Winterizing my i3

[17R3W]

My i3 was originally from California, and now lives in southern Ontario and it's "straight up not having a good time" with the winter weather.

It's always putting up this message about it being cold outside, but I have no idea what it wants me to do about it. (It's like a cat who gets mad when you open the door, and the weather is awful and it looks at you like "why did you make the weather this way?")

I was fish tailing all over yesterday.
What kind of winter tires do you recommend? (My mother suggested I might want "all weather" tires, any opinion on those).

Also anything else you'd recommend to make the car happy this winter?

Thanks,

 

[vreihen]

1) Many cars will issue warnings at startup if the outside temperature is near freezing, to alert the driver that it may be icy in case they didn't fall on their butt on a slick spot getting into the car.

2) Snow tires on 19" rims are your friend. Choices are Blizzaks (more common) and Nokian Hakkapeliittas.....

 

[Anonymous]

What Vreihen said.

Sounds like you have the 20 inch wheels, with summer sports tires.

To switch to all-season tires, you will need to go to 19 inch wheels, and if you are doing that you might as well go the snow tire route, with a second set of wheels for winter use. Some Dealers have snow tire/wheel packages that are pretty competitive. After market there are RIAL X10-I wheels. Sometimes you can also snag a deal on places like Craig's list. I found a set of the 19 inch i3 'pizza slice' 427 wheels there for $300.

 

[vreihen]

It might also be worth checking to see if dealers north of the border are participating in this deal, since $100 off a set of four Bridgestone Blizzaks makes the dealer's price competitive with online vendors down here:

https://www.bmwusatires.com/standard?utm_source=CRM&utm_ medium=email&utm_campaign=falltire

 

[Fisher99]

[snip]
It's always putting up this message about it being cold outside, but I have no idea what it wants me to do about it. (It's like a cat who gets mad when you open the door, and the weather is awful and it looks at you like "why did you make the weather this way?")

[snip]

What a great analogy! That's hilarious!

BMW's like to tell you when the temp is 37 or below, just to make sure you know that things could get slippery. I'm entering my first winter with my i3, which also has the 20" wheels and summer tires. I'm too cheap to buy new wheels just so that I can buy snow tires, so once it gets slippery here the i3 will sit in the driveway. We're in the 20's and 30's now but no snow yet. But I'm getting to experience the "joy" of reduced electric driving range with the cold temps...

 

[jfran2]

Don't forget there's a "Traction" menu item in the car's idrive system as well. You might play with that a bit when it's icy out.

 

[Anonymous]

When 'winterizing', when the weather gets cold, make sure you check your tire pressure. Since the recommended pressure is quite high, and the tires narrow, the normal cold-weather pressure drop can be significant.

 

[jadnashuanh]

I have the NOkians on my ICE and the Blizzaks on my i3. Between the two, admittedly not apples to apples, I'd replace the Blizzaks with the NOkians if I still have the car when those need replacement - I think they're a better tire. As winter gets closer and closer, the supply of winter tires can get really short. If you want to go that route (and I'm a big believer in the best tires for the conditions, and it's not only the precipitation, it's the temperature - summer tires get really hard when it's cold and traction goes way out the window), don't wait much longer and it might already be too late. Being a rear-wheel drive car, you'll appreciate a good winter tire when the weather turns not only cold but snowy.

Make sure that the ones you DO find are fresh...you want the tire rubber to be soft (it gets harder as it ages) for use in cold, nasty weather. Sometimes, the cheap ones you can find are old production that have been sitting around. The date code is molded into the sidewall.

The same thing on the wiper blades...the rubber gets harder as it ages, and winter is when you tend to need them more often to clear the slush and salt spray.

Tires will change pressure at about 1#/10-degrees F, down as they get colder, up as they get warmer.

Coming from CA, they may not have used cold weather washer fluid. If that's the case, if it froze, you may have already damaged things as ice formed in the pump.

 

[robthebold]

I picked up my new-to-me i3 the day before an ice storm late last winter. Boy was it nerve-wracking to let up on the "gas" when I felt the wheels were losing traction only to make it worse!!! I'm familiar with snow and ice, and I'm familiar with with rear-wheel-drive as well, but I was not prepared for the effects of (attempted) regenerative braking as soon as I lifted my foot off the go pedal! One definitely needs to re-learn slippery road gas pedal techniques from what worked before with a "normal" car.

As mentioned above, if you've got Summer tires you're immobilized in freezing weather. They're not even rated for use at cool temps, like 40F/5C and below since the rubber is optimized for warm weather use. At least the smallish wheels/tires are easy to store if you get a winter set.

It seems to be a long-time German-car thing to warn the driver that ice is slippery. It never goes away, no matter how many times it's warned you today . . .