Gonville
Well-known member
Picked up the silver Rex yesterday from dealer in Reading. They had fully charged so someone is learning. It has the leather so can test that out for stickiness. I'll get some pictures up later.
Anyway main objectives to see how the Harman Kardon sound and to see if the British gas Chargemaster/polar works OK having had it installed last week.
Lead time remains the same. My build slot is still October!
Out of the dealer's yard and then onto the Reading Inner Distribution Ring road. Aha. Time to try out the ACC and all this cutting out in shadows and what not. Set it on for 40mph. Great. Green symbol away we go , foot off the gas, great. Coming up to lights. Not slowing down? Why not? Jam on the anchors. At that point it occurs to me this vehicle is not equipped with ACC. Ha ha. Stupid boy best not to use the IDR as a test track. I later look up the VIN number to get the spec. It is of course cruise control with braking. I.e. It keeps the speed down hill as well as up. Doh.
I try out a simulated ACC failure by turning off cruise control. I find that if you keep your foot just on that soft spongy point when on cruise control, or ACC I am guessing, then when the ACC trips out you should not get the regen. Works like that on cruise control I can just overcome the regen kickin so I don't get rear ended. Might help others? I know you don't ideally want to stress out your foot if you have paid for ACC but it feels like a nice way to not have the anxiety. Maybe someone can try that? Just cover the accelerator/gas pedal.
Anyway the speakers are great. Should be as there are two silver cones pointing at your left and right ears. Found I had to adjust balance to rear slightly otherwise it all felt up in the windshield area. So I think they are a yes. I think I am happy to trade off the 20 inch for the speakers.
Charging. Worked great first time. Bought the blue python from the dealer. Seemed the best buy around. Didn't realise both ends are different but was pretty obvious which way round it went. Didn't seem to be drawing any current at first. Not much more than the kettle. Odd. So checked out the meter cupboard and it seems the sensor I have is on the tail to the house not the complete supply! Rookie error I am sure the BG guy did that on purpose for a joke. Me sitting there thinking boy this is cheap charging........anyway soon rectified onto the right tail lead and viola 6.9kw. Stayed like that for a couple of hours before I turned off. This morning I topped up and it dropped off to 1.2kw. Plug went green when I unlocked car. No dramas. Many thanks to all on this forum for the insight and knowledge to be able to confidently do all this with no trauma.
Took neighbour for a quick spin. He said the acceleration reminded him of the early Saab turbos the kick in the back. Until everyone got used to it and were doing it all the time. Demoed the Rex starting. When I found it in the right menu. Just about hear it when the radio stereo is off but not when playing music. Fan runs on when you turn it off when stationary. i.e. Ignition off. Is it water cooled ? or air cooled. Almost make more noise when you have stopped than it does when you are travelling.
Tried the auto park. Went back to the same space I came out of. It recognised the space but wouldn't go into it said "risk of collision". Ha. So about as good as it is in the F10. Need more practice to see what it's problem was. Suspect the hedge on the off side was too close for its chosen manoeuvre radius.
Pulling out of the slot, having manually manoeuvred in, I noticed one other thing that there has been some discussion on. The front beepers warned me of the proximity of the hedge. Now in thinking about it I may have selected reverse in getting out of the slot? but I thought I just went straight forward and they came on. Need to try that again.
Took care in getting on the drive to make sure that I selected the parking break after pressing park. No spurious lights yet. When parking in a multi story I noticed that the vehicle rocked back when I was on a sloping space, part of slight incline to let water run off, before I selected park and the parking break. I can see that if you just press 'stop start' button it will potentially move if it's not on level ground. Wonder if that's what is confusing the software? I think Park only gets selected after a few movements.
Also I found you can drive away without the seatbelt on but only if you manually deselect the parking brake. Otherwise it gives you a warning that the parking brake is on which it doesn't do if you have put your belt on. Interesting.
The vehicle itself was built in November 2013 so I guess has old software in it. I'll see if I can find a version number in the menus.
Anyway that's it for now.
Anyway main objectives to see how the Harman Kardon sound and to see if the British gas Chargemaster/polar works OK having had it installed last week.
Lead time remains the same. My build slot is still October!
Out of the dealer's yard and then onto the Reading Inner Distribution Ring road. Aha. Time to try out the ACC and all this cutting out in shadows and what not. Set it on for 40mph. Great. Green symbol away we go , foot off the gas, great. Coming up to lights. Not slowing down? Why not? Jam on the anchors. At that point it occurs to me this vehicle is not equipped with ACC. Ha ha. Stupid boy best not to use the IDR as a test track. I later look up the VIN number to get the spec. It is of course cruise control with braking. I.e. It keeps the speed down hill as well as up. Doh.
I try out a simulated ACC failure by turning off cruise control. I find that if you keep your foot just on that soft spongy point when on cruise control, or ACC I am guessing, then when the ACC trips out you should not get the regen. Works like that on cruise control I can just overcome the regen kickin so I don't get rear ended. Might help others? I know you don't ideally want to stress out your foot if you have paid for ACC but it feels like a nice way to not have the anxiety. Maybe someone can try that? Just cover the accelerator/gas pedal.
Anyway the speakers are great. Should be as there are two silver cones pointing at your left and right ears. Found I had to adjust balance to rear slightly otherwise it all felt up in the windshield area. So I think they are a yes. I think I am happy to trade off the 20 inch for the speakers.
Charging. Worked great first time. Bought the blue python from the dealer. Seemed the best buy around. Didn't realise both ends are different but was pretty obvious which way round it went. Didn't seem to be drawing any current at first. Not much more than the kettle. Odd. So checked out the meter cupboard and it seems the sensor I have is on the tail to the house not the complete supply! Rookie error I am sure the BG guy did that on purpose for a joke. Me sitting there thinking boy this is cheap charging........anyway soon rectified onto the right tail lead and viola 6.9kw. Stayed like that for a couple of hours before I turned off. This morning I topped up and it dropped off to 1.2kw. Plug went green when I unlocked car. No dramas. Many thanks to all on this forum for the insight and knowledge to be able to confidently do all this with no trauma.
Took neighbour for a quick spin. He said the acceleration reminded him of the early Saab turbos the kick in the back. Until everyone got used to it and were doing it all the time. Demoed the Rex starting. When I found it in the right menu. Just about hear it when the radio stereo is off but not when playing music. Fan runs on when you turn it off when stationary. i.e. Ignition off. Is it water cooled ? or air cooled. Almost make more noise when you have stopped than it does when you are travelling.
Tried the auto park. Went back to the same space I came out of. It recognised the space but wouldn't go into it said "risk of collision". Ha. So about as good as it is in the F10. Need more practice to see what it's problem was. Suspect the hedge on the off side was too close for its chosen manoeuvre radius.
Pulling out of the slot, having manually manoeuvred in, I noticed one other thing that there has been some discussion on. The front beepers warned me of the proximity of the hedge. Now in thinking about it I may have selected reverse in getting out of the slot? but I thought I just went straight forward and they came on. Need to try that again.
Took care in getting on the drive to make sure that I selected the parking break after pressing park. No spurious lights yet. When parking in a multi story I noticed that the vehicle rocked back when I was on a sloping space, part of slight incline to let water run off, before I selected park and the parking break. I can see that if you just press 'stop start' button it will potentially move if it's not on level ground. Wonder if that's what is confusing the software? I think Park only gets selected after a few movements.
Also I found you can drive away without the seatbelt on but only if you manually deselect the parking brake. Otherwise it gives you a warning that the parking brake is on which it doesn't do if you have put your belt on. Interesting.
The vehicle itself was built in November 2013 so I guess has old software in it. I'll see if I can find a version number in the menus.
Anyway that's it for now.
I'd like to give the Reading dealership credit--both times we've test driven their i3's, they were fully charged. Many of the gripes I see on here about dealers not knowing information was not true in our experience with Reading. Their i3 expert was quite knowledgeable (despite having only started the job 2 weeks prior!) and the information they gave us on followup visits was great--it all accurately checked out.
