Service package

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BillyJay

New member
Joined
Jan 13, 2017
Messages
2
Just in the middle of buying a secondhand i3 and the dealer is trying to sell me a three-year service package. As the car only needs servicing every two years that would only give me one service. He couldn't give me an answer.
 
Probably the typical service package that dealers offer for their ICE vehicles. With so little maintenance required for the i3, especially the BEV model, I would think that a service package would be a waste of money.
 
I'm in a similar situation. I'm in the process of purchasing a certified pre-owned 2014 i3 Rex. The maintenance package transfers and doesn't expire until 9/2018. The sales person offered to extend that package until 9/2020 (same date the CPO warranty expires) for about $2,000. His selling point is that I'll need the brakes done at 30K miles, probably won't hit that milestone by 9/2018 (car has about 9,500 miles on it), and that alone is $1,800. This didn't ring quite true to me as regenerative braking could/should get the pads and rotors past 30K miles. He said the brakes had to be replaced as part of the 30K service (not replaced if needed) and that the extended maintenance plan could only be purchased at the same time I buy the car. From what I've read, everything he told me is wrong. What I've read could be incorrect, but I'm going to take my chances and not extend the maintenance when I buy the car.
 
Silence said:
He said the brakes had to be replaced as part of the 30K service (not replaced if needed)
BMW would replace the brakes on our BEV at 30K miles even if not needed over my dead body. That's just lining the dealer's pockets and wasting resources. The brake pads on our i3 certainly won't be worn out at 30K miles because I use regen almost exclusively for braking. Our 2000 Honda Insight hybrid's brake pads/linings have more than half their new thickness at 50K miles despite its regenerative braking being much weaker than that of our i3.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that our BMW dealer wants to replace our brake disks due to rust pitting from lack of use, but that won't happen during our 4 years of included maintenance. After that, I will probably either do the simple required maintenance myself or look for a trusted independent mechanic to do so. There's no EV-specific maintenance that is required, so anyone skilled at car maintenance would be able to maintain a BEV.

The lack of required maintenance for BEV's is a threat to dealers' income, so I'm not surprised that they try to trick unsuspecting new BEV owners into buying expensive extended maintenance plans.
 
My needs did not make the flexibility of the REx worth the additional costs, but the REx does have more systems that need maintenance (oil changes, spark plugs, antifreeze, muffler, etc.). Just the EV and generic maintenance tasks are pretty much limited to checks and flushing the brake fluid, changing the cabin air filter, and maybe some new software. The REx normal maintenance shouldn't be a huge expense, but any mechanical device could have something fail verses just needing maintenance, and buying the extended service package is an insurance policy. So, it is more peace of mind than a typical money saver. Some win, some lose when it comes to insurance premiums (maintenance) policies. Depends on your risk tolerance.
 
alohart said:
Probably the typical service package that dealers offer for their ICE vehicles. With so little maintenance required for the i3, especially the BEV model, I would think that a service package would be a waste of money.
On Dec 9 at 4 PM in Friday, rush hour traffic, I had a motor mount bolt break. So I'm finding this a little ... curious.

At one time, I'd thought about selling our 2010 Prius in Sept 2017 because I didn't want to license and pay the taxes on it for another year. But the motor mount break led to driving the 2010 Prius and though OK for urban driving, the CARB crippled BMW i3-REx is a better cross-country car than the 2010 Prius.

Last weekend, I sold the 2010 Prius and Thursday, no later than Friday, I will have the 2017 Prius Prime. It has the cross-country, dynamic cruise control and accident avoidance. It means we'll have Prius MPG and the ease of traveling cross country distances. It means that when the 2014 BMW i3-REx reaches the end of warranty, I can kiss it 'good bye.'

Maybe someone in CARB will buy our 2014 BMW i3-REx in 2019 ... I doubt it. Rather, I'm OK with having a couple of years of fun and then when the BMW i3-REx become too expensive to maintain ... make it a 'parts car.' In the meanwhile, I know how to make it a better, not superior, cross country car and that is what I will sell.

Bob Wilson
 
bwilson4web said:
alohart said:
Probably the typical service package that dealers offer for their ICE vehicles. With so little maintenance required for the i3, especially the BEV model, I would think that a service package would be a waste of money.
On Dec 9 at 4 PM in Friday, rush hour traffic, I had a motor mount bolt break. So I'm finding this a little ... curious.

At one time, I'd thought about selling our 2010 Prius in Sept 2017 because I didn't want to license and pay the taxes on it for another year. But the motor mount break led to driving the 2010 Prius and though OK for urban driving, the CARB crippled BMW i3-REx is a better cross-country car than the 2010 Prius.

Last weekend, I sold the 2010 Prius and Thursday, no later than Friday, I will have the 2017 Prius Prime. It has the cross-country, dynamic cruise control and accident avoidance. It means we'll have Prius MPG and the ease of traveling cross country distances. It means that when the 2014 BMW i3-REx reaches the end of warranty, I can kiss it 'good bye.'

Maybe someone in CARB will buy our 2014 BMW i3-REx in 2019 ... I doubt it. Rather, I'm OK with having a couple of years of fun and then when the BMW i3-REx become too expensive to maintain ... make it a 'parts car.' In the meanwhile, I know how to make it a better, not superior, cross country car and that is what I will sell.

Bob Wilson
I'm not sure if we are all discussing the same thing. Earlier in the thread we were discussing service, so brakes, oil changes (Rex), fluids, and such. Your motor mount bolt was hopefully replaced under warranty. You bring up a very good point about what will these cars be worth in 2019. I think I'll be looking to get out of this car by the end of 2019 (warranty end date) or 2020 if I go a year without warranty coverage. By then hopefully someone will have released an affordable small to mid-sized AWD electric SUV with 200+ mile range. Perhaps the one Ford has recently announced. Probably every new vehicle by then will be 200 miles plus per charge. How much will a 2014 BEV or Rex be worth in that environment? If I buy this Rex I'll probably sill owe 12,000 to 14,000 in 2020. Can I sell a 2014 Rex for $12 to $14K in 2020? It doesn't seem likely. Leasing a new one will cost me about $20,317 for 3 years and buying the 2014 I'm looking at will cost me about 15,000 assuming I can sell it for what I owe.
 
Back to the topic of maintenance/service rather than repairs/warranty.

Silence said:
… His selling point is that I'll need the brakes done at 30K miles…

The simple fact that the dealer invoked a mileage threshold sets off my bs alarm. All modern BMWs use condition-based service (CBS) in which an array of sensors feed data to the computer to determine when routine maintenance tasks are required vs. the more common industry practice of mileage triggers. With a BEV, the only scheduled service is the normal BMW brake fluid flush and replace every two years. Note the timing is based on manufacture date not the in-service date. Depending on when the car you're looking at was made that could be once or twice over any three year period. I believe the dealer replaced the cabin air filter, wiper blades, and topped off the washer fluid at the two-year service also. That’s it for routine maintenance so I’d be very careful about paying upfront for service that may or may not be needed during the contract period. My personal experience is limited to the BEV; a REx will require a bit more because of spark plugs and fluids but it still should be minimal compared to a conventional car.
 
FWIW, if you have to pay for it, at least at my dealership, flushing the brake lines costs about $80. You can do that yourself, but you'd need to buy some hardware to be effective. YOur first one would cost about the same, but the succeeding ones would be cheaper (depending on how you value your time!). One has to hope that actual hardware failures would tend to occur during warranty, and then, only wear items would need to be replaced for the duration of ownership.
 
We're starting to touch on self-maintenance which begins in 2018 as the initial warranties run out. In my case, probably middle 2018. Ours is at 18.4k miles up from 6.4k in May 2016 ... 12k miles in 7 months ... 1.7k miles/month. I'm ~19 months away from 50k miles which at this rate should be the middle of 2018.

With our 2003 Prius, I started making mods as the warranties aged out. But small things like oil changes and installation of a 1 kW inverte. But I always had a second, reliable car in case something went 'boink.'

The irony is the broken motor mount bolt led to our new second car and I'll be repeating the same experimental protocol that I did with our 2010 Prius. I haven't done that with the BMW i3-REx but that is about to change.

Bob Wilson
 
I have a 2015 Rex with 7001 miles. My brake fluid service is set for 3-20-17. A "vehicle check" is set for 5-20-17. My "state vehicle inspection" is set for....12-5-2062!! My "emissions inspections" is set for 12/2062 as per my i3 phone app. I rarely use the brakes and have used 1 gallon of gas the night I came home from Tucson May 28 2016, delivery date. The engine has since run 3 times for normal maintenance since I'm using battery exclusively. No problems at this point and don't expect many.
If they offered an electrical warranty for say 100,000 miles I might get that on a used one. Lease is up in 23 months, waiting to see what's out then.
 
On Friday, I picked up my March 2015 i3 REx from its first service. This was after 22 months and 29,201 miles, with 93% of our miles being electric.

They performed an oil change on the REx and changed the brake fluid. Brake wear was hardly noticeable, I was told, which put a smile on my face. Lots of other checks were performed - I have a very detailed list signed by 2 technicians.

Next service stop is now Jan 2019. The service package cost me £375 upfront when I bought the car as a company vehicle. This covers the i3's first 2 services and includes all fluids, but not other consumables. I also had rear tyres changed to new Ecopias, which were slightly costlier than highstreet at £139 fitted (I've seen them for £125 fitted), but I wanted the convenience of having it all done at one place.

They gave me a 330e M Sport as a courtesy car while the i3 was serviced. Very nice motor, but after 11 miles all-electric in 5 deg C outside battery was down to 27%. I drove it very carefully. Hey-ho!
 
Thanks for the input everyone. I've decided to skip the service plan. Now I'm waiting on the paperwork to arrive so I can officially complete my purchase.
 
I was offered a maintenance package on my '15 Rex CPO. I had researched oil changes on the i3 prior to heading to the dealer and had observed the brakes were standard BMW fare. based on previous replies in this thread ($2k!?!?!?!?!) I didn't even wait for the finance guy to give me a price.
I absolutely *love* the single pedal driving and go out of my way to not use the friction brakes. The regen braking is actually better than the old drum brakes on some cars I have owned :)
Even if you need to change the brakes, you can pick up OEM pads for all 4 corners for <$200. Simple relaxing 1 beer job (maybe 2 if you really take your time) ;) Even if you have to replace all 4 rotors, that's only an additional $250
Super high quality Motul RBF600 brake fluid - complete overkill for a non tracked car - is only $15 a bottle. I'm spoiled in that I have a Motive brake fluid flush kit making that a simple 1 person, 1 beer job.
Oil changes? The filter is super easy to get to and the tiny moped engine only needs 2.5l of oil. I track the pricing on Amazon and buy Mobil 1 0w-40 European Formula for my ICE cars when it's on sale. I got 5l for $22 just last month. Oil filter? $13. Again, a really simple 1 beer job.

So, total cost of a DIY service, full rotors & pads, brake flush plus oil change - right around $500. (plus 4 beers, another $20 :D )

Even at BMW service center hourly rates, BMW is making an absolute killing on i3 service contracts.
 
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