new I3 REX owner. some questions. sorry.

[gqpixel]

hello and thanks for taking the time. just got a new to me i3 rex. 2015. so far loving it. so quiet and smooth. I just have a few questions on it though.

- Should I fully charge every night to 100%? Bought a level 2 charger (BMW version). level 1 was saying 21hrs to charge up.

- Should I get snow tires in Chicago? Do the summer tires really end up like hockey pucks?

- How do I turn off the radio? I press power but it just mutes it.

- I saw some videos on hacking the system so it can use the full 2gallons for REX. I filled up yesterday 1.6 gallons. It felt so weird and I had to laugh.

- And the hack for 'Hold Stage of Charge'. ... advisable to do? or let it be.


Thank you for the time and efforts.

 

[Arm]

- Should I fully charge every night to 100%? Bought a level 2 charger (BMW version). level 1 was saying 21hrs to charge up.

I would yes. I believe it's better for the battery than letting it sit uncharged. Particularly in extreme temperatures.

- Should I get snow tires in Chicago? Do the summer tires really end up like hockey pucks?

Someone in a very cold climate can chime in here.

- How do I turn off the radio? I press power but it just mutes it.

You have to press the OPTION button and there should be a choice to Turn Off Display. You may have to mute the volume before that and then turn off the display.

 

[Anonymous]

- I saw some videos on hacking the system so it can use the full 2gallons for REX. I filled up yesterday 1.6 gallons. It felt so weird and I had to laugh.

- And the hack for 'Hold Stage of Charge'. ... advisable to do? or let it be.

Both are handy to have. The reason for the 'limited' gas tank was for California, to classify the car as a 'clean air' vehicle and qualify BMW for for credits, they had to lower the distance it could go gas powered, vs electric - which is pretty silly considering that the gas engine isn't 'pushing' the car along, it is just an electric generator, add electricity to the HV battery.

Hold state of charge is useful, letting you turn on the REx engine when you are at or below 75% of charge, instead of waiting for it to go on automatically at 8%. If you are doing highway driving, particularly in cold weather, that little scooter engine powered generator won't quite keep up with the electricity the car is using, so nice to have that big reserve of charge, rather than doing a nail-biter watching your 8% charge dropping when you still have a chunk of miles to go, you are running on the REx, and the car suddenly goes into turtle mode slowing to 30 mph on the freeway because the HV battery is down to almost zero and the car is running on only the electricity the REx can generate.

And you aren't 'hacking' the system, just unlocking menu items that are already there in the car in Europe, just hidden in the USA model. Using Bimmer Code and an OBD port communication dongle, is as easy as clicking option buttons on any phone app (and fully reversible at any time).

For tires, I'd say in Chicago, you would need snow tires - they are going to give you 20% to 50% more traction on snow and ice. If you have the 20" summer/sports tires, make that 90% more traction With the 20" tires, the car will be all but undrivable on winter roads.

Tirerack.com and BMW both have winter tire/rim package deals for the i3 - 19" only - no 20" snow tires available for the i3.

 

[gqpixel]

awesome thanks all for the replies. I did manage to turn off the radio. Once I learn how to set the channels with the scroll wheel, I'll use it.

I will be getting snow tires. bmw dealer quoting $418 per tire .. it comes with the 19" rims. I have the 20" with summer tires. And I only found out after the front passenger tire kept losing air.. has a nail in it. so instead of buying a single tire. I'll go with the winter tires in a few weeks. they patched the hole for a bit.

getting a 240v outlet installed this weekend. so I won't have to make runs to the dealership to get charged up.

will try to unlock the codes soon. any other cool unlocks?

and lastly I just noticed a small crack on the windshield today. I did hear a rock hit it..but didn't think much of it. so far it's small.. gotta seal it somehow before it get's too big.


thanks again. and I'm glad I found this forum.

 

[frictioncircle]

Hello gqpixel, and welcome to the forum!

will try to unlock the codes soon. any other cool unlocks?

It's a VERY long thread, but this is a good starting point to learn about coding your i3 REx.
https://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1616

 

[gqpixel]

thanks.

 

[Anonymous]

they patched the hole for a bit.

As long as the hole isn't in or near the sidewall (shops won't patch it if it is), a tire patch is the normal repair for a nail or screw hole, is completely safe and permanent, will last the life of the tire - no need to replace the tire next summer.

and lastly I just noticed a small crack on the windshield today

Yes, get this addressed soonest - if the crack spreads, the windshield is both expensive and difficult to replace (trim panels have to be removed, which usually breaks some of the retaining clips, which then need to be replaced as well). Needs to be done by a shop with experience with the i3.

 

[stumbledotcom]

It's a VERY long thread, but this is a good starting point to learn about coding your i3 REx.
https://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1616

That thread is great if a bit intimidating to this non-programmer. I did not attempt to code my 2014 and 2017 BEVs, in part because they were leased and the PC+cable setup once required seemed daunting (Mac user since 1984). The availability of wireless OBD dongles and apps such as Bimmerlink has greatly simplified the process. The 2021 that arrived Tuesday is a purchase I intend to keep for the long term so I decided to customize it. My Bluetooth dongle arrived Wednesday morning; I enabled the iDrive setting giving me control of the acoustic pedestrian warning (added to US spec in 2020?) during lunch. I’ve subsequently turned on the tire temperature+pressure display, and killed the volume pop-up and startup/camera warnings. All in all well worth the $75 I spent on the dongle/app combo.

 

[eNate]

With regard to the charging to 100%, BMW encourages this and in fact offers no way (in-car) to set a lower charge limit.

However, I'll point out that BMW is using Samsung battery tech that is not very different from the battery technology used in other EVs -- or in other words, it isn't anything novel. There's no data to suggest that, like other lithium-based batteries, they don't do best when maintained between about 20% and 80% SOC.

And as far as I know, BMW WAS the only manufacturer not to provide a charging cut off. Others -- Tesla, Kia, VW, Polestar are the ones I'm most familiar with -- allow a charging cap to be set by the user.

And above I wrote WAS because even BMW has come around! As you'll see in the video I linked to below, in the new BMW i4 the owner is allowed to set not only the max charging percentage (ex. 80%), but also limit charging current (in other words limit uptake to 24 amps when plugged in to a 60 amp EVSE).

The i3 has approximately 10% buffer but this is split between the upper and lower ends of the battery, so 100% indicated is 95% true state of charge, well above the "industry best practice" of 80%.

I'm not shy to charge my i3 to 100% when I need it, and I also don't stress if I shoot for 80% and run over. But nor do I charge every day or subscribe to the "always be charging" mantra prescribed by others. In other words, I don't let charging "rules" overly-complicate my life, but yet, by BMW excluding this very basic charging cut-off feature from the i3, it has unnecessarily added a layer of complexity that need not be there.

So I'm not writing this to scare you off from just plugging it in an forgetting about it, per BMW's suggestion, if that's your preference, but simply to give you some extra information to consider.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BJyovb24PA&t=766s

 

[Arm]

With regard to the charging to 100%, BMW encourages this and in fact offers no way (in-car) to set a lower charge limit.

However, I'll point out that BMW is using Samsung battery tech that is not very different from the battery technology used in other EVs -- or in other words, it isn't anything novel. There's no data to suggest that, like other lithium-based batteries, they don't do best when maintained between about 20% and 80% SOC.

And as far as I know, BMW WAS the only manufacturer not to provide a charging cut off. Others -- Tesla, Kia, VW, Polestar are the ones I'm most familiar with -- allow a charging cap to be set by the user.

And above I wrote WAS because even BMW has come around! As you'll see in the video I linked to below, in the new BMW i4 the owner is allowed to set not only the max charging percentage (ex. 80%), but also limit charging current (in other words limit uptake to 24 amps when plugged in to a 60 amp EVSE).

The i3 has approximately 10% buffer but this is split between the upper and lower ends of the battery, so 100% indicated is 95% true state of charge, well above the "industry best practice" of 80%.

I'm not shy to charge my i3 to 100% when I need it, and I also don't stress if I shoot for 80% and run over. But nor do I charge every day or subscribe to the "always be charging" mantra prescribed by others. In other words, I don't let charging "rules" overly-complicate my life, but yet, by BMW excluding this very basic charging cut-off feature from the i3, it has unnecessarily added a layer of complexity that need not be there.

So I'm not writing this to scare you off from just plugging it in an forgetting about it, per BMW's suggestion, if that's your preference, but simply to give you some extra information to consider.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BJyovb24PA&t=766s

I mostly agree. Like you say, don't over think it. If you want to charge, charge, if not, don't. At the end of the day, I doubt it makes very much difference particularly at low 6kW or 7.2kW charging speeds which really don't stress the battery. The main reason I keep my car charged...especially during summer months here in LA is so the conditioning is active when stuck in my garage all day at 100F.

 

[marvintherepairman]

Congratulations on getting your 2015.

I am perplexed, I have a 2017 i3 REX. I’ve had this car for 2 1/2 years and have never figured out how to turn off the radio. Checking with the dealer that I purchased the car from they told me there is no way to turn off the radio, other than mute. So I was interested in the comments on pressing the Option button.

Pressing the button as I read about in the posts only allows me to turn off the display. It does nothing to turn off the radio head unit. When I’m playing music from my phone, it does not appear to turn off the radio. Luckily I can use my watch to stop the music playing. Is there no way to turn anything off other than pressing stop on the phone or watch? I never listen to a radio station.

The other thing that pesters me is when I get into the car after parking it while running errands. I will start the car and whatever music on my phone i was listening starts playing after about ten seconds. The only workaround I’ve been able to figure out is to just take all the music off my phone so that no music will automatically play.

 

[eNate]

Mute is the new Off.

It's like my cell phone, which has a built in FM tuner. If I'm NOT listening to FM radio (which, frankly, is almost always) it's not as if the section of motherboard that supplies power to the turner cuts power to that processor, it just... doesn't use it.

However, I'm curious, doesn't pressing Mute pause your Bluetooth playback? It does mine. Not just inside the car — the media player on the phone switched from Play to Pause.

 

[marvintherepairman]

Thank you for pointing out that the i3 head unit pauses media playback on a phone. I just tried it on my car and in fact proved your point. I guess it is obvious that I had no idea.

Now if I can figure out a way to keep the media from automatically playing when I start up the car, now that would be something else. When I first get into the car and start it up I prefer peace, calm, and quiet until I get on the road.

And then the next thing I’d like to do is figure out how to add music to the internal hard drive. Though I may get more storage having it all on the phone, instead.

 

[stumbledotcom]

Importing is easy once you understand the steps.

1. Copy music files to a FAT32 formatted USB flash drive.
2. Plug the flash drive into the car's port.
3. On the screen you'll see the flash drive as a source. Select it and the music will start to play.
4. While it's playing, you should see an option to Import (I forget the exact verbiage).
5. As it imports there's be a progress indicator on screen.
6. Once the import has finished, you can switch the source to Music Collection.
7. Unplug flash drive.

Alternatively some people just play music off the flash drive. I prefer the internal drive. Songs from Music Collection also play almost immediately on start.

 

[marvintherepairman]

Thank you for the instructions.

 

[gqpixel]

Thank you all for the responses.

I turned off the radio by pressing MODE. if you press it a couple of times.

 

[gqpixel]

Importing is easy once you understand the steps.

1. Copy music files to a FAT32 formatted USB flash drive.
2. Plug the flash drive into the car's port.
3. On the screen you'll see the flash drive as a source. Select it and the music will start to play.
4. While it's playing, you should see an option to Import (I forget the exact verbiage).
5. As it imports there's be a progress indicator on screen.
6. Once the import has finished, you can switch the source to Music Collection.
7. Unplug flash drive.

Alternatively some people just play music off the flash drive. I prefer the internal drive. Songs from Music Collection also play almost immediately on start.

NICE! How much of a hard drive does the i3? can we store a good amount of music?

 

[frictioncircle]

Thank you for pointing out that the i3 head unit pauses media playback on a phone. I just tried it on my car and in fact proved your point. I guess it is obvious that I had no idea.

Now if I can figure out a way to keep the media from automatically playing when I start up the car, now that would be something else. When I first get into the car and start it up I prefer peace, calm, and quiet until I get on the road.

If you're listening to media over Bluetooth, press the volume knob before shutting off your car – it should pause the stream.

When you get back in the car and start it up, the paused state is (mostly) remembered. Another press on the volume knob should restart the Bluetooth stream. Personally, I like to wait ten seconds or so before doing this so the car can reconnect with the Bluetooth device.

That said, there are still times that, for which I cannot understand why, the car decides to play the alphabetically first track of all my mp3s. [facepalm]

 

[marvintherepairman]

Thanks, frictioncircle. I’ll give it a try.

Knowing the advice that I have received has helped. I’ve put music on my phone once again after having removed everything about a year ago. The frustration from automatic play was too much, so I removed everything. Now I have a little more control over music playback. I’m enjoying the music again, woohoo!

 

[eNate]

This is often a setting in the app being used.

In Pandora, under settings > advanced, there are "auto launch" and "auto start" options. Turning these off cause me to have to manually start music playback whenever I start the car. However, auto-start doesn't work reliably.

In Google Podcasts, under settings, there is an "autoplay" slider.