Frankenstein i3 thoughts

I've got a 2014 i3 REX that has been dead since fall of 2021. Doesn't even go into neutral to roll it. Dragged it up onto a flatbed to the dealer, and they say the Electrical Machine Electronics (EME) is likely gone. $12K CDN part, $18K repair bill. Left it there for a few months and they offered 30% off, but ended up flat bedding it back to my garage at home.

I've been watching salvage i3s on CoPart auction, and wondering about combining two cars. I know the EME is permanently coded to the VIN of the car it is installed in, so you can't install one from another car. However if I replace enough of my car, it should think it is the salvage VIN and the EME would work. While I'm at it I figure I should get a 2017 or newer and swap out my battery pack. I have 155K kms on the car, it's almost at the 70% warranty trigger, but the bigger range would be nice.

Anyone done or considered doing something like this? Is the Electrical Digital Motor Electronics (EDME) the master controller that tells everything else the VIN? If I also replaced that would it work?

I am an electrical engineer and I have gone through the BMW TIS training guides on working on the high voltage systems, so I am aware of the risks and concerns. If I start doing it I might drop the battery pack out first as an added safety. I have locked the HV interlock out under the hood.

My understanding is that salvage or new modules might need coding to fit your car and using Esys or at most the ISTA+ program should be sufficient to do this.

Be sure its not just a glitch from a low 12V battery and has the day long AC power bootstrap method been visited?

Yes I think collecting salvage modules and the larger battery pack is worth the effort, those factory prices work out cheaper to get a whole spare car

There’s a U.K. company that advertises EME repair for a fraction of the new cost including the round-trip shipping cost. Worth considering if you really believe that your EME is broken.

Link to EME page here: http://remmington.info/bmw%20i3%20i8%20EME.html

Info/contact: http://remmington.info/contact.html

Got to be worth a call before you start dismantling.

Thanks for the link. I was wondering if there was an aftermarket EME repair service. Definitely worth checking out. May just ship the EME over from Canada to the UK and see what they can do.

Dealer did replace the 12V battery and do a full diagnostics. They said they needed $1,000 to pull the EME and see if it was bad, but they were fairly certain it is bad.