Bought a used BMW i3 today

[ociopia]

2015 rex for $22,000, 34,000 miles lease return, 26 months CPO left. Hard to know what I actually paid as it was a trade but not too far off this. These cars drop in value so fast and hard that I'll be upside down and deep in the hole - probably in Australia by the time it's paid off. So I'm just counting on keeping it a long time. Now you know they were desperate to sell it as they took my 2016 Fiat 500X, lol.

Beautiful condition, deep metallic orange, Tera World, Technology and Driving Assist and Parking Assist, pro nav. Nicely loaded. The genius (not) gave me instructions and I have sort of figured it out. Very fun that it can be customized so much. Extremely nice BMW dealership in Los Angeles.

I drive only on surface roads and put maximum 5000 miles a year on my car. I am the perfect i3 owner. So I'm going to see if I can just charge it with regular household current. I have a dedicated outlet I can use and I ordered a 10 gauge 20 amp 25' extension. Arrives today.

Can I rave about it's beauty? The dashboard is an artistic and architectural statement. So impressive. As unusual as the i3 is from the outside, it is equally gorgeous on the inside.

In 2 days, I've adjusted to the e pedal braking and it works incredibly well. I thought that would be so difficult to come to but it seem actually pretty natural.

I also love how narrow the car is because driving on surface roads in rush hour traffic, I don't feel the cars next to me are encroaching.

Turning radius - just fantastic.

I think BMW incredibly brave to have made this car. I'm in Los Angeles. Lots of money and lots of electric cars. Probably where most i3's are sold but I see very few. There are tons of BMWs on the road of every kind but very few i3s. Maybe more are sold in the EU.

Of course I'm sure a lot of it is range. The range isn't much. Can't really drive from LA to San Diego for instance. Now who is going to buy this car that drives on freeways? I know the 2017/18 have a bit more range but still next to zip. I don't drive on freeways so it is of no consequence to me. But if I did, I'd have never gotten it. I waffled on the Rex - a bit of a confidence booster vs not having the maintenance of an engine. But I just backed into it as I'd decided what things I had to have in it and that a 2015 was best and saw a dealership 2.5 miles from my house that had this car and just went to test it on a lark.

Hey, I hadn't expected my insurance to jump so much. $50 a month. Ugh. I wonder if Liberty Mutual gave me an electric car discount?

Please tell me how to keep this precious little jewel in good condition, maintenance I need to have done, etc. Thanks, Sherry

 

[alohart]

These cars drop in value so fast and hard that I'll be upside down and deep in the hole - probably in Australia by the time it's paid off. So I'm just counting on keeping it a long time.

Apparently, an i3's scrap value is quite high which should place a fairly high floor on its depreciated value. If so, the worst of the depreciation might have occurred. Consider yourself more fortunate than those of us who purchased new. However, like you, we plan to keep our 2014 BEV until it becomes too expensive to maintain which will hopefully be a decade from now, so current depreciated values aren't important unless our i3 is totaled in an accident.

I drive only on surface roads and put maximum 5000 miles a year on my car. I am the perfect i3 owner. So I'm going to see if I can just charge it with regular household current. I have a dedicated outlet I can use and I ordered a 10 gauge 20 amp 25' extension.

You should be fine charging at 120 V, especially with your REx backup should you have an unexpected trip that exceeds your remaining range. However, the first few times you charge, monitor the temperatures of your 120 V outlet and the connection between your Occasional Use Cable (OUC) and your extension cord. If the outlet is old, corroded, etc., electrical resistance could generate enough heat to damage the outlet and plug.

The OUC included with 2014 and some early 2015 i3's was a 12 A unit whereas later OUC's were 10 A units. Most home outlets are rated at 15 A, so 12 A is the limit for continuous use (80% of the rated power). If the outlet feels hot, you might need to replace it with a commercial-grade outlet. iDrive supports reducing the 120 V charging current if need be. "Maximum" would be 10-12 A, but if that makes your outlet or plug uncomfortably warm or if the circuit breaker on your charging circuit trips, you could set the charging current to "Reduced" would be ~9 A which should be fine although your charging would be slower.

The range isn't much. Can't really drive from LA to San Diego for instance.

Sure you can. You have the REx should you not want to or be able to charge en route. You just need to be careful not to drive faster than the REx output is able to sustain which would mean that the battery pack's charge level would slowly decrease until propulsion power would be reduced to allow the REx to keep up. This would reduce your maximum speed which could be dangerous on a freeway.

An alternative would be to install and license the BimmerCode app on your smart phone (~$30) and buy a Vgate iCar 2 or 3 WiFi OBD dongle (Amazon, ~$20) to connect your phone to the ODB port under the dashboard on the driver's side. This would allow you to unlock the capability that all REx owners outside of North America have of manually starting the REx engine when the battery pack's charge level is <75%. This would allow you to drive faster than the REx output could sustain without discharging the battery pack so much that propulsion power would be reduced. BimmerCode could also increase the usable gasoline tank capacity by ~0.5 gal. which would allow you to drive a bit farther before refueling.

Hey, I hadn't expected my insurance to jump so much. $50 a month. Ugh. I wonder if Liberty Mutual gave me an electric car discount?

i3 insurance rates vary considerably among insurance companies, so you might be able to save a considerable sum by checking with other insurance companies.

Please tell me how to keep this precious little jewel in good condition, maintenance I need to have done, etc.

i3's are pretty maintenance-free. Annual REx engine oil changes and brake fluid and cabin air filter changes every 2 years are about it. You should be reminded of these maintenance tasks on the instrument panel and on the BMW Connected smartphone app which is worth installing.

For the BMW Connected to function, you would need to have a BMW ConnectedDrive Website account and associate your car to this account. This might require the assistance of your BMW dealer if they haven't already done this.

Another convenient app to install is the BMW i Driver's Guide app. When registering the VIN of your car with this app, its content should be tailored to your i3 and its options. It is much easier to search this app than to find information in the printed Owner's Manual which is a pretty poor English translation from German.

To minimize the risk of a flat tire, keep the tire inflation pressure at BMW's recommendation (a handy 12 V air pump should be in your frunk) and be alert for potholes which you should avoid hitting, if possible. A decent approximation of the inflation pressure of each tire is available in iDrive when driving.

BMW suggests keeping an i3's battery pack fully charged with is the easiest for an owner (i.e., always be charging at home like a smartphone every night). "Full" is not 100% of the maximum charge level because the battery management system sets "full" to be ~95% of the maximum charge level which results in a slower battery cell degradation rate. Similarly, "empty" is not totally discharged but is a charge level of ~10%. For a Li-ion battery cell, in general, best cell life (i.e., slower degradation) occurs when its charge level is maintained between ~20% and ~80%. Unfortunately, there is no charge setting that limits the charge level to ~80%, so you would need to manually stop charging at 80% unless you needed a full charge for maximum range. I plan to keep our i3 as long as possible unlike most U.S. i3 drivers who lease, so I want to minimize battery pack degradation. I am willing to manage its charge level so that our i3 doesn't sit for many hours at full charge which wouldn't be ideal. If I might need full range, I charge to full a couple of hours prior to my departure time.

At risk of getting too much in the weeds, the battery management system also equalizes the charge levels of all cells but only when the car is off and the battery pack's charge level is high. If the cell charge levels aren't equal, the battery pack's usable capacity is reduced, so it's good to maintain balanced cell charge levels. However, leaving the battery pack at a high charge level for an extended period so charge equalization can occur is counter to the minimizing battery pack degradation, so I try to charge fully and leave our battery pack fully charged for several hours at least monthly.

Unfortunately, BMW has not provided any way to determine individual cell charge levels, so i3 drivers can't determine whether cell charge imbalance is significant. My view is that cell degradation is permanent and cannot be fixed without replacing a battery pack module whereas cell charge level imbalance can be fixed without replacing anything, so I prioritize minimizing cell degradation over maintaining cell charge level balance.

Otherwise, the same care any car needs to keep it in its best condition would apply to your i3.

Enjoy!

 

[ociopia]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. When my battery was fully charged, it said 80 miles when I turned it on. That dropped to 70 miles before I was out of my driveway. I then drove 6.5 miles and had 67 miles left. So I think it might be best to let go of worrying about it.

 

[alohart]

When my battery was fully charged, it said 80 miles when I turned it on. That dropped to 70 miles before I was out of my driveway. I then drove 6.5 miles and had 67 miles left. So I think it might be best to let go of worrying about it.

As you have seen, the estimated range is continually recalculated based on such factors as temperature, driving mode, climate control level, driving speed, etc. If a navigation route is being driven, the terrain and speed limits can be used to improve the accuracy of the range estimate.

As an i3 driver gains experience driving, the range estimates become less important with real-world experience taking over.

 

[graememwl]

First off, congrats!

The Rex uses a simple wire heating element (vs a much more efficient heat pump) in the BEV. This mean that cabin heat has a much bigger effect on range and range estimates in a Rex. When you start a journey and have climate control on in a cold cabin, the heater will turn on "high" to warm things up. The estimated range is calculated with this high heat load. As the cabin warms up, the amount of heat required is reduced, and the estimated range will reflect this reduced load.
In other words, on a colder day, the range estimate is initially low, then stabilizes over time.
During the cold Winter months here in the San Francisco Bay area, I saw a good 20% lower range than I'm getting now as things are warming up again.

Happy eMotoring.

 

[jadnashuanh]

I have a BEV, but this can happen with the REx as well. Left with the car indicating 77-miles of range. Drove 14-miles. Range estimate 73-miles. My driving was on 35-40mph roads whereas prior to that it had included some driving at 70-mph...speed and HVAC settings are probably the bigger components of range, but grades can intrude in there quite a bit, too, if they are along your route.

FWIW, I see exactly the same thing on my ICE with its range to empty calculation. After a highway stint, it might have calculated range based on the 30mpg I was getting. Then, the rest of the driving was on city streets, where 20-24mpg might be about the best possible...depending on how much gas was left, it could make a huge difference in what was reported verses what actually happened. IOW, it's an estimate, and unless you put in a route for the navigation system, it doesn't have a clue on where you'll be driving, or the likely speeds you'll be going (or if you'll drive more or less aggressively).