Used 2014 i3 in Phoenix... what do you guys think?

https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/749741874/overview/

New to this forum, looking at picking up a used i3, would be my first EV! Found this one near me, and I’m wondering if I should bother with it. I test drove it, seemed to be very clean and in good working order. My concern is the mileage, and battery capacity. I checked it in the service menu and it was saying 15.6 kWh, and at full charge was only showing a range of 55 miles.

I’m wondering if this is worth my time. With the estimated battery degradation, I’m wondering if they’ll even be able to sell it? Should I offer less, or just avoid it altogether?

I live in Phoenix, drive about 40 miles round trip to work.

Thanks guys!

Hey,
I'm in Phoenix area and just bought a 2014 BEV i3 Certified Pre-owned from Chapman BMW. Had almost 60k and was showing 44 miles on full charge - BUT that was in Comfort mode. In ECO Pro+ I generally show 70 to 75 miles. I need to check my service menu to see what my charge capacity shows.

Was that 55 miles in Comfort mode? Check it again in ECO Pro + and see what it shows. Also, remember that this is the Guess-O-Meter and it shows possible mileage based on recent driving habits.

My commute is also 40 miles roundtrip and I love my i3! It's been the perfect commuter car. Plenty of charging stations around, but I mainly charge every night with my Level 1 charger. I have a level 2 charging cable that plugs into my dryer outlet, but usually don't use it because I have to keep my garage door open (to my laundry room where the outlet is).

I'm glad I bought the car, even with the high mileage. Glad I bought a CPO from BMW because of their warranty and a year of free charging at ChargePoint!

Good luck with it and let us know if you buy it!

The battery pack cooling system is on only when charging or when the car is on, so if an i3 is parked over hot asphalt in the hot Phoenix summer sun, its battery pack would be soaking up the heat. Some Phoenix and Las Vegas i3 drivers have reported reduced propulsive power when first starting their i3's in very hot weather which indicates that their battery packs were too hot to produce full power without risking damage to the hot battery cells. After the battery pack cooling system cools the cells, full power is restored, but I wonder how much cell degradation occurs when the cells get hot.

The battery cell degradation rate increases with temperature, so I would probably avoid buying an i3 that has operated in hot weather unless I was certain that the previous owner didn't routinely park it outside in hot weather or in a hot garage.

It's hard to tell for sure with a short inspection. As a used car on the lot, it may have had a bunch of test drives where people tend to explore the maximum acceleration and somewhat abuse the car. This would be reflected in the estimated range to empty. It could be significantly different when driven 'normally'. Just like an ICE that is pushed hard, the mpg drops, or in this case, the estimated range to empty.

I'm with Jim - the "range" is the system computer's "guess" based on the last 20 minutes or so of the car's operation. If the last test-driver had a lead foot, with the AC on full-blast, and in comfort mode (which should really be labeled "Sport" or "Performance" mode), then that will reflect a lower range guesstimate on the screen. You can test that out yourself. When driving switch the AC or Heater on and off, and switch in and out of Comfort mode, and watch the range numbers change. Remember BMW warrants the battery pack for 8 years or 100,000 miles, guaranteeing at least 70% capacity. The stated usable capacity for the 2014 i3 is 18.8 kWh. Therefore, the battery would need to degrade to 13.15 kWh to trigger a warranty claim. so they are pretty confident that the battery pack is bullet-proof. If you do a Google search, there is a way to bring up a hidden service menu which will show you the real, actual/current capacity of the battery pack in kWh's.

Well,
This thread has shown I have egg on my face. I just bought my 2014 i3 and this thread had me finally look at my battery capacity. Mine shows 12.5!!!??? This is a Certified Pre-Owned. I guess I'm going to have to go to the dealer and see what they say about it.

I love this car. I hope I don't get the runaround. And I don't want to highjack this thread, but it does go to show that it's good you are checking the hidden menu for this. It's like buying a car that runs great but has a hole in the gas tank!

So, judging from mine, maybe 15.6 kWh isn't so bad...

How about this . Take the original stated usable kWh (18.8) and your Batt.Kapa.Max reading and the original miles expected from the i3 . Use this equation .

Batt.Kapa.Max
--------------------- X 81 miles = current expected range
18.8


Also , again , to get your best Batt.Kapa.Max you can try doing a 'Departure Time' charge on a Level 2 EVSE . That should bring the battery into it's optimum temperature range in order to charge it fully . This could help depending on the current climate .

Here in BC , our daily highs are about 50 F at this time of year . My battery temp rarely gets as high as 68 F .

MKH said:

If you do a Google search, there is a way to bring up a hidden service menu which will show you the real, actual/current capacity of the battery pack in kWh's.

Click to expand...

The Batt. Kapa. max value accessible in the hidden service menu isn't the real, actual/current capacity of the battery pack; it's a calculated capacity that has varied by 4 kWh over 4 years on our i3 with no up or down trend obvious. The calculated capacity depends on things that we don't fully understand like temperature, the charge current, and probably the accuracy of the charge level calculation (the charge level displayed is only a calculated value as well).

The actual capacity would be the energy required to charge a battery pack from 0% to 100% charge levels at a specified current, neither of which isn't possible for an i3 owner to do because of protections implemented by the battery management system. BMW dealers can get a better capacity approximation using special equipment to discharge an i3 battery pack and then charge it fully over several hours.

That said, the 12.5 kWh Batt. Kapa. max value reported by jlangham is the lowest I've seen reported. The range estimates for this i3 seem to be low as well. It will be interesting to learn what jlangham's dealer does about this.

Thanks for all the replies!

So it's interesting, the car I'm looking at is at the same dealership that jlangham bought from. I don't know how he got CPO since it's past the factory mileage and time for warranty? The car I'm looking at isn't CPO because of the age of the vehicle. Curious about that. Something the sales guy mentioned is that if the battery needs to be replaced within the 8 year/100k mileage warranty, that they would only replace the cell that is having issues, not the entire thing. Anyone have input on that?

I've asked the dealership to see if I can get an extended test drive for two days, so see what normal driving conditions do for the range and battery capacity. Hopefully they are ok with that!

With that all said, do you guys think $13,8 is a fair price for this vehicle? My goal is to have a car that I can use for commuting and will last me 100,000 miles. With that in mind, that would take this car to 150k mileage. Is that realistic for these cars? Haven't seen too many reports of cars that high yet.

Jkozina said:

Something the sales guy mentioned is that if the battery needs to be replaced within the 8 year/100k mileage warranty, that they would only replace the cell that is having issues, not the entire thing. Anyone have input on that?

Click to expand...

Individual battery cells aren't replaceable. An i3 battery pack contains 8 modules of 12 cells each. BMW's modular design would allow a weak or defective module to be replaced. If a battery pack's usable capacity decreased more than the 30% degradation limit specified in the warranty, BMW could replace only a single module if that module were the main cause of the degraded capacity. If all modules had degraded capacity, I would think that the entire battery pack would be replaced to avoid the imbalance of a few new, strong modules among a group of weak modules.

Jkozina said:

Thanks for all the replies!
With that all said, do you guys think $13,8 is a fair price for this vehicle? My goal is to have a car that I can use for commuting and will last me 100,000 miles. With that in mind, that would take this car to 150k mileage. Is that realistic for these cars? Haven't seen too many reports of cars that high yet.

Click to expand...

I saw that car on Cars.com and, yes, I think it's a good price. Not sure why they won't call it Certified Pre-Owned. For a commuter car, I think it's a great option for the price. Even with my higher mileage and not sure about what's going on about the battery capacity, I still think it's a great car. I've been driving it all weekend even though I drive it back and forth to work every day. The range is good enough for me right now and hope that if there is an issue BMW will get it resolved.


The car is better on city streets than it is on I10 or the 101. Not because it doesn't drive smooth - which it does - it's because you get more range because of regenerative braking.

For sure let us know what you do.

With that all said, do you guys think $13,8 is a fair price for this vehicle? My goal is to have a car that I can use for commuting and will last me 100,000 miles. With that in mind, that would take this car to 150k mileage. Is that realistic for these cars? Haven't seen too many reports of cars that high yet

Click to expand...

.

I'd say a good price, particularly since it has the Tech/Drivers pkg, which is a $2500 option. In my area (Dallas) a similar i3, comparable mileage, without the Tech/Drivers option is going for $15.5 - with CarGuru rating the price as 'fair'. I don't think it is unreasonable to excpect electric cars to last well past 100K mileage. There are a bunch of Tesla's out there with over 200K on the clock, and several with over 400K - still running with the original batteries. One fleet owner says they expect at least 800K mile service life on the Tesla's they run.

And you can say that the i3 isn't a Tesla
But it kind-of is. Like the Tesla, it was designed/engineered from the ground-up to be a foundation vehicle, 'proving' BMW's electric car line. Heck, they built an entirely new, stand-alone, wind-powered, carbon-neutral production plant near Leipzig, Germany, the world's most sustainable car factory, just to produce BMW's 'i' line of cars.