack could be toast - and BMW could easily deny any warranty on the HV battery, claiming the failure was due to owner negligence for not fixing the AC.

Chapman BMW also has a less than stellar rep with the i3 (and customers in general), particularly with AC issues.

There is an iPhone App called 'mi3' that pulls up a lot of i3 internal charge and battery info, requires an ODB dongle to connect to the car. Could be used for a quick and easy deeper dive into what is going on with the range/charge.

Some other points to consider:
* A small number of AC compressors in 2014 and 2015 i3 had QC issues and were prone to early failure, particularly in hot climate environments.
* If the AC compressor in an i3 has a catastrophic failure which puts metal fragments into the system, the repair costs are five-figures and basically total the car. (I would wonder if this is what happened, and the prev owner just drove the car with no AC when faced with a repair bill more than the car was worth, until he paid off the car, then traded it. Any BMW Dealer can look up the service history of the car by VIN, and see if it was ever in for AC service, when it was brought in, and what the diagnosis and outcome).

 

[alohart]

I would think that an i3 with a malfunctioning A/C would store a diagnostic trouble code (DTC) that would display a warning to stop driving and have the car taken to a BMW dealer.

I would steer clear of an i3 that had spent much time in a very hot climate. Even though i3's have a good battery pack cooling system, it doesn't operate when an i3 is parked and not charging or preconditioning. So if an i3 is parked over hot pavement in the sunlight on a very hot day for several hours, its battery cells could become so hot that their output is purposely reduced to avoid more serious damage. The cell degradation rate accelerates at high temperatures which seems like what might have occurring with your i3. Without knowing its history, BMW might deny a battery warranty replacement if its A/C system wasn't properly maintained.

Many 60 Ah battery packs like the one in our 2014 BEV have degraded for reasons that aren't clear. Don't buy an i3 older than a 2017 to avoid the 60 Ah battery pack. I can't recall reading about any 94 Ah (2017-2018) and 120 Ah (2019-2021) battery pack that has degraded significantly.

If I were you, I would cancel the sale and look for a 2017 or later i3.

 

[eye3guy]

Thank you for your responses! I figured that there may have been some sort of trouble code as well. I should also note that I pulled two reports from two different independent companies about the car and neither of them showed any issues at all. In fact they both just showed regular maintenance. I would also find it very difficult to imagine that someone would drive around in phoenix in the summer with no a/c. I've been to phoenix a few times, and the really is no joke. As a side note, they sold it to the AZ dealer in October, so it wasn't peak heat season when they sold it. which sort of makes me doubt that they would've sold it due to lack of a/c because it wouldn't have been painfully hot at that time.

I may be showing a bit of overoptimism here, but upon thinking about it, there are quite a lot of hills/valleys in AZ and around phoenix. And I was the first person to test drive the vehicle after it arrived at my local dealer from AZ. The previous owner also had the vehicle for 2 years and 8 months, so I'm not totally sure that they went without a/c for that long. I even ran the numbers on the mileage that they racked up, and if they drove it every single day for the entire 2 yrs and 8 mos it would only have average like 23 miles a day. Having said all of that, yes, it really does get very hot there, and i believe last year there was a heat wave too.
But the sale is already final, and the car has been paid for, so I don't think there will be any returning it.

What I'm getting at here, it that it IS possible that whoever had it before me, drove it up and down mountainous terrain, in (at least) fairly warm temps, and likely at decent, (near or at) highway speeds.

While it's only one data point, I saw a YouTube video where a guy drove his 94ah up a mountain, and at the start of the trip it quoted him 145mi (in comfort), but his battery ran out closer to 71mi. because of the temps (cooler in his case), but mostly the elevation. So I mean, I wouldn't put it past mountainous driving at highway speeds to half cause the range to show half of what it would be on flat terrain. And his average was like 35mph or something to that effect, if I'm not mistaken.

It would be super awesome, if anyone from phoenix or any mountainous area really could chime in with their actual numbers. I'd like to have hope that it's still a good purchase, since like I said, there won't be any returning it.

OH, I should also note, a couple more things:
-When I test drove the car, and when the salesman and I turned on the car and then turned on the a/c it was 96 deg outside and the car had been sitting out in the sun all day (windows up). He waited all of 10 seconds to say "this is way too hot, the a/c isn't cooling as it should". Which I chalked up to it just needing to take a minute or two because it's so hot and humid here, that that's typical of any car to need a min or two to really start blowing cold.
-When I test drove it, i went for about 3 miles or so, and the predicted range didn't even budge. which 3 miles isn't long, but it's a large percentage of the 19 miles predicted remaining range (~15%), so I would imagine that if it REALLY only had 19 miles of range left it would've at least gone down by even one mile during the test drive.
-When I called the local dealers service dept, they said that they were going to replace the fan and the compressor. Although, I didn't see any CEL or anything like that. (I don't know if they're just shooting in the dark, or what lol)

Meh, maybe I'm just being a hopeful i3 romantic lol

But again, there's no report showing that the a/c was damaged or CEL, or anything like that. So Maybe if the packs are jacked, (but hopefully not), then they could still be replaced under warranty. Could anyone please provide their experience with actual range in mountainous areas?

 

[alohart]

If I were you, I'd get the estimate of the battery pack capacity as shown in the service menu. The battery pack capacity, "Batt. Kapa. max", must be less than 13.3 kWh to qualify for a warranty replacement. A BMW dealer would not base a warranty replacement on the Batt. Kapa. max value but would perform a rigorous test at the owner's expense unless a warranty replacement were indicated. For some reason, the test procedure frequently increases the usable capacity, so I wouldn't spend money for the test unless multiple Batt. Kapa. max readings over a period of time were less than maybe 12.5 kWh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELT5b2YWL58

 

[Anonymous]

If the local dealer is prepared to replace the AC compressor and the fan, that's a big bonus. Parts and labor puts that job at over $2 grand. And the replacement compressor will be a newer version that hasn't been prone to heat-failure.

Third party reporting agencies provide limited, basic info, only what the insurance agencies provide to them, and any online shared maintenance databases. A lot can and will be left out. Case in point, when we sold my daughter's car for her, I printed out the Carfax to provide prospective buyers. The report indicated that the car had never been in an accident. It actually had been rear-ended by a drunk driver on the freeway, causing over $6,000 in damage. Not a peep on the report. Intrigued, I ran a carfax on our old Jeep Cherokee, which had been T-boned by a red-light runner - $8,000 in repairs. Again, nothing at all on the Carfax. I have the carfax on all the service done on my i3 since 'new'. I also was able to print out the actual BMW Dealer service records on the i3, from the Connected App, before they 'improved' the app and locked that feature out. About a third of the service visits on the BMW service database are missing from the Carfax report.

One other thing can damage an i3 battery pack - leaving it parked for an extended period of time with an almost flat HV battery. So much so, that if you drive and deplete the battery, when you get close to the bottom of the charge, the car throws up a warning to change the HV battery as soon as possible.

But since you have a 30 day warranty - put it through a week of drive/charge cycles, and see what's up with the car. If the mileage in the guessometer stays low, worth a shot at getting BMW to evaluate the HV battery pack - could be a couple of dead cells in the pack that need to be replaced, BMW will charge around $300 to do the test. If the battery fails, they rescind the charge.