Waking a car up after 2 years !

[Brettfcars]

Hi all,
I am new to this forum and the i3.
I have inherited a 2015 i3 that has sat unused for 2 years.
It had an initial issue of the front radiator fan running all the time, and this was traced to a faulty water pump.
Pump was left off car, hoses plugged. HV Disconnect was pulled as was the small plug to the batteries and the HV battery connector. 12v battery was left to die.
I have replaced the pump and 12v battery, and currently awaiting the HV battery to fully charge.
Pump completed the 20min purge cycle ok requiring about 2 Litres of coolant. Front fan is now of when charging (13amp plug type BMW charger)
The car has drive train faults and lots of errors on BimmerLink that can’t be currently cleared.

Looking at advice given to others, waiting for the car to fully charge is the first option. And perhaps a further HV & 12v power cycle.
I am also awaiting ISTA to download to see what faults remain.

So a few questions.
Is there any other advice ?
Was car correctly stored ?
Should I be prepared for lots of issues from sitting without power ?
A/C pressure check is one item I am thinking of.

Also Is there a walk through on how to use ISTA on the i3 ?

Thanks all

 

[alohart]

I am also awaiting ISTA to download to see what faults remain.

Which ISTA version are you downloading?

Was car correctly stored ?

The 12V battery should have been disconnected. It would have still self-discharged significantly over 2 years, but the 12V system would not have experienced very low voltages that result in many spurious DTC's being stored which can be difficult to clear. I have stored our i3's 8 times for periods as long as 9 months. I have always disconnected the 12V battery and have never returned to an i3 with lots of spurious DTC's stored.

Should I be prepared for lots of issues from sitting without power ?

Clearing the stored DTC's is probably the main issue.

A/C pressure check is one item I am thinking of.

Wouldn't hurt but might not be necessary.

Also Is there a walk through on how to use ISTA on the i3 ?

Search the Internet for "ISTA User Guide". I found version 4.39 from October, 2022, which matches the ISTA version that I downloaded. Unfortunately, I don't know where I found it.

There are also some tutorials written by ISTA users. They seem to be for older ISTA versions, but these tutorials would likely still be valid, especially if they're for ISTA version 4.

 

[Brettfcars]

Hi,
What would be the best ISTA to download for the i3, and what cable ?
The version I am downloading is, ISTA+ 4.39.20 (+SDP 4.42.40) and have purchased a ENET cable.
I believe different psdz or newer parts (packs of data ?) of ista can be downloaded and inserted in the file system to update ?
I am new to ista and the i3 so it’s a learning curve !

 

[mojo]

As a slight aside, to re-iterate what's been said in other threads here: If you don't know already, be aware that any version of ISTA that you can download from the Internet is going to be a "hacked" copy, and it can have any code added to it, for any reason that the person distributing it wants (and their interests probably don't align with yours). Do NOT rely on malware scanning, because it simply won't find any malicious code that may have been custom-built for it (malware scanners rely on the fact that most malware is built on common, shared code with a recognisable "signature").

The important thing about this is the rule that you should never install untrusted code like that on a computer that also contains any data that you care about - because you should assume that untrusted code can also see everything on that computer, and do what it wants with it. Probably the best approach is to get a cheap old laptop which you can use for that and nothing else. A better approach is to put it within a virtual machine on a cheap old laptop - though that can mean that it runs a bit slow!