Questions to ask the dealer

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RachelinSLC

Member
Joined
May 19, 2019
Messages
6
It is time to trade in my 2009 Mini Cooper for an EV. I will miss my little money pit. I hope the Cooper EV turns into a happy reality in the near future. In the mean time, I must get an EV car. My solar panels are on the roof waiting for an EV to power up.

This week, I plan on visiting the BMW dealer and peppering them with questions. What questions should I ask? I really want a 2017 BEV, however, there are none for sale in the whole state of Utah as of today. Is it worth the transportation fee to bring one in from Colorado or Arizona? My next option is a 2016 REX. There are a handful to buy. With my Mini, I averaged 6700 miles a year. My anxiety issue really isn't about range. I'm the ideal candidate for an EV. My round trip commute to work is 13 miles. My anxiety issue is winter. It gets cold here. Will a 2016 battery give me enough leftover range after the cold? BTW, I don't blame the battery for not wanting to work in the winter.

Also any issues with buying from a non-BWM dealer? It looks like there are two smaller dealers that sell German imports, including the i3.

Last question, extended warranty. Has anybody used their extended warranty? What comfort do you get from your extended warranty?
 
If you are buying from a none BMW dealer, that shouldn't be a problem. I went to BMW afterward and bought an BMW warranty to extend ours to 7 years. This was a bit of back and forth because our i3 was imported as well.

Our's came from San Raphael and imported into Vancouver.

I like your plan to power the car with your solar panels. If you can store your power and then send it to the charger that would be interesting. The little charger that comes with the cars will take about 15 hours (if memory serves me) to charge the 60 ah battery and maybe about 22 hours for the 94 ah battery. I could be wrong on these as I haven't used the trickle charger in about 8 months.

That charger runs on 110 volt service which is probably what your solar battery inverter will be compatible with. I am not too sure what the cost would be to power a 240v 32 amp charger with all the inverters and transformers needed but it would great to see.

If I had my choice and everything else was equal, I would go for the bigger battery in the 2017. It may be enough extra range to do without the Rex. Also, I think you get a sun-roof starting in that year (not sure if it was optional or included).

Asking the dealership questions may prove to be frustrating. You will find more info on the web.

You should check to make sure all the recalls have been done as well as the usual accident checks.
Also, get them to put new tires on the car as the ones on the car will probably be worn (The summers with the 20" option don't last very long). We noticed this with most of the i3's that we looked at.

Some of the things that we like in our 2015 Rex are:
- Smooth and quiet operation.
- ~3 hours to charge with our home level 2 charger so the car is always ready to go.
- Nice fit and finish inside.
- Decent rear seats with access through the suicide doors.
- Nice sound with the HK option.
- Some user programming to turn on features or modify them with Bimmercode or similar coding tool.
- Unique styling. (this can go in both love and hate categories)

Some things we are not too excited about are:
- The Rex is a bit noisy when running at high RPM
- ACC is hit and miss so I don't even bother using it.
- Automated Parking system is slow to engage and then the car parks too close to curbs resulting in curbed rims. I tried it twice and now both of my passenger side rims are scratched up.

Hope this helps! Good luck with the purchase.
 
RachelinSLC said:
My anxiety issue is winter. It gets cold here. Will a 2016 battery give me enough leftover range after the cold? BTW, I don't blame the battery for not wanting to work in the winter.

My understanding is that the BEV version uses a heat pump to make heat, whereas the REx model has the gasoline tank in the place where the heat pump should go so they had to use less efficient electrical resistance heaters. I don't know how well the heat pump works in really cold weather, but I also believe that they included backup electrical resistance heating elements on the BEV for times when the heat pump isn't enough. Hopefully someone with more than 100 miles of i3 ownership can confirm these things. The heat pump will be more kind to your range.

In terms of battery performance when cold, I am under the impression that the i3 will pre-condition the batteries (as well as the cabin) as part of a programmed departure time. If you are plugged into wall power, all of that pre-conditioning power will come from there and not the batteries. Footnote that the OUC Level 1 cable might not be able to supply all of the electric to warm the batteries without drawing some power from them. Anyway, if you can plug in to 240V at both ends of your commute, none of the pre-condition battery or cabin power will be coming from the battery.

After two days of programmed departure times and climbing into a shirt-sleeve-temperature car, I can never go back to an ICE vehicle..... :D
 
Thanks for the feedback. I'll ask a lot of questions about the heater and the A/C. It also gets hot here in the summer. The tires on the list as well. This car reminds me of my road bike: carbon fiber frame + skinny tires. On one hand I think my transportation needs are simple. Then I start to itemize. Turns outs that I'm rather picky.

The whole programmed departure time is new to me. I can definitely leave at the same time every day. However, i won't have a place to charge at work. Not that I need it for the commute.
 
Here in the UK, heat pump is an option on the BEV only. I don't know if the US market has it as standard.

In the UK, the heat pump adds roughly 10 miles of winter range. It doesn't get as cold here as it does in SLC. Colder weather means the car will use the resistance heater to warm up the car.




BMW combines seat heating with traction battery heat and the cold weather air flap. It is option code 494. That is standard now but used to be an option. Use a VIN decoder and make sure the car has 494. I use bimmer.work but there are others.

If you set the departure time and the car has option 494, it will warm up the traction battery before you set off. You want this.

In summer a departure timer will cool off the car while it is still plugged in. I was in Salt Lake City last July and that would have been nice to have.

wrNfdpf.jpg
 
AndrewDebbie said:
Here in the UK, heat pump is an option on the BEV only. I don't know if the US market has it as standard.
The heat pump option is standard on all U.S. BEV's but it is not available on any REx regardless of market.

AndrewDebbie said:
BMW combines seat heating with traction battery heat and the cold weather air flap. It is option code 494.
Thanks for this explanation! Living in Honolulu, I had to look hard to find a 2014 BEV without option 494 which would have been a waste of money here (ambient temperatures rarely drop as low as 60º F/15º C at sea level). Recently, a discussion of adding a protective screen to the air intake below the front bumper revealed that some i3's have a movable air flap between the air intake grill and the heat exchanger. However, our i3 does not have this air flap which has been a mystery to me until I read your explanation of option 494.
 
Yes as a resident of SLC, I get to deal with both weather extremes. I'm suddenly seeing why EVs are popular in moderate temperature climates. Nonetheless, I've seen discussion from owners in Canada. If they can figure it out, I can. Right now all the used cars in SLC are RExs. I'm going to ask the dealer and one used car place if they can find me a 2017 BEV, which is my first choice.
The patience required to find the right car is killing me.
 
My 2014 BEV can see an indicated maximum range when it's near zero F of in the mid 40-miles. Now, note that it seems like I usually can go at least a few miles before the range indication starts to drop, especially if I can set a departure time. IN a best case scenario, I've gone 10+ miles before it starts to drop. Depends on where and how you're driving.

Given your commute to work, any of the model years would work. If you want to make some side trips on the way back, more might be nice, but probably still not necessary.

I've seen my BEV use as much as 20A at 240VAC when preconditioning and warming the batteries, so, lots more than the 120vac OUC that comes with the car could handle and still leave with full charge.
 
First off, you never want to ask the dealer anything. You want to do your research outside the dealership. Learn to tap into the secret menu in the display screen. It's on YouTube and you'll be able to see the battery life and how much it's deteriorated. If there's any deterioration, it's probably due to the car sitting on the lot for so long. That's why we see dirt cheap i3's that only have 3k miles on them. Appears new, but the batteries are old.

As for a warranty, if you're buying used, you have to pay $700 (select locations) to transfer maintenance coverage to the new owner. The warranty itself stays with the car. Typically, I don't buy warranties. I would just have it fixed as needed. Anything major will be covered under the warranty anyway which is pretty much standard for EV's for covering the battery.

If you have questions about the car itself, ask them in the appropriate threads in this forum. I'm sure we're all eager to help you. Just don't ask these at the dealership. They most likely won't know or they'll know that you don't know which isn't where you want to be.
 
One thing you can ask the Dealer for, is a print-out of the warranty work done on the car, which will all be listed in BMW's service records. On my 2015, for example, I was wondering about the motor mount bolts. A simple query of the service records showed that the under warranty, the motor mount bolts had been replaced - along with the software update to limit stress on the mounts, the fuel sensor that caused fuel door opening issues had been replaced, the fuel vapor leak/line had been replaced, and the air-bag control unit software updated.
 
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