Recent content by tiburonh

I suspect that -- similar to what happened when the very first i3s were left sitting on the dock in CA for MANY weeks in 2014 -- BMW is still awaiting some form of official approval from the EPA or CARB or some other governmental body -- as would, in particular, be required for whatever...

Hi jsidhu- Sorry if this it too late to help, but (and bearing in mind that it is hard to say 100% for sure without knowing more details about your deal) this sounds to be in a fair ball park for a 2016. Here's what I got quoted in the first week of August from my long-time dealer on a...

Anyone in California needs to remember that (and this is no fault of BMW's) whatever credit BMW gives on the lease of an i3 will be treated by the state of California as a capital cost reduction -- which is subject to tax at whatever your local community's sales tax rate is. So, if you lease...

Hey Russ- Do you know about the Bay Area i3 meet up happening this Saturday? We're due to assume able at the Marin Headlands parking lot at 10:00 AM this Saturday morning. Would be great to see you there.

For what it's worth, I have had no problems whatsoever with Sirius reception in my 2014 i3 BEV. And I live/drive in the San Francisco Bay area, with lots of big hills and other things that one might expect to cause problems. However, though I have no problems with my Sirius reception, I do...

ddodell - I've got a fully loaded 2014 BEV, with the latest 2016 software update, and I've never seen any auto time set feature. I've always had to update my clock manually by going into Settings and then into Date/Time. So every time daylight savings changes, I have to manually update...

Very interesting angle on this i3Alan! I've had a couple leases before where at the end of the term the residual value was significantly LESS than the actual retail value, so I jumped at buying the car. I've not previously encountered what we i3 lease or OC people are surely going to...

Hi Schnort- Not sure what country you are writing from, but in the US BMW finance's standard contract for both traditional lease deals and "owner's choice" deals is 100% specific about the exact residual value at the end of the term - there is no language about "estimated to be." The only...

I think the source of your problem may be that you are trying to turn your car in BEFORE the 24 month term of your Owner's Choice deal is up. So you are in effect breaking your lease -- which leaves the dealer and BMW Financial Services free to do pretty much whatever they want to you. If you...

The "flexible mobility lie" was BMW's frequent statements that all i3 owners would be able to get a free loaner of an ICE powered BMW for a week or two very year for when they needed to make a longer trip than the i3 could handle. Turns out this is a program that BMW NA suggested to dealers but...

Trust me, there is ZERO need to have the heated seats activated as part of the preconditioning. They heat up super fast as soon as you turn them on. Indeed, unless you want to cook yourself, you will want to turn them down from the highest setting to the middle or lower level soon after you...

I brought my 2014 BEV in for the airbag recall as scheduled at 8:30 AM on 12/17. Asked my dealer to please do the November software update at the same time. Thankfully got no push back whatsoever about doing the software update (at no charge.). Was initially told the car would be ready the...

For the first couple of days after I got the November update, my BEV was showing that it was going to get much more range than it normally does. However, this has now gone away and I am back to showing (and experiencing) the same range as I have all along. What happens here is that the...

I'm pretty sure from the way my recall notice is phrased that the issue is not that it is only inflating at the fast inflate mode -- the issue is that it is not inflating AT ALL in the low speed mode.

I received my recall notice from BMW in the mail this weekend. I find this hard to say, but I think on this one occasion (and this one occasion only) Tom has his facts wrong. The issue with the passenger airbag is NOT limited to just when the passenger has not buckled his/her seatbelt. The...