Dead i3!

[Broadz]

Hi all,

New to this forum, great to see so many people starting to drive around in EV’s!

I’ll get down to business, trying to find someone else who’s had this issues has been a right ball ache!

I bought a 15 plate i3, BEV, 16,500 miles from a Sytner dealership at the start of June, absolutely fantastic, never went an ICE car again!

Up until yesterday that is!

Partner went to start the car, and it wouldn’t start up

Had the dreaded “Transmission failure” message, funny thing is, the centre screen had the message up in amber, stating that I could “carry on my journey with reduced power” but thing is, shifting it into D, and it didn’t do anything (no movement or sounds) pressing P (which the display was telling me to do) did nothing, moving it to N, and the N light was flashing! And when putting it into R, you could hear a horrible grinding noise when pressing the accelerator :O add on top of that, the charge port wouldn’t open, and I couldn’t even lock the car afterwards! Pressing the lock button on the key would only make the car sound it’s horn twice. With it in N I couldn’t even push the car (it would just rock back and forth)

Had BMW come rescue the car, they have it now, but haven’t touched it yet, I assume they’ll be looking at it tomorrow morning. However a technician did come out last night and checked the ECU, and the errors that came up were 1. Control unit failure, 2.HV battery issue.

Been perfect up until now, I suppose my questions are;

A.) has anyone else had this happen? Or at least know of this happening?
B.) since BMW are being quiet, does anyone have an idea what the issue here is, and if it’s common? (Suppose that would be answered partly by question A)
C.) I’d assume this will be covered under the 1 year warranty supplied by Sytner when I bought it in June, but we all know what most dealers are like with warranties, do you think I could end up out of pocket with this?

Thanks in advance for any responses, all ideas/criticisms appreciated

 

[vreihen]

When in doubt, blame the 12V accessory battery for strange electronic glitches. They seem to have a 3-4 year lifetime, so it is due to fail if it has not already been replaced.....

 

[jadnashuanh]

The computers all run off of the 12vdc system, which isn't recharged except when the car is in READY condition or is connected to an EVSE (or CCS unit). As said, weird things can happen when that battery is dying...it could be something else, but it could just be the battery. You can't just put a charger on the battery without moving the HV disconnect (which is easy once you know where it is), otherwise, you are likely to damage something. There is a low current bypass that will trickle charge the battery from an EVSE until there's enough to run the computer, then, once the 12vdc is up enough (if it can), the normal recharge rates can be switched on automatically. That can take quite awhile to get enough charge into the 12vdc battery, though, if it's possible at all.

 

[Broadz]

Thanks for the thoughts guys, had it back from Sytner, and all they’ve done is update the software :shock:

How they explained it to me was, there’s a sensor monitoring the park button, and the electronic hand brake. They said that this issue is usually caused by the car being in motion, and someone pressing the park button. But didn’t explicitly say that’s exactly what caused it. Nothing wrong with the 12v battery, no parts replaced, just a simple software update to correct it. Methinks this has been an issue before otherwise BMW central wouldn’t have a software file that specifically addresses this issue.

Oh well, no harm no foul! Wasn’t charged anything so I’m happy, until the next one eh!