It was supposed to have taken six to eight weeks for my BMW i3’s new battery to ship from Germany to the U.S., but after only 10 days, the dealer from whom I bought the Cheapest BMW i3 in the country gave me a call. “Your car is ready. We replaced your bad battery,” the representative told me after I’d spent just $10,500 on the high-mileage EV and then leveraged a California Air Resources Board rule to get BMW to completely replace my worn-out battery pack free of charge. With the job apparently done, the dealer dropped the car off at my workplace the other day; here’s a close look at the overall condition of what could be the EV Deal of the Century.
Why Buying A High-Mileage EV With A Bad Battery Was A Stroke Of Genius
To bring you up to speed on this i3, it’s a vehicle I’d been looking to buy as a commuter car. I recently moved from metro Detroit to LA, and found myself constantly worried about folks scratching or dinging my 1985 Jeep J10 or 1966 Ford Mustang. Plus, as someone used to Michigan’s wide, empty roads, I just didn’t feel safe driving my old cars in crowded LA, especially in any less-than-optimal weather conditions (when it rains, the highway becomes Mad Max). Here’s what I wrote in my story “Why I Bought My Currently-Broken BMW i3: LA Was Making Me Fall Out Of Love With My Old Cars“:
But the big factors are me feeling safe, being able to park [in something small like the i3], not dealing with the sting of pouring hundreds of dollars into a car each week, getting the EV experience, saving my old machines from potential fender-benders, but above all: It’s about preserving my love for those machines. Because commuting in them, especially when I’m running late for a meeting, turns what I see as beautiful mechanical-partners into utilitarian objects that frankly don’t really do this specific job that well. And my old cars are so much more than that.
Getting the EV experience is important to me as leader of an automotive publication in 2023, but balancing that desire with my cheap-bastardism and my desire to drive an enthusiast car put me in a tough spot. I didn’t want to own a standard economy-electric car like a Nissan Leaf or Chevy Bolt; they’re cool in a way, sure, but I’d hardly call them enthusiast cars. The more I searched for an affordable EV, the more the i3 — with its beautiful interior and bizarre architecture comprised of a carbon fiber body on an aluminum skateboard chassis — stood out from the crowd.
A quick Google search revealed that the very cheapest BMW i3 being sold by a dealership was just 100 miles south of me near San Diego. Asking price? Just $10,499, and upon arriving at the dealership, I would learn why.
At 134,000 miles, a typical gasoline car would perform at least 95 percent as well as it did when brand new. Range would be the same, power would be the same, and handling would likely be similar. But EVs can be a bit different in that regard as I found when I sat in the driver’s seat and looked at the i3’s range: just 48 miles. That’s only two thirds of what the car’s official EPA-rated electric-only range should be (the 24 mile range number on the left in the photo below applies to the gasoline “range extender” under the rear floor. That acts as a generator once the battery is out of juice, and allows you to get to the nearest charger):
Unfortunately, the BMW dealership selling the car refused to hold the car for me while it ran a battery test (I think all dealers should be required to offer battery health info when selling an electrified car). I had to buy the car first, then hope the results of the battery test were positive. A battery test should typically result in a document that shows percentage of overall capacity — like this:
Anyway, I decided to take the risk; after dropping over $11,500 after tax, I never did see a document like the one above, I just received a call from the dealership telling me the car would only drive 30 miles on a single charge — less than what I’d seen on the car’s screen during my test drive.
Unfortunately, when I bought the car, the dealer had told me its eight-year, 100,000 mile warranty had elapsed. “Your car has no warranty left on its battery,” I recall the dealer telling me. So now that the dealer had called me after apparently testing the battery, and found a range of just 30 miles, I had a choice to make: Did I still want a car that can only do 30 miles on a charge?
The answer to that is a definite “No,” but did I want to spend more money on an EV with more range? An even more emphatic “No.”
So I did a bit of digging. And after calling up the California Air Resources Board, as well as BMW, nobody was able to definitively tell me if I could leverage the “California Emission Control Warranty—PZEV” I found in the car’s owner’s manual to get a new battery pack. Per the i3’s manual, it seemed that the warranty should apply to my new weak-battery’d vehicle:
The bottom of this other section from the owner’s manual makes things fairly clear: My battery pack should be warrantied for 10 years, 150,000 miles:
Eventually, I called a car-guy at the BMW dealer — a younger guy who’d been showing me photos of the heavy wrenching he’d been doing on his E46 3 Series — and showed him that part of the owner’s manual. He ran it by his manager and called me back, saying: “So, we’re going to be able to replace your battery for you. We’ve already started ordering the parts.”
After a four-to-six week prediction, I got a call 10 days later; apparently the dealership had found batteries nearby? It’s not entirely clear to me how this happened so quickly, but in any case, the dealership delivered my new i3 to my workplace. Let’s take a close look at it, and then later this week, I’ll do a first test to see how much range the car has with its “new” battery.
A Close Look At My High-Mileage BMW i3
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I haven’t yet had a chance to put the i3’s allegedly new battery pack to the test, but I have taken a close look at the car on the outside, inside, and underneath. Plus I’ve tested out most the fully-loaded, formerly-$50,000+ car’s features, of which there are many. Let’s see what I got for $10,500.
Exterior
Looking at my new acquisition from the outside, it’s in decent shape! Unfortunately the dealership — which did a great job cleaning the car — didn’t fix the lower right part of the front fascia where two trim pieces have separated from one another. I had asked for that (my three asks were: 1. Check the battery health 2. Fix this bumper and 3. Fix the rattling exhaust), and it seems like such a simple job, but alas, it still needs either a new clip/plastic bracket or I need to rig something up to pull the two pieces together to fill the gap:
There are quite a few blemishes on the outside of the car, though none of them are severe. The rear bumper features some scratches — most likely from loading things into the surprisingly spacious cargo area:
Here’s that cargo area, by the way. It fits an Ikea shelf fairly easily:
The black hood has some chipped paint:
The wheels have some scuffs:
But the worst part of my i3’s exterior can be seen on the passenger’s side rear suicide-door/coach-door. Here’s a look at the rather deep chips in the paint:
Still, despite these chips, the passenger’s side looks good from a few feet back:
Overall, the i3 looks awesome on the outside. Sure, there are a few scuffs and chips, but I’d give it an eight out of 10.
Interior/Interior Functions
The BMW i3’s interior — specifically the Giga World one that I have — is a work of art. The inside is bright, it’s fun, it’s elegant, it’s made of sustainable materials (the door trim and dash are made of recycled plastic, the seats are made of wool and olive-leaf-dyed leather, the glovebox lid is made of eucalyptus wood) — it’s no wonder this interior won the “Production Interior Vehicle Design of the Year” award.
Despite having a butt in the driver’s seat and hands around that white steering wheel for 134,000 miles, my i3’s cabin is in phenomenal shape. The seats are basically in mint condition, the leather’s color still pops, the door trim and dash look brand new — my i3’s interior is just an amazing place to spend time. The inside of this machine feels almost like a Scandinavian lounge — it’s not over-the-top swanky, but it’s thoroughly elegant and stylish.
The steering wheel does have a bit of wear:
But overall, I’d give the cabin’s condition a nine out of 10. It’s absolutely lovely.
Perhaps just as important as the cabin’s aesthetics is whether or not it actually, you know, works. As you can see in the YouTube video embedded towards the top of this article, the answer is yes. The heated seats work, the bluetooth works, the electronically-folding side-mirrors work, the voice control button on the steering wheel works, the automatic wipers work, the navigation works, the radio works, the automatic headlights work, the power windows and locks work, the air conditioning works — every single function on this car works flawlessly.
Obviously, I haven’t tested the park assist or the adaptive cruise control yet, since this is a mostly static inspection (a test drive article is coming hopefully on Friday!), but it’s so far so good on the interior, which was a key reason why I bought this machine in the first place.
The Underside/Mechanicals
Okay, so my high-mileage BMW i3 looks good from up top and inside, but what about the important bits? You know, the mechanicals. Well, we put the i3 up on a lift at Galpin Auto Sports, the ultimate car-modification shop possibly on earth, and actually managed to get some input from a BMW i3-certified technician named Ray. He’s a big fan of i3s, and having worked at a BMW dealership before, he’s seen quite a few of them, so his opinion mattered to me.
I pointed a few obvious issues out to Ray. For example, looking at the car from the front, there’s clearly a plastic aero-shield that’s broken off at the very front of the car:
Checking things out from the rear, I noticed that the bottom of the gasoline range extender was exposed. This seemed a bit odd to me, as typically I’d think an automaker would want to close all of this off to keep debris from entering that rear engine space and to perhaps improve aerodynamics:
Ray seemed to think that a cover was missing as well, but every photo that I’ve seen of a BMW i3 underside shows no cover, so it looks like all I’ll have to do is swap out that front one, which costs $56.10 directly from BMW:
Annoyingly, while I was at the rear of the car, I wiggled the exhaust and found that the dealer had not done anything about that rattle.
Ray broke out his pen light, and quickly found the issue: A rubber exhaust hanger had failed:
I should be able to take car of this in a few minutes for no more than about $20 for the new hanger. But what could be a little pricier is the front suspension:
Overall, the suspension looks great. The aluminum control arms look new, and the bushings aren’t even cracked. But Ray did find some issues with my front struts. To me, the most obvious issue is the rubber dust boot, which has basically disintegrated and turned into what looks like a licorice Twizzler
But Ray noted that the real issue is the spring mounts, or “toppers,” which have apparently torn. This aligns with the fact that I’ve been hearing this odd squeaking noise when turning the wheel at low speeds:
I also managed to find a technical service bulletin from BMW that seems to describe my steering noise issue; indeed, the front spring assembly will likely need to be swapped out:
It looks like I can snag some nice front Bilsteins from our friends at FCP Euro for just $139 a pop, while the rears are $106.
Otherwise, my high-mileage i3 looked decent from underneath. “Pretty solid for 135,000 miles,” Ray told me.
While the car was on the lift, I took a look at the wheels and tires. The 19-inch wheels have a few scuffs on them, but they look decent. More importantly, the tires look almost brand new, with a date code of spring of 2022. This is a big deal, as a new set of tires for an i3 costs $1,000, as there are very few options given how tall and skinny the vehicle’s specialty tires are.
Was This The Deal Of The Century?
So that was a first look at my new 2014 BMW i3. The fact that I bought the cheapest i3 ReX in the country, and it has an interior that’s in almost mint condition, an exterior that is a decent eight out of 10, only a few mechanical issues, and essentially brand new tires is just awesome. On top of that, the dealer shipped me a brand new charging cable — ~$350 of value! Check it out:
So things are looking good. But the real test of whether this was the Deal Of The Century comes next: I have to see if that’s actually a new battery. The change-up from an estimated four to six weeks of downtime to just 10 days has me a little concerned. Keep an eye on The Autopian for a first-drive review, with an initial range test. Then next week I’m going to do a maximum-range test to see how many miles I can squeeze out of this weird little carbon fiber electric BMW.
Why I Bought My Currently-Broken BMW i3: LA Was Making Me Fall Out Of Love With My Old Cars
I’m glad it all seemed to work out for you, David, but I still wonder what you were thinking buying the car before they tested the battery. What was your plan in the likely (actual) scenario it tested poorly?
As I recall, the deal he made gave him the option to walk away if the battery didn’t pass. Luckily, he got the (hopefully) new battery free of charge, so to speak, in the end 🙂
“This is a car from the future” – David with 9 year old car… I hope those seats are as comfortable as E46 and E90 sport seats. Front seat comfort is the primary reason I continue to work on my older BMW. I also really dig the folding rear headrests. Great to see visibility being a thought!
Congats on the car, David, but hold up: Chevy Bolt not an enthusiast car? Yes, it looks like an Easter egg no one wanted to find and I could comfortably host a local Bolt car club luncheon inside of a Bolt, but I think it has a decent following with more than a few taking them out for track days.
Any car can be an enthusiast’s car!
I guess I just meant that i’m not really into it, personally, even if I respect its tech.
I still love that the dealer didn’t actually fix the things you asked for. I guess that’s better than if some jackass had crawled under there with duck tape and baling wire to fix the issues. Im cautiously hopeful that they did right by you and actually fixed the battery but I’m nervous for you given their shady tactics throughout your buying process.
David just FYI,i too am a cheap bastard and i’m PUMPED how well this turned out for you.I love a good deal!
I guess when your best cars have no heat, busted front fascia and pitted paint is a 8/10
Two big things to check/budget for are the 12-volt battery and the unique-to-the-i3 Bridgestone tires.
Here in the UK I can choose between Bridgestone, Michelin or Continental tyres for my i3, and too expensive at £150 each.
DT-i3-O
So great for DT! I love my 2019 i3s, it truly is the ultimate city car. As I’ve said before, get yourself Bimmercode and an obd dongle and start having fun with coding, lots of articles and videos can be made on that stuff.
So glad this worked out for you. Be leery of that eucalyptus wood dash. One lost and hungry koala could ruin everything. Calicos have long memories.
Yes, the REx is exposed underneath- http://bmwfans.info/parts-catalog/I01/Europe/i3_Rex-IB1/browse/vehicle_trim/underfloor_coating/
I may be used to stingy dealers, but wouldn’t even think about where they suddenly got the battery – it’s FREE, and they throw in a charger too!
The manufacturer pays for it, so the dealership is thrilled to performed the labor and bill BMW USA.
Dealers will always be reluctant to carry out warranty repairs, even if the manufacturer is paying.
Wouldn’t be surprised if they left the old battery and still billed bmw for the replacement.
If this battery is bad too, please don’t ask Torch to replace it…
Torch would definitley beat the flat rate, with his chain saw…
> worried about folks scratching or dinging my 1985 Jeep J10
That’s a joke, right?
David Tracy — you are a bad influence. There is a 2014 i3 with the range extender at my local dealer (BMW Victoria), and I just sent them an email asking for the battery health report.
Which interior? What color on the outside?
White exterior, grey interior. 69,000 miles, $14,677 USD
Love the panda!
Indeed he is, I’m a month into i3 ownership (94Ah full EV) thanks to his original article making me think ‘just fucking do it’ after years of looking longingly at i3s.
And? How do you like it?!
I absolutely love it.
I managed to find a spotless, protonic blue, Suite interior with HK stereo, pro nav, sun roof and the 20inch wheels, all exactly as my ideal spec, with low mileage and only £14k. I really couldn’t have specced it any differently had I bought it new without any budgetary constraints.
It suits my use perfectly, it has a max range of 130miles, I do 80-120miles a day and generally am back home by early afternoon so can charge directly from our PV panels.
While I love the styling and interior, I also love the (often visible) engineering, the lightweight materials of the Carbon fibre shell, hemp panels, the narrow (efficient) wheels etc etc.
The silent driving and instant torque of EV driving means I’m so much more relaxed and calm.
It really feels like a car designed specifically for me and my use profile and don’t think there is any vehicle that would suit me better.
Great now thanks to DT’s publicity, the value of used i3s are going to skyrocket. Coming soon to BaT is my i3 with a reserve of $50k. Shit if it’s good enough to convert DT from a rusty jeep maybe its worth $100k.
Still waiting for the article where Tracy & Torch use a chainsaw to turn 1 Jeep tire into 2 i3 tires.
Autotrader canada has a BMW i3 2018 listed for $70,000
https://www.autotrader.ca/a/bmw/i3/etobicoke/ontario/19_12542008_/?showcpo=ShowCpo&ncse=no&orup=12_12_12&pc=L9L%201B6&sprx=100
If I were working at BMW and became aware of this saga, I MAY contact the dealer and make sure that battery got there sooner rather than later.
What better than a success story about their commitment to their EV’s. It low-key says a lot when long term battery failures is a huge concern people have about buying used or doing more than leasing an EV.
Good play BMW, rare from you folks these days : )
Nahh.. BMW doesn’t care about cars they had stopped producing, they just want to push for new cars. Besides the i3 doesn’t have the Angry Bird pigs’ snout.
OK, OK Fine. I’ll give you eleven grand for it.
At the risk of asking a question that I’m sure has been asked many times before…how far will that range extender get you if you run your battery down close to empty? Or if it kicks on at a certain point, same question. I assume the extender can’t just keep the battery topped off indefinitely, and that when being driven the car uses more electrons than the extender is able to put back in. Or maybe you’re going to address that in your review. Anyway, congrats on your fancy new car! I never paid much attention to these but wow, I really like that interior.
The Rex has a 2 gallon gas tank under stock conditions, which under “good” driving conditions can get you about 40 mpg, so 80 miles in the best case scenario.
I think Clark may have not been clear with his question. Since the range extender charges the batteries and the batteries power the vehicle (generator), is it capable of indefinitely charging? As in, can you just keep topping up that gas tank to go further, or do the batteries at some point run out of more juice than the generator replenishes? I had the same question about the Volt and don’t recall getting a clear answer.
Actually, rereading, I think he was clear with his question. We seem to be getting clouded with various range mambo-jumbo these days and it’s hard to know what the real case is.
It would be better if this were broken down clearly:
In good driving, the Rex can maintain the current battery level, it will not run increasing it more than a couple percent. When the Rex enables it puts a point on the battery level and will try to maintain it at that level, but not driving good the Rex will not keep up 100% and a combination of Rex and the battery may be required to give it the juice required. I think if you are at 50%, Rex comes on and you are on the highway doing 85, battery drops to 45% and you are now on local streets I think it will try to get it back to 50% but never seen it more than a hair over the point it made on the battery level.
I like how you’ve broken that out, that’s exactly what I was wondering.
There are a lot of variables eg how fast the i3 is going. eg i3 going on highway speed and battery is low, the range extender will have trouble keeping it filled up as the car is using more power than the rex can generate.. so it depends. The rex is designed more for city stop / go traffic, basically a motorbike engine for charging the battery. I still think better to get a later model with a larger and improved battery (where they had eliminated the rex), because the rex won’t really help if one is using it for road trips, where high speed and few recharging station comes in.
That’s the nature of electrification, instead of where ICE vehicles can have a car that can do “everything” you just fill the tank, electrification emphasis on use cases.
Can’t wait to hear you lament about those wheels/tires! The goofy profile leads to a lot of tire wear, especially since the rears do all the acceleration and most of the braking via regenerating. They might last you 15,000 miles which means the average American driver will need a new set every year to the tune of $1,000 + installation/taxes/disposal.
It really cuts into the value prospect of an EV and the reason I skipped the i3 for a more modest (although admittedly MAJORLY more peasant and spartan-like) Chevy Spark EV. But at least I can roast through a set of tires in 25-30k miles and replace them for literally $45/piece.
Not to mention the propensity for being totalled if a collision managed to damage the carbon frame.
Lastly, holy moly those screens scream old tech, the actual display part of those screens is less than half it’s bezel especially the driver screen which is like an postage mail slot sized screen on that giant dash!
Whelp, I guess Torch needs a new cell number.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkOogIgC0_I
I don’t see it, and I hope that AMC V8 guy didn’t see it either!
ahh, you’re making me want one of these as a commuter even more than I already did! I think BMW really short changed these with the funky exterior styling, the interiors are great and for around town driving are pretty fun thanks to the torquey motor and light weight
Wouldn’t want to replace a window on it that’s for sure
glad to hear it worked out for you. Pat Goss was always right. “always read your owners manual” RIP Mr Goss
“I wiggled the exhaust and found that the dealer had not done anything about that rattle”
This combined with them not testing the battery ahead of time AND initially saying the battery wasn’t under warranty only further reinforces my negative view of dealerships.
At best, they’re clueless about the vehicles they sell. At worst, they tried and failed to scam you.
They didn’t pass up a single opportunity to be dishonest.
Classic stealership.
Darn! I guess I lose my bet that you’d get your Metropolitan back on the road before your I3 was up and running.
We all know where this is going. That i3 drive train is going to go in the Nash. All that gushing about the interior is just a misdirection. These guys know how to come up with content.
My bet is the next headline will be “I couldn’t find a fix for the loose front bumper cover, so…”
More so, I bet the tape measure is out to see if the Nash drive train will fit in the Changli.
So am I the only one who was distracted by the blue Urraco in the background of the video at 5:30?
Taillights don’t appear to be Urraco.
I noticed that too, but everything else looks right. The shape, the wheels, the character line running down the side even hits the wheel wells at the right spot. Maybe there was one or two years where the tail lights were lower? Or maybe this was built for a different region with different taillight requirements?
Gee, if only we knew some taillight aficionado who loves a good mystery…