I just wasted time. Lots of time. I drove three hours to look at a BMW i3, but the car wasn’t fully charged, and I wasn’t able to drive it long enough to understand the battery range. So I found a cheap motel (whose water didn’t working, incidentally) so that the dealer could put the vehicle on a charge and I could drive it the next morning, topped up. Even then, I didn’t have enough information; the test drive was short, the dealership hadn’t done a battery health test, and on top of that, I never even heard the internal combustion engine “range extender” cut on. Trying to buy a car without this critical information feels borderline impossible. This needs to change.
To be clear, the folks at the BMW of Vista dealership I visited were nice and respectful — that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that when I asked “What shape is the battery in?” not only could the salesperson not give me an answer, but the car had apparently not had the battery checked (it had arrived recently, I’m told). When I asked the team to test the battery for me, the salesperson made that seem like a major ask, saying someone might buy the car out from underneath me if I wait until the battery test is complete.
This just doesn’t seem like how used-EV shopping should work. A dealer should insist on providing a customer with critical information like this; a car’s value is so tightly tied to its battery health that, to forego providing information to the customer is essentially making it impossible for them to make a truly informed decision.
You could argue that the same is true of an internal combustion engine’s health, but there are tests any typical independent mechanic can do to check the engine’s major bits (a compression test, a leak down test, an oil pressure test). Testing a battery isn’t necessarily that straightforward for an independent shop, but it is straightforward for a dealership with the tools. Plus, an engine rebuild/replacement is nowhere near as pricey as a battery replacement. Perhaps as important: We’re at a weird moment in history right now; people are concerned about the EV transition, and that fear of the unknown means issues like battery degradation/battery health transparency are going to be key to making people feel comfortable in making the switch.
This problem is most important for older cars, especially those that are slowly spreading into the budgets of lower income Americans. Just because not everyone can buy a new car doesn’t mean they should have to be in the dark about the vehicle’s condition, particularly the condition of the battery, which can be tested relatively simply. Here’s what BMW of Vista’s service adviser showed me as an example of what an i3 battery health report would look like:
That percentage figure should have been on the listing for the car I was looking at, it should have been in the service records, and the salesperson should have had that ready to go as soon as I arrived. I need to know what I’m buying.
Look how beautiful the car is; the interior is a masterpiece. I want this machine. But upon setting off on my test drive, I saw a range of 48 miles:
That’s not a lot of miles. Of course, this display isn’t really accurate, according to i3 owners, which is why that battery charge/discharge test that spits out the remaining capacity is so important.
We’re still at an early phase of EV sales, but especially as used, higher-mileage ones become available, we’re going to need to find a way to help people feel at ease buying a machine so that they’re not worried it will be a valueless paperweight in just a few years.
My friend Kevin Williams has had similar issues shopping for a 2018 i3. Check out that article he wrote for Road & Track.
Back in 2013-2014 when I worked at a Ford dealer, I was the “weird car” guy because I was the only salesperson who could be assed to bother even learning what cars we sold. Ford didnt market the C-Max at all, so nobody ever came in looking for them, and when they did they would be sent to me. Which sucked in Minnesota winters, because they were all lined up on the lot right where plows would push all the snow, because it had to go somewhere so it might as well go there. Some jackass came in wanting to test drive a specific one when it was -40* one day, so I got screwed into having to dig the car out and jumpstart it while dressed in fancy car sales clothes nowhere near warm enough to be doing a damn thing outside in -40* weather. Customer apparently got sick of waiting and left while I was digging, so when I went back inside to get them and they werent there, I got an earful from my manager. While wildly gesticulating how thoroughly he needed to go f himself, I took my gloves off, and people in the sales office started screaming. Apparently I had cracked my hands open inside my gloves and couldnt feel it, so as I waved my hands around I was slinging blood all over everything. That damned cold spell was what finally made me throw in the towel on that miserable job. Im glad to see salespeople still cant be assed to learn anything about the cars they sell. I cant say I blame them though, most customers hate it when the salesman knows more than they do.
Tangled up in blue.
Yeah, sounds like a scam. Sorry they wasted your time. My guess is that they tested the battery, got an unsatisfactory result, and buried it. If it had yielded a good result, they’d openly be advertising it as such and asking more.
The thing is though, this really isn’t an EV specific problem. It’s a tale as old as time when you’re buying any used car, unless it’s a CPO vehicle (those can still have issues and some risk, but at least they have a decent manufacturer warranty).
Bottom line is I know people who have been screwed buying used cars from individuals, franchise dealers (of all OEMs) and sketchy car lots alike. People who discover things that were definitely known and not disclosed. Buying a non-CPO used car is really a crapshoot unless you personally know and trust the seller and maintenance history, and people are shitty. It shouldn’t be this way, but it is and always will be.
It’s always incumbent upon you to do due diligence for a used car purchase, whether it’s an EV or ICE. It may be a pain, but I’d recommend either refusing to see a used i3 without a battery report or have someone on deck that’s capable of inspecting it. It’s really the only way, sellers never look out for your best interest and often work actively against it, no matter the car.
This whole issue is exactly what worries me about buying anything used with a battery. I’m a drive-it-into-the-ground type. Can it get to 200K without a high-4-figure bill to keep it going? If I go hybrid or EV, I suspect I’ll be by buying new, which is a whole different financial proposition.
It should have been trivial for them to check the battery. In front of you should have been an option, even. It’s not hard to check.
I don’t know if this is a bad dealership, trouble transitioning to EVs, or a symptom of the used car supply being low. Or, most likely, a combination of these things.
I hope you find the i3 you want.
I thought the consensus was that you were just gonna buy the Jeep that you designed.
You could’ve just made them an offer on the assumption that the battery is mostly dead and the range extender doesn’t work.
A BMW???….. Don’t do it. A Beemer is soooo unDavid Tracy like…..
Unless you’ve gone CA-fad on us…. And we don’t believe it…..
Plus…. You do know the difference between a BMW and a Porcupine…..
I’ll do it.
No, what’s the difference between a BMW and a a porcupine?
A BMW???….. Don’t do it. A Beemer is soooo unDavid Tracy like…..
Unless you’ve gone CA-fad on us…. And we don’t believe it…..
Plus…. You do know the difference between a BMW and. Porcupine…..
I could see this becoming normal as soon as dealers figure out a way to monetize it. There will be blue-book, black-book, and batt-book values. And, a cute little lighting-bolt added to the four-square.
Expecting a used car dealer to volunteer this information is like expecting, well, a used car dealer to volunteer information about a car they are selling. You can bet it won’t happen, and if does, that information should not be trusted. Just like any other used car.
And also just like any other used car, they should let you inspect it to your heart’s content. If that means bringing it to a mechanic to perform a battery health check, then so be it. But do it on your own dime and with someone you trust.
Do. Not. Take. The. Dealer’s. Word. For. It.
Honda. Insight. Plus you can K-swap them if you want, and run mid 13s and still get 45-50mpg. Japanese = best daily. They thrive on neglect.
Seconded on the K-swap Insight. Low weight and low drag really comes alive in the form of increased fuel efficiency and faster performance.
Of course, an Insight makes an excellent EV conversion too. Stock-bodied, an Insight is a 180 Wh/mile car doing 70 mph on the freeway. You could build a 200 mile range per charge Insight with $15k in off the shelf parts, AND have it running 13s in the 1/4 mile on that budget. Find one for cheap with a faulty battery, blown engine or destroyed CVT, and convert it to a dual-motor direct drive series DC setup.
“He want something newer” because he’s used to malaise-era detroit garbage, so he thinks a 20 year old Honda is unreliable. Drove mine 60 miles today. 54mpg with snow tires, 70-80mph. Burns no oil, no leaks, everything works, almost 290k on it.
And this is why you don’t look at 9-year-old EVs in the first place. Look for something newer, or even lease a new one, which will get you a warranty *and* get you out of the car completely in a few years. We’re at the point with this tech right now that three years might bring some big changes.
“saying someone might buy the car out from underneath me if I wait until the battery test is complete.”
That’s the moment when you walk out of the dealership. They do NOT have your best interests at heart and want to pressure you into a bad purchase.
If they don’t so the battery test, tell them to fuck off and you’ll do a story about their dealership. The next day they’ll get flooded with bad reviews.
I know you say this dealer has a good reputation, and I’m sure if you’re there for a $170k XM they roll out the champagne and rose petals, but everything about this has seemed sketchy from the start. Overall they seem to think you’re stupid. Move on!
But until then knowing their tricks and using them against the salesman is easy. Pretend you arent that interested
Well if someone else buys it I guess it wasnt meant to be
Well yeah someone else might buy this but if you arent interested in helping me, Can I get a different salesperson, or i may buy a different car while you piss away my time, or can we hurry this up the I have a lead on a newer low mileage one from a dead persins estate.
These guys want to pressure you turn it around. I wasnt successful selling cars but I damn sure learned how to buy one.
My suspicion though is that DT’s at a luxury dealership in Southern California, and the sales guy, while polite and professional– this isn’t a Hyundai dealership, sir!– doesn’t really give a shit if David buys the car or not.
In my imagination David walks in in his finest wrenchin’ suit, sales guy notices that David’s whole outfit, haircut included, cost less than he spends on lunch every day*, and knows that isn’t the kind of sale he needs. He wants to sell that i3 to the Alpina buyer’s kid, to build brand loyalty, keep families coming back. “You want the cheapest car on the lot and you won’t ever bring it back for service? Uh, ok, here’s the keys, try not to get grease stains on the seats.” If David buys it, great, if not, who cares? He’s got M’s to move, he’d rather sell this to someone who’ll conceivably be back.
*Not meant as shade, my entire daily wardrobe consists of two pairs of pants, one pair of shorts, and a stack of identical plain black t-shirts. I cut my own hair 75% of the time. The most I’ve ever paid for a car in my life is $3500. I’m 43. Respect!
When I sold cars, used cars were where the best one time pay days were. New cars, you made a fixed commission based on volume. Didn’t matter if it was the cheapest car or the most expensive on the lot, the pay was the same.
For used, we made 25% of the gross profit. So if the dealer owned the car for cheap, and you held the line on price, you can carve out a nice chunk from that.
This wasn’t a BMW dealer, but if similar, I’d potentially be more interested in selling that used i3 than the new M3.
Yeah, a while ago I went to look at some certified BMWs around 40 grand. The salesman was nice enough but after they lowballed me on my trade I was like “that’s a lot lower than the last dealership I went to said they could do” and he responded with “well then take it there”. I texted him a few days later asking if we could come up with closer numbers and he quickly responded with “no” and then tried to sell me on some sort of scam financing deal that they clearly set aside for “the poors”.
The luxury buying experience is great if you’re going in to look at some six figure spaceship. If you’re looking to get in on the ground floor they treat you the exact same as any non luxury dealer would…like the gum stuck to the bottom of their shoe.
“saying someone might buy the car out from underneath me if I wait until the battery test is complete.”
why is this the game that these dickheads insist on playing? Just so stupid and needless.
It’s like looking at a VW TSI and being told by the dealer that you should buy it now, they don’t have time to check the chain stretch amount
except the dealer won’t check that for you. and if they said they did, you should take it to your own mechanic and pay for the service…then not buy it anyway because it is a TSi VW
Totally agree, David. The dealers need to get up to speed on this stuff. And with an i3, it’s at least possible, if not super simple, to check the battery capacity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw5i1Ki-RpY). On some EVs, like my Fiat 500e, you have to hook up a code reader and dump a report and scrounge through tons of data to find that info. But with used EVs becoming much more common, remaining battery capacity should be a normal part of a listing. I know there are some stellar dealers out there (like Galpin), but sadly the majority of them seem to just do the bare minimum necessary to stay in business, so expecting an extra degree of attention like reporting battery health is probably a fool’s errand.
“the salesperson made that seem like a major ask, saying someone might buy the car out from underneath me”
Unfortunately that’s what salesdroids do: try to use emotions to get you to put your logic aside so they can close the deal.
When I bought my previous vehicle, on the test drive I was paying close attention to the drivetrain, suspension, and brakes. The salesperson, OTOH, was keen to show me “a really cool feature”: after you set the system clock on the touchscreen, the analog clock on the dash would change itself to match. 😐 He was a little surprised that I wasn’t as pleased with the clocks as he was, but that was arguably the least important feature.
To your point about a need for change, I think you’re right. In addition to the dealer/seller disclosing details about the health of the battery at the time of purchase, there needs to be some kind of disclosure about the process and cost of replacing the battery. We can ask about wear items on ICE cars (e.g. timing chains); the battery in an EV should fall into the same category.
David the problem is dealership sales people. First they only care about selling you a cad today. They dont care what you what you are using for or if it is on fire . That whole someone else might buy it has been around since I tried to sell cars. Thank goodness you talked to the parts guy. They are the ones who know the quality of the cars. I wonder what would happen if they knew you ran a successful car website? I am surprised your partner Can’t assist you in buying a decent respectful EV?
No doubt Galpin could hook me up!
It’s just that I want an i3 REX!
Couldn’t they be on the lookout for an i3 REX at a dealer-only auction? That way, you could buy one at nearer to wholesale rather than retail price.
I like this but would battery health be impossible to check?
*Innocent whistling*
https://www.galpinford.com/inventory/used-vehicles/vehicle/WBY8P4C51K7D06410/Used-2019-BMW-I3-North-Hills-CA
Yes, it’s newer than the one you we’re looking at, which might push it past what you want to pay, but it’s an option.
If DT hadn’t been buying rustbuckets from private sellers all these years he’d know most car salespeople can’t answer simple questions about what they’re selling.
As someone who once sold cars I can verify that. I had more car knowledge and worryingly, inventory knowledge than most of the other sales people combined. I’m not saying that as a brag, everyone else literally just cared how many they sold.
Needless to say, I didn’t sell cars long because being nice to people and actually helping them find what they want and need doesn’t mesh with dealership business practices.
Same. I’d desperately want to tell people with good income and bad credit to just go buy a used car for $5k while they improve their credit instead of financing a new one at 11%. But that wasn’t the job.
Also remember the old timer sales guy who didn’t even know if a car was a four or six cylinder. He wasn’t trying to mislead people, he just didn’t bother to know. Apparently over a long career, I guess details like that don’t matter.
For the Nissan Leaf, there is a third party app called LeafSpy that talks to a Bluetooth OBD2 interface and gives you a pretty detailed assessment of the battery health. I wonder whether there are apps like this for other EVs?
The only way I could buy an used EV or PHEV its with an active warranty from the OEM. A lot of Gen 1 Chevy Volt are starting to have battery issues, or weird errors that you need a software update from the dealership, or the ones that doesn’t have a clue, they just want to charge you $20K for a new battery. The good thing, the forums and Facebook groups help you a lot to diagnose those issues
It would be better if EVs had a gauge that estimated the health of the battery. My Leaf has a gauge that lists battery health on a scale of 12 bars. When I bought mine, the gauge showed 11 bars so I had a rough idea of battery health (~85% of original capacity). It isn’t perfect since there is a way to temporarily reset the gauge and show 12 bars on a lousy battery, but it is accurate assuming the seller isn’t crooked.
All EVs should have something like this. Ideally, all EVs would have the same gauge and it would be very difficult (and illegal) to override, like an odometer.
Wait, did David Tracy just look at a used car for sale and then end up NOT buying it?!?
This is old testament type of stuff, real wrath of God type of stuff, fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling, 40 years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!!!
So be good, for goodness sake,
Woahooo, somebody’s comin!
It cost more than $1,000.
And wasn’t rusty
DT can make CFRP rust.
Want an EV?
You should convert one of your fleet with an inexpensive off-the-shelf series DC system, avoiding the expense of a Tesla swap, and then spend the savings from not going with a high-end drive system instead on some large AH prismatic LiFePO4 cells arranged as a single series string. With CALB LiFePO4 batteries, all you need is a bottom balance of each cell to within 0.001V of each other, and you won’t even need a BMS. This will save lots of time and hassle, and you’ll have a system that is easy to service or repair, avoiding a great deal of electronic complexity, as all of your components would be plug and play. Charger blows up? You can swap in a new one without dealing with CANBUS nonsense. Controller goes out? You can swap in a new one off the shelf, as long as the input voltage range matches your battery pack. Motor burns out? There’s plenty off the shelf to choose that can replace it. Cars really don’t get any simpler than this.
$15-20k can get you a lot of EV parts these days, if you keep it simple. I think even the least efficient examples of your fleet could end up seeing 80 miles range on this budget if you’re careful what you buy. A 40 kWh pack of CALBs can be had for about $12k, brand new.
Also, I should mention that David lives in the same city as Reverend Gadget, who ran a business called Left Coast Conversions and later Left Coast Electric. He could offer lots of great info, as he has personally converted a large number of classic cars to EV.
Presumably the Golden Eagle’s getting EV converted after destroying two AMC 360s, not to mention the sale of the original conversion project, the FC, but that’s going to take time, whereas the i3 is usable right now.
Listen to the man. It would be an amazing series (electrical pun intended), and fill the void many of us wanted out of the FC.
If DT wants to maximize cheapness, he can start collecting recycled tool cell packs from Home Depot and lowes and harvest the 18650s. Sure it would take 2 years to build his pack big enough and he would need a couple of BMS and active balancers, but think of all the content and sketchy cheapness!
I’m amazed that they would take it on trade without checking the battery. That has a huge impact on it’s value (wholesale or retail). I suspect they just don’t wan to tell you what it is.
Agree. I bet the percentage is not good. There are more cars to look at DT, keep searching.
Ignorance is bliss though. What they don’t know isn’t their problem since they aren’t the end owners of the vehicle. I could see the decision not to test being a highly calculated move on their part.
Not to be contrarian, but I will: My guess is the dealership tested the battery and found the results wanting. Their statement the battery hasn’t been tested is likely a lie. Think of it this way: Had the dealership tested the battery and found good results, the salesperson would have a decent lever to hold the price towards the high side.