BMW: dont try to fix whoop-whoop with new parts

[WoodlandHills]

I got the final word from BMWUSA about my car: my dealer is NOT permitted to swap tires to troubleshoot the problem. BMW say that swapping for 19" wheels is a modification to a 20" car and is not permitted. They also say that if the problem had gone away, it would have returned at a later date based upon their experience.

BMW say they are aware of this problem and that while they do not know the cause they feel that a fix will be coming someday and that I should drive the car until then. They offer no timeline for a solution and offer no other adjustment or compensation.

I feel that my particular chassis is defective as far as NVH (noise, vibration, harshness) goes and that the value of my i3 has been diminished to a significant degree. It seems that my only recourse is to file a Lemon Law claim and get another i3 that does not have this issue. I need to notify the manufacturer of my complaint so there is a registered letter going out on Monday and I need 2 or maybe 3 more visits to my dealer for a total of 4. I will pickup the car tomorrow and drop it back off in about 2 weeks when I get home from a short vacation in Ireland.

If BMW were able to give some idea of how long I have to wait until they can make this irritating noise go away I would be willing to work with then, but as it is now, they do not even know the cause, much less the solution. It really looks like the only way I will ever get a "normal" i3 is to force BMW to give me one. The clock is ticking on my lease.........

 

[WoodlandHills]

I picked up my car today and things are worse than expected. Where once the service department at my dealer acknowledged that my car made a noise, now they deny that they heard it. BMW attached a service bulletin from Sept 2014 that said that even if my car made a noise it was acceptable to BMW and there was no fault.

It was a big mess getting my car since they could not find it when I arrived, in the ensuing search my invoice was taken from me and not returned. They say it will be emailed in a few hours....

So now I am stuck. Either go down the Lemon Law route or else sue in small claims court for the diminished value of an i3 that is louder than most of the fleet. All I want is a car that does not go whoop-whoop when I drive it, not money in compensation..... I just cannot understand why I have to live with this situation for the next 2 1/2 years, when had I been given a choice when I signed my lease of a noisy i3 or a quiet one there is no doubt which I would have chosen. But since BMW neglected to inform me that it was possible that my car had this issue I never had the chance to make an informed decision when I leased the car.

I also cannot understand why BMW will not allow my dealer to even troubleshoot the problem! As per their service bulletin, they have been aware of the problem since at least Sept of 2014 with no answer and it seems that their solution is to simply change their standards so that the offending cars are now acceptable. At every turn it seems I am being met with a stone wall of denial.

Perhaps if I can publicize this via the media BMW may be shamed into doing the ethical thing. To that end I am going to put together an info package and send it around to various media from local TV news and local newspaper columnists to Car & Driver, Jalopnik and others. Tomorrow I will try to get a good recording of the noise under several conditions as well as some decibel readings with a handheld meter. What with all the interest in EVs these days as well as the medias love of muckraking maybe I can get some interest.

 

[I33t]

Perhaps BMW is paying you back for all your negative posts about the i3 here, or perhaps it is just karma or self-fulfilling prophesy.

My suggestion would be to meet up with another local and accommodating i3 owner with 20" wheels and to some A/B/C testing. Drive each car assessing the noise, preferably using a quality recording device at the same location in the car and volume settings. Swap wheels between the cars and retest. You could also do front only/rear only/one side only/all4 to isolate if the noise is associated with a particular facet of the car.

Then, repeat with 19" wheels.

If the borrowed 20's go quiet, then you have a possible option: Grab a new set of tyres and see what happens. If they deteriorate the same and the 19's solve the problem (and BMW won't come to the party), I'd just buy a set and get on with life, keeping the 20's for when the lease is up.

 

[WoodlandHills]

I like to think that the karmic payback is due to my being a heavy jet and helicopter quality control inspector in another lifetime. I spent a couple of decades looking at, listening to and function testing complex high tech devices, it is hard to just shut it off when spending tens of $1000s of my own money.

I still have an open file at Bridgestone for high NVH in the tires so maybe they will be willing to test different tires....

 

[WoodlandHills]

Perhaps BMW is paying you back for all your negative posts about the i3 here, or perhaps it is just karma or self-fulfilling prophesy.

My suggestion would be to meet up with another local and accommodating i3 owner with 20" wheels and to some A/B/C testing. Drive each car assessing the noise, preferably using a quality recording device at the same location in the car and volume settings. Swap wheels between the cars and retest. You could also do front only/rear only/one side only/all4 to isolate if the noise is associated with a particular facet of the car.

Then, repeat with 19" wheels.

If the borrowed 20's go quiet, then you have a possible option: Grab a new set of tyres and see what happens. If they deteriorate the same and the 19's solve the problem (and BMW won't come to the party), I'd just buy a set and get on with life, keeping the 20's for when the lease is up.

If I was an owner and not a lessor I would do exactly that. But since a 19" wheel and tire set costs approx $1800 it would be hard to amortize in the 2.5 years I have left on the lease with no guarantee that the noise won't return (as per BMW). In addition, if our next EV is a Tesla SUV then a set of i3 wheels and tires will not be much use.......

BTW it was great to get our i3 back after having it sit at the dealer for several days. We really do love this car and the way it drives. So comfortable, and smooth. Also pretty darned quiet on most freeways compared to our Infiniti. If only they would quit paving around my neighborhood: the new roads are where the Whoop is the most intrusive.

 

[WoodlandHills]

ADMIN NOTE: Thread merged with existing thread by WoodlandHills on same topic.

I am discussing my whooping i3 with a nationally known Lemon Law attorney and he had a couple of questions that I could not answer: has anyone else ever taken a car with this issue to an independent mechanic? If so, what did they say was the cause? Does this sound occur at zero miles or some higher mileage.

Has anyone ever recorded this noise or is it on YouTube?

Any input would be very helpful since a sticking point seems to be finding a cause for this noise. I am told that a noise is a symptom and not a cause and that without knowing why this happens it is going to be very difficult to press a claim. This might be the reason BMW are so adamant that the cause is unknown.......

 

[I33t]

Has anyone ever recorded this noise or is it on YouTube?

You have the noise, and you complain about it, how about you record it and show it to the world?

If this was a major problem there would be a worldwide queue of i3 owners belly-aching about it.

 

[I33t]

You could arrange the swap test in between rants about the noise, and while you are at it, where is the recording of this incredibly annoying noise?

Step away from the keyboard, pick up your recorder, and go record it.

 

[WoodlandHills]

Contrary to appearances I do have a life and my i3 is just a tiny part of it. FYI I tried using the only recording device I own: my phone. It was not very successful in that the sound was only recorded in short bursts as I swung through a couple of gentle bends. The threshold of the mic seems to be fairly high as it did not pick up lots of other sounds too. I am leaving for a couple of weeks touring Ireland and once I get back I will go to an empty mall parking lot and drive in circles around my phone and see what it sounds like.

Suppose I swap tires and the sound goes away, according to BMW it will return. They are adamant that replacing tires is not a permanent fix despite what we read on the Internet. Having said that I am still going to pursue my claim with Bridgestone to see if their engineering dept has more or different information than BMW. Simply asking nicely for information is useless, unless you open a claim they will not allocate resources to your problem. And if no engineer is assigned to look into the matter how does one get an answer?

 

[WoodlandHills]

Has anyone ever recorded this noise or is it on YouTube?

You have the noise, and you complain about it, how about you record it and show it to the world?

If this was a major problem there would be a worldwide queue of i3 owners belly-aching about it.

I can only assume that you have not been following this issue over the past year. It is not a "major" problem affecting the fleet. It is a problem isolated to a small fraction of 2014 production that affects primarily those early adopters that were the first buyers. But to those who have affected cars it is no joking matter, some folks don't care one bit. Some cannot bear it, like me. Most seem to hear it, but if forced to will live with it.

Perhaps entering the word "whoop" into the search function will help educate you, there are 6 pages of hits going back to May 2014. Start from the oldest and you will see that I am not the only person to hear this sound and I am not the only person to complain, both here and to their dealer.

Even though back in Oct of 14 that I thought the sound was "cool" by early 2015 it had turned into an ear worm and was driving me nuts. Just as it was annoying to the guy with the Electronaut Edition i3 who had been into the shop 5 times with the same complaint and got the same response that I did from BMW.

 

[mlsstl]

The 2014 i3 with 20" wheels I test drove had this problem -- it was very noticeable and annoying to both my wife and I and we considered it completely unacceptable in a car that lists for almost $50K. While we didn't buy the car (my wife didn't fall for it in the same fashion I did), there is no way we would have accepted one with the noise unless they could have fixed it.

 

[I33t]

Have a look at your camera, it probably has a movie mode with sound.

If you have a life, and the i3 is just a tiny part of it, why are constantly on here going on and on about the tyre noise and other grievances you have with it?

 

[I33t]

I can only assume that you have not been following this issue over the past year.

That's a joke, right?

How could I possibly have not been following this issue when a couple of people blag on and on about it and never do anything about it except complain. It's not hard to record the sound, but it hasn't been done. It's not hard to organise a swap day to check out if it's the tyres or not, but it hasn't been done. Sounds like there is a major problem...

 

[trudderham]

It's an issue with early models that have 20" wheels. I don't believe the issue was hidden. Many early reviews mentioned it. Swapping to 19" wheels would fix the problem.

 

[alohart]

It's an issue with early models that have 20" wheels. I don't believe the issue was hidden. Many early reviews mentioned it. Swapping to 19" wheels would fix the problem.

I've read at least one report of the same noise occurring with 19" wheels on a European car which had summer EP500 tires fitted like those on the 20" wheels. In the U.S., EP500's aren't an option with 19" wheels; only all-season EP600's are fitted. So maybe the problem is with EP500 tires regardless of the wheel size.

When the EP600's on my 19" wheels wear out, I would like to replace them with EP500's since all-season tires aren't necessary in Hawaii and might even be slightly less efficient. I hope by then, the cause of the noise problem is known. If the EP500's are to blame, hopefully they will be fixed by then. There have been some conflicting reports about recently-manufactured EP500's not being noisy, but others have written that even recent EP500's can be noisy, so the mystery remains.

 

[WoodlandHills]

Because everytime I drive my car the noise makes me fucking crazy! Because I have a $55k car with a glaring defect that BMW admit exists, but refuse to fix.

 

[WoodlandHills]

BMW swear up and down that the problem is NOT tires. That is why they refuse to permit dealers to swap wheels and tires to troubleshoot. BMW claim that when tires and wheels have been swapped the noise returns later as loud as before and that they have the work orders and VIN numbers to prove it.

What BMW will not or cannot say is what is the cause and when they will have a solution. But they are positive at BMWUSA that the problem is not tires. I gave them all the info about Ep500 vs EP 600, but they did not seem interested.

 

[Electron15]

I've read other people complain about it. I LIKE the sound, it reminds me of the motorcycle James T. Kirk rides in Star Trek 2009 movie - very 23rd century!

 

[I33t]

So record it, and show us what a massive problem it is.

 

[BlueWhiteFlagger]

Mine does it also. Mentioned to dealer. Nothing done.