Retrofitting/fixing EU gas tank into US model?

[Tomasz]

ok going back a few posts @tomasz have you seen what they do in the coding for tank pressure/temp monitoring.

Nope, but I wasn't looking. 2.4 gal is good enough for me. Case closed.

 

[bmwsteve]

Has anyone in this forum ever successfully added an aux fuel tank or increased the size of the fuel tank in the i3? I would love to have 5 usable gallons without having to stop very often when doing a 250 mile trip.

 

[bmwsteve]

has anybody looked around the fuel tank is there any room for a larger one or is it rammed in with no room for maneuver, i am an engineering/fabricator and do this for a living and ive only had my Rex for a week so not looked yet, but if its possible i might consider making them.

I studied BMWs documentation and the problem I saw is that i3 is measuring pressure and temperature in the tank. Then it compares it to a map stored in the memory to detect leaks. Any artificial modification of original tank will throw things off and result in constant CEL illumination.

The only way I can come up with is to install an aux tank with transfer pump and shut of valve close enough to the original installation as to not affect volume of air in the original tank when the valve is closed too much. Then you could transfer fuel from one to another when it's getting close to empty.

Aux tank with aux tank would be awesome. If anyone comes up with a system for this i’d get it. I get very frustrated having to stop for gas every 50 miles. Although its only for a gallon or so.

 

[p7willm]

The i3 has the same fuel tank the world over. In the US, to make California happy and let the rex be a zero emissions vehicle, two things have been done. First, it only allows 1.9 gallons of fuel to be used. Second the REX only comes on when 6% of the battery is left, the rest of the world can turn it on when they want under 75%. The result is that the car goes as far as it can on pure electric and it does not go further on gas than pure electric.

This is software controlled, along with a bunch of other stuff. You can get software to flip bits in software to have your US car act like one in Europe. BMW does not like it. If you do something that harms your car they can void the warranty.

 

[theothertom]

If you do something that harms your car they can void the warranty.

Sorta-kinda
If you mod your car and the mod causes something to fail, then only the thing that fails is not covered by your warranty. For example, if you code your car so that the REx can turn on at 75%, and your door handles fall off, then the door handles will be covered since there's no connection between them and the REx. See the magnuson moss act.