Possible major failure.

[Paul1886]

I agree the parts delay is really not right at all..... I do think you guys are being a little unfair on the dealership though, dealing with HV (400v DC) is a not a job for the apprentice or indeed any regular trained motor technician, it really is specialist (and dangerous) stuff and given the amount of icars out there I'm not surprised they only have one specialist.

BTW not sure what's happening to mine.... went in on Tuesday for annoying "Drivetrain" messages and still have no conclusion or next course of action..... but the dealership gave me the i3 demo to use so I'm not complaining.

 

[Jeremy]

Finally got my car back today.

Drives perfectly - all seems well.

Stepping out of a 3Series rental and back into the i3 definitely feels like moving from the past to the future it's just so easy & ergonomic.

I had a chat with the technical guy and discovered a few things:-

1. Drivers can't access the software issue data - only their terminal reveals that.

2. There haven't been many separate software updates - nearly everything was covered in one major update in early March.

3. There was no major failure of the EME control unit which they replaced - just a hardware interface problem between it and the main car control system which kept logging faults.

4. Although the problem was fairly trivial, replacing the unit required a fairly major strip-down and the all aluminium construction makes this a slow job because the delicate aluminium bolts have to be carefully hand torqued.

5. The manual is wrong about the automatic function on the front parking assist. It will only engage by moving into reverse first or pressing the button. Apparently all BMW's are like that.

Car was returned as new, with no evidence of work having been done - so I'm happy again.

 

[calibanjon]

Thanks for the update, useful info and actually all quite reassuring. Glad you have your car back and I hope things are now trouble free for you.

Ditto re. the car. I still really like mine and much prefer driving it to others I have driven. Hard to put my finger on why, it's many small thing together that just make it a nice place to be.

 

[Bunter]

5. The manual is wrong about the automatic function on the front parking assist. It will only engage by moving into reverse first or pressing the button. Apparently all BMW's are like that.

I disagree and can video mine automatically engaging the front park assist without engaging reverse or pressing the button. It's triggered by the side proximity sensors.

But glad you got your car back!

Bill

 

[Stevei3]

Hi Jeremy,

welcome back

Regards, Steven

 

[Gonville]

5. The manual is wrong about the automatic function on the front parking assist. It will only engage by moving into reverse first or pressing the button. Apparently all BMW's are like that.

I disagree and can video mine automatically engaging the front park assist without engaging reverse or pressing the button. It's triggered by the side proximity sensors.

Is this confusion between 'Park Assist' which uses side sensors and 'Front' parking sensors. One is indeed activated by selecting reverse as is BMW standard. They are different on the wiring diagram ie without the Park Assist option there are no side sensors. Interesting to see how it's activated without selecting a button? Auto auto!

 

[Jeremy]

Well - I celebrated getting my car back with 140 mile trip over the Severn bridge and around Monmouthshire.

Good news is - it ran well and crosswind handling coming back over the bridge in a gale was better than expected.

Bad news is - just as I arrived home I got the "Drivetrain - Possible to continue journey. Have the problem checked by service" message.

I don't understand this,since I thought the fix was a software upgrade and I had the complete latest SW upgrade installed only on Friday.

Is it possible that the fault wasn't fixed with software upgrades on other's cars and will just reappear randomly I wonder?

I can confirm that the side parking sensors are auto - because they activated when I got close to the toll cabin on the bridge - which makes it seem even weirder that the front-facing ones aren't auto.

I know they're not because I actually managed to drive the car forward into the garage wall while I was in forward drive - photographing the main screen display. I inadvertently pt gentle pressure on the throttle and had no sense of silent forward movement until the thump when I hit the wall.

The really impressive bit though was that, despite a big thump, there wasn't the slightest mark on the car. That black plastic lip under the number plate projects just far enough forward to take the impact and seemed to deform and spring back without any damage at all.

 

[Bunter]

Is this confusion between 'Park Assist' which uses side sensors and 'Front' parking sensors. One is indeed activated by selecting reverse as is BMW standard. They are different on the wiring diagram ie without the Park Assist option there are no side sensors. Interesting to see how it's activated without selecting a button? Auto auto!

Not sure. The term park assist can describe the true park assist functionality where the car can parallel park itself but can also describe the change which occurs in the centre display from whatever it is set to, to one showing the parking sensor "radar" map. The latter is what I think is being discussed here.

Whatever triggers the change in the centre console display, be it selecting reverse, pressing the park assist button or proximity to the side sensors at low speeds, all the car proximity sensors become active. So the front ultrasonic sensors are activated automatically when there are objects proximal to the side sensors. If the front sensors alone could trigger the ultrasonic sensors it would make driving in traffic very irritating. The system works very nicely but it won't activate automatically if you drive straight into a relatively wide parking space.

Bill

 

[Jeremy]

Bunter

I've noticed sitting in the garage, with a wall about 1.5m away on one side and another car about the same distance on the other - that pressing the park assist button repeatedly sometimes activates all the sensors (including side sensors), but sometimes just front & rear. That's without moving the car at all - it seems quite random.

I've haven't used the full auto parallel parking system yet and it isn't selected in the iDrive menu, but it activated today as I was driving through a supermarket car park - saying something like "stop car to select parking place" (from memory).

I've driven cars before (one was a VW Phaeton) where the parking sensors stayed active at all speeds, They did beep if you got a bit close when passing something - but it didn't bother me.

 

[GMac67]

After using the i3 every day for its first week and clocking up one trip of around 120 miles, today was its first critical mission - taking my wife to the airport.

Sadly, it let me down. We got only a couple of hundred yards when the information flagged up a fault message :- " Battery Not Charging. Stop Carefully. Have vehicle inspected by BMW iService".

Later, back in the garage, it showed a different display "Increased battery discharge when stationary. Electrical consumers were temporarily switched off."

Later still all fault warnings disappeared.

BMW Emergency Service are recovering it in the morning for diagnosis.

I've spent my life in the microelectronics industry and I've had suspicions from my first day with the car that some of its software is a bit "buggy".

Hopefully the bugs can be ironed out by software updates.

Has anyone seen anything similar?

This Monday, I have had the exact same issues. The battery even showed 0% and started to shut down everything including the ConnectedDrive system while I was on the phone with BMW i Service. When the car was retrieved and at car retrieval center all error messages were gone and the battery again showed the previous battery charge (87%). Seems that the monitor system was totally confused. Yesterday the car arrived at the dealer, but unfortunately they haven't started with checking car, but should do so today.

Going from your story it sound like exactly the same issue.

 

[Jeremy]

Sorry to hear that Gmac.

If it's any consolation, mine has run perfectly since it was fixed - except for one "drivetrain fault" alert, which showed once but never re-appeared. I've done around 500 miles since the repair.

How many km had you done before the fault?

 

[GMac67]

Sorry to hear that Gmac.

If it's any consolation, mine has run perfectly since it was fixed - except for one "drivetrain fault" alert, which showed once but never re-appeared. I've done around 500 miles since the repair.

How many km had you done before the fault?

I had just about done 1150KM. Today I got my i3 back. It was the EME Controller, but this time a programming error/upgrade needed. Happy to be driving the i3 again. Got a X1 loaner, I was amazed how illogical some of the controls were as compared to the i3. Never drove a BMW expect the i3 before, but I couldn't get used to it. Also you suddenly start noticed the engine noise.

It was kind of a nuisance, but I hope I will have the same experience that this is just a one timer.

 

[jfk]

@GMac67:
how long did it take to repair yours? Mine is in the dealership for 2 weeks now, taking at least another 2.

 

[GMac67]

@GMac67:
how long did it take to repair yours? Mine is in the dealership for 2 weeks now, taking at least another 2.

problem occurred in on Monday afternoon. The i3 was delivered Tuesday noon at the dealer. They started working on it Wednesday morning. Finished Wednesday afternoon. Picked up on Thursday morning. In theory it could have been fixed the same day.

It took Jeremy's dealer also at least a week or so to fix his. So I think it depends on the type of issue. Jeremy's issue was more serious (had to replace part/take apart a major part of the car.

I think it will depend where you are located and how many i3's and much issues the dealer/national service organisation has seen.

Regards,

Gerwin

 

[CMineiro]

Finally got my car back today.

Drives perfectly - all seems well.

Stepping out of a 3Series rental and back into the i3 definitely feels like moving from the past to the future it's just so easy & ergonomic.

I had a chat with the technical guy and discovered a few things:-

1. Drivers can't access the software issue data - only their terminal reveals that.

2. There haven't been many separate software updates - nearly everything was covered in one major update in early March.

3. There was no major failure of the EME control unit which they replaced - just a hardware interface problem between it and the main car control system which kept logging faults.

4. Although the problem was fairly trivial, replacing the unit required a fairly major strip-down and the all aluminium construction makes this a slow job because the delicate aluminium bolts have to be carefully hand torqued.

5. The manual is wrong about the automatic function on the front parking assist. It will only engage by moving into reverse first or pressing the button. Apparently all BMW's are like that.

Car was returned as new, with no evidence of work having been done - so I'm happy again.

I Jeremy... I had the same problem. 2 1/2 Weeks on the garage, and no good reason for the Charging Default, except that they replaced the EME control...

 

[Greatwhite]

I had a drive train error and was towed into the dealer, they then discovered an issue with the 12v battery and system this then spiraled into replacing parts, 2 visits from a BMW NA Engineer and mine has been in 37 days still not working, waiting on BMW offer to buy the car back.

 

[PDXelectric]

Yikes,

I just received a similar error. I tried to start the car, but it stated "Stop Carefully", "Drivetrain error/failure". This was followed by the entire display shutting down. The only things lighting up were flickering dash lights. Before this I was at 100% charge. The internal connect system was able to dial. They are sending a tow truck to pick it up from my garage. I will keep you posted.

Disappointing.

 

[jadnashuanh]

All computer based electronics and lighting in the vehicle are powered by the 12vdc battery. That battery only gets recharged when on an EVSE or you are in READY state. If there is any loose connection or a module that doesn't properly respond to a command over the CANBUS to shut off when you turn the car off, it can cause major problems. Almost none of the switches in the car actually turn power on/off...they either set a digital switch or send a message to a computer, and the computer does it...those can't work if they do not have reliable power from the small 12vdc battery or the data path is corrupted in some way.

 

[PDXelectric]

All computer based electronics and lighting in the vehicle are powered by the 12vdc battery. That battery only gets recharged when on an EVSE or you are in READY state. If there is any loose connection or a module that doesn't properly respond to a command over the CANBUS to shut off when you turn the car off, it can cause major problems. Almost none of the switches in the car actually turn power on/off...they either set a digital switch or send a message to a computer, and the computer does it...those can't work if they do not have reliable power from the small 12vdc battery or the data path is corrupted in some way.

Hi,

I am back and running. Apparently, there was a recent software update to address this issue. The 12V battery was depleted. I can post the details and version of the software if anybody is interested. I would recommend that everybody call their dealer and check up on this.

 

[I33t]

Hi,

I am back and running. Apparently, there was a recent software update to address this issue. The 12V battery was depleted. I can post the details and version of the software if anybody is interested. I would recommend that everybody call their dealer and check up on this.

I'm interested. I picked the car up recently and the ervice guy said they'd be in touch because there is an update on the way.