Forward Cooling Radiator

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jbrinsfi

Member
Joined
May 8, 2018
Messages
14
There appears to be some sort of thermostatically controlled louvered shutter in front of the forward cooling radiator on my '14 BEV. I seems to be closed almost all of the time. When is it supposed to open up? The temperatures are rising here in Southern California and it still seems to be closed most days.
 
Ours is a 2014 BEV. I've been investigating adding a stone guard screen behind the louvered grill, so I've become quite familiar with this grill. There is no movable shutter in our grill. Unlike the REx grill that has 3 rows of openings between 2 horizontal grill louvers, the top row of openings on the BEV grill is permanently closed so there are only 2 rows of openings. The difference must be due to the REx requiring more cooling because of its REx engine.
 
Art thanks for the response. I am pretty certain that the shutter on our i3 is movable. On some days I have seen the radiator fully exposed through the grill and on others all I see is the closed shutter. I will take a photo and post next time I notice it. I will also take a trip down to the dealer to check with them.
 
Could this be the active air flap that is bundled in with seat heating as part of option 494?


--> http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showparts?id=7Z82-EUR-10-2018-I01N-BMW_i-i3s_94Ah_Rex&diagId=51_9282
 
MKH said:
There are definitely two different air ducts, one without flaps and one with flaps.
Interesting! Our i3 is one of the few U.S. i3's without the heated seat and battery pack option, so maybe that explains why I don't see any movable flaps on our i3.

I wonder why whether this air duct has movable flaps would depend on this heated seat and battery pack option. Neither the seat nor the battery pack heaters use the heat pump system whose heat exchanger's air flow would be blocked when the air duct flaps are closed.
 
Yes our car has heated seats and now that I am thinking about it, the last time I saw those flaps open was when using the heated seats.
 
jbrinsfi said:
Yes our car has heated seats and now that I am thinking about it, the last time I saw those flaps open was when using the heated seats.

Reviving this thread, I noticed that too. It's a BEV versus ReX thing... not sure why the difference.
 
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