Recall letter arrived

[bwilson4web]

Hi,

The recall for the vent line chaffing arrived in Friday's mail and anticipates a two hour repair so I figure it will be out for two days. I'll schedule the repair; drop it off and; get a ride home for our Prius Prime.

Bob Wilson

 

[bwilson4web]

So I left the car at BMW on Wed and got it Thursday afternoon . . . only because their BMW i3 tech gave up the clamp he had ordered for me.

In the future, I will order recall parts ahead of time from the parts department. When they call to say the part(s) arrived, I will refuse to pay for them and present the recall notice.

What does it take?

Bob Wilson

 

[alohart]

So I left the car at BMW on Wed and got it Thursday afternoon . . . only because their BMW i3 tech gave up the clamp he had ordered for me.

In the future, I will order recall parts ahead of time from the parts department. When they call to say the part(s) arrived, I will refuse to pay for them and present the recall notice.

What does it take?

We have read about such BMW dealer behavior before: the dealer won't order the necessary repair parts until the car is in its service department. And if the repair parts aren't immediately available, the car can remain in the service department for days or weeks waiting for the parts which sometimes must be shipped from Germany. What's different in your case is that the parts intended for your car were apparently installed on a different car. That seems like pretty poor service since you seem to be pretty well-connected to your dealer's service department.

The problem with ordering parts yourself can be that you would be required to pay for them in advance. Our BMW has this policy with parts that are special-ordered. Fortunately, in the 2 recall repairs that our 2014 BEV has had, the KLE and motor mount bolt replacements, the parts were in stock at our dealer before I delivered our car to the service department. In both cases, the repairs including the associated software updates were completed in less than 24 hours. I don't know how our dealer would have reacted had the parts not been in stock at our dealer. I would certainly have pushed to have them ordered and received before delivering our car for the repair.

 

[SSi3]

The crazy thing is its just a clip, they could probably use a zip tie!

 

[Sparky]

Mine is going in for recall Monday, but needs reprogramming also, so overnight it is.

 

[Livestrong191]

I got done mine done yesterday .

 

[bwilson4web]

They also updated my software ... no description of what changed. However, it did wipe out my REX enable coding. So I put it back in, no problem.

Bob Wilson

 

[jadnashuanh]

FWIW, anytime BMW updates the car, all user modified changes will be removed. Last time I asked my service manager about what was in the software, he told me that BMW used to tell them what was changed, but they have not been doing that for quite awhile now...so, don't blame the dealer. While they may know what problems the s/w is supposed to resolve, there could be numerous other minor tweaks that come along with it that are not described or listed.

 

[MikeS]

I consider it unacceptable for BMW to expect to modify my car without telling me what they are doing. A good example is when they changed the strength of the regen braking. I really liked it as it was originally and was very annoyed when they changed it. Probably annoyed enough to avoid BMW in the future.

 

[Sparky]

Me too, I'm finding it difficult to time lifting off the accelerator to come to a complete stop in traffic. I have to use the brake more.

 

[Neil]

Me too, I'm finding it difficult to time lifting off the accelerator to come to a complete stop in traffic. I have to use the brake more.

Maybe BMW decided that they were not making enough money on brakes

More to the point, I just received my gas line recall notice, but had also received a software update letter some time ago. With which software version did you notice the regen reduction? I'm running I001-16-03-505 now. Is it reduced beyond what it is in this version? Also have heard of weird 2014 Rex behavior at low battery levels with a recent software update so I've been hesitant to do the update. I'll eventually bring it in for the recall... Appreciate any comments and suggestions.

Neil

 

[Sparky]

The attenuated regen braking occurred after the software update with the engine mounting bolt replacement.

 

[Sparky]

I have no idea what this new update is about.

 

[IvanRex]

Software update has reduce mileage range to 65 miles .
Weather is 80 degrees shows 65 miles prior to the update it will show 85 to 90 miles
I have 2015 with only 4K miles

 

[jadnashuanh]

Software update has reduce mileage range to 65 miles .
Weather is 80 degrees shows 65 miles prior to the update it will show 85 to 90 miles
I have 2015 with only 4K miles

This is normal, and will change as the car's user history is lost during the update. The car needs to relearn how you drive to establish a proper estimated range, and is showing a worst case based on essentially nothing (or the time it was on and not moving at the dealer)..

 

[bwilson4web]

Well that was strange. My coding for REx enabling disappeared. I'll review the install instructions and try it again later today.

The DVDinmotion stick worked perfectly and I even used it around town to make sure. Hopefully a one-time 'Huh!' Worse comes to worse, I keep the flash drive in the car anyway.

Bob Wilson

 

[DataMiner]

I bought my 2017 i3 in mid-March. BMW just did a software update on my i3 and the bottom end torque is gone and the one-pedal deceleration gone. It appears that the software update is attempting to make the car act like a 2-pedal automatic gas car. I was told that is what the "consumer mass market" wanted. ????

I have an appointment to take the car back in for servicing on Monday but I still can't get anyone to tell me if they are going to roll back the software update so I can get the performance back. If I had wanted "consumer mass market" driving performance, I would have seriously considered buying the Leaf or Bolt and saved myself a ton of money. I am going to be driving the i3 in stop-and-go highway traffic and specifically chose the i3 for the superior one pedal driving ability.

I don't understand how BMW can drastically change the performance characteristics of a car that I own without my permission?

One of the biggest problems I have is that they admitted changing the acceleration / deceleration in the software update because people were having trouble adjusting to the differences between a traditional car and and an electric one pedal car so they made it so the i3 would be closer to the performance of a traditional car. They said they think more people will want that instead. But it's like me buying an 8 cylinder vehicle only to have them reduce it the next month to a 6 cylinder vehicle so I can get better gas mileage because more people would probably want better gas mileage than performance. If I had wanted a 6 cylinder, I would have bought a 6 cylinder. I am just amazed that BMW would make that kind of a major change to a car I bought so that it is a significantly different car now. If I were leasing the car, I would be unhappy but I would understand that I have to live with it. But I bought the car and so I am really angry that they would update my car to make it more "mass market friendly".

When I bought the car less than 2 months ago, I thought I'd be driving BMW electric for life but the car they gave me after the software update is so significantly different from the car I bought that I don't want it back if they won't fix it.