BMW 330e ordered...

[aberdeeneuan]

Tony Angelino said:

Absolutely loving mine after just over 24 hours, just about getting used to it and the different modes and settings. Latest thing I'm struggling with is when listening to a podcast from iPhone via bluetooth connection, the podcasts are very quiet and the volume needs to be turned up to around 75% to make it audible. Problem obviously comes when you forget that you've cranked the volume up so high when you switch back to radio and your eardrums nearly explode.

Does anybody else have this issue or know of a workaround perhaps?

Thanks

It's the volume on your phone that's causing that. Turn it up and it should play at normal levels in the car, at least that's what Spotify does in my car.

[Robv1]

Tonycv51 said:

It can be switched off as I realised yesterday - just knock gearstick to the left into M/S. And as long as you don't touch the paddles it will drive in auto

interesting, thanks.

[Tony Angelino]

aberdeeneuan said:

Tony Angelino said:

Absolutely loving mine after just over 24 hours, just about getting used to it and the different modes and settings. Latest thing I'm struggling with is when listening to a podcast from iPhone via bluetooth connection, the podcasts are very quiet and the volume needs to be turned up to around 75% to make it audible. Problem obviously comes when you forget that you've cranked the volume up so high when you switch back to radio and your eardrums nearly explode.

Does anybody else have this issue or know of a workaround perhaps?

Thanks

It's the volume on your phone that's causing that. Turn it up and it should play at normal levels in the car, at least that's what Spotify does in my car.

I thought that too and checked, should have really updated original post to say that.

[BMW330enut]

johnduq said:

Has anyone managed to get a tow bar post delivery from any supplier? Or does the "e" at the end mean nothing fits??

This car isn't type approved for towing so even if you managed to fit a towbar you still can't legally tow anything with it.

I suspect the tow bar mounting points are covered with batteries as they line the boot floor.

[Soov535]

And it's a name change for me!

:-D

[Soov330e]

Take 2

[XE11]

Tonycv51 said:

Meant to ask what's the 225xe like ? Do you notice the 4 wheel drive at all and did you test drive a 330e to compare. As long as there's battery power the 330e feels amazingly smooth and refined compared to my previous audis and 3 series BMWs at any lower speed, and a rocket when needed even at higher speeds

unfortunately, i did not try the 330e. The choice were either 225xe or the C-class estate PHEV. my wife didnt like the length of the estate and while I was researching into the C-class i came across some owners feedback on water ingression via charging point. So the choice was made simple, lol.

i wrote a little impression of the 225xe on other forum, i will copy it below.

XE11 said:

we got our 225xe back end of last year (uk). it was a second hand car from a company pool. the car did 1800 miles in the first 6 months. we picked it up for £23k. I specc'ed up the same car, it would have cost 36k (before government grant). it has some options but not all. things like sun roof, rear view camera, large screen and LED headlamps are missing.

We compared the non-hybrid SE, sport, luxury and m sport models. we found the "sport" model most suited for our taste.

SE version, A) PHEV doesn't offer in this trim, B) the leather dash really sets itself apart from similar priced car and it's missing in the SE trim.

Luxury model adds chrome detailing which is nice, but it comes with "comfort" seats which is more like the rear seats. They are more comfortable over shorter journeies but I found over longer journeries, sport seats with more adjustments do a better job (both myself and my wife are slightly overweight, BMI 25-26 lol).

M sport suspension was abit too firm for us. the exterior looks nice, but we really want a comfort large hatch to cover 250+miles with ease.

in terms of driving, I think it is rather good. the fact that this car can transform from a comfortable cruiser to a warm-hatch it's very impressive. I know a lot of cars can do that with the sport button, this one is definitely on another level. when we want to just get from A to B, in comfort mode, it's very relaxing. BMW did a very good job with the power transfer. as long as you are above 10-15mph, you really cant detect when the petrol engine kicks in. you will see the needle swings around, but power delivery is really really smooth. my only complain is the originally fitted tyres are...very racy. They were Bridgestone S001 RFT and they are HARD. there is small amount of constant tyre roar getting through the cabin. Since London winter is normally around 2oC in the early morning then up and above 7oC by afternoon, so we went with Quatrac 5 all-season tyres as our winter set. it's non-run flat tyres, but it is soooo much softer. strangely, the car gives more feedback via steering wheel too.

When I want to drive fast, I put it in sport mode, it will keep the petrol engine running and 4WD (via rear wheel "e-Boost"). The best way to describe it, it accelerates just like an audi S3 (the 2008 version not current ones). it feels very planted and inspires a lot of confidence. it feels a lot faster than my 2010 MX5 and 2004 mini cooper S but yet retained certain degree of refinement. and because it is a 3 pot, it feels a lot like a slightly strangely setup V6 than a 4 pot engine. above 2500rpm, that's when you start to hear and engine. above 3000rpm, you will start to feel engine rotation/vibration but not in a bad way. my 225xe has the 18" alloy which comes with fatter tyres (225/45r18 as opposed to 205/55r17 for 17"), that may be the reason for feelings quite planted at corners.

I just want to points out that, in normal day to day driving most low speed stuff are in rear wheel drive because the car will try to do as much of that in E-mode as possible. but dont take that as mega good news because the e-motor are not that strong! it's only when you really need more power, the petrol kicks in. once you are up to speed on A-roads or motorways, you can press the e-drive button to force it into "save battery" mode i.e. petrol powered only.

so those are the good bits, now let's talk some bad points. admittedly, there are a lot of buttons to press and settings that you constantly have to remember to adjust to get the most out of the car, but I think we both got used to the habit fairly quickly.

Comfortable, but in reality, it is still a bit of a hard ride. I had a 2015 525d touring in m sport trim and our 225xe is ever so slightly harder ride. that 525d had 245/45r18 so may be that's why 225xe is slightly less bouncy.

fuel consumption/mpg...well...just think this a hot/warm hatch with the fuel consumption of a normal family hatch. if you expect magical mpg, you will be very disappointed. Our daily commute is 2 miles of town road, then onto A3 (south west London) for 14 miles, then another 2 miles of 40mph to office. we charge our car at home but not office, and use it during town road and getting out of business park during peak hours. The battery capacity is small and frankly, in winter, with heater on, you can see your battery % drops every 30 seconds.....it's almost laughable... we have done about 3000 miles so far (with weekend trips to Manchester) and our running average is about 41mpg. petrol only operation is about 33-37mpg. and because of the reduced fuel tank volume, down to 36L, it means we have to fuel up more often when we do longer trips and don't want to charge at motorway stations. we know this before we bought car, but we didn't realise it really does add some mental pressure.

oh. the boot isn't as big as one may think. especially for the 225xe, the seats are fixed and not sliding back and forth. I had trouble with space when we gave our parents a lift from Gatwick. two large luggage with two biggish-backpack simply wont fit. we ended up using the middle seat as storage too.

few weeks on, i want to add, yes, this is the only 2 series active touer that can be rear wheel driven, and you can most definitely feel it! lol.

Edited by XE11 on Thursday 23 February 21:39

[Trabi601]

Tony Angelino said:

Absolutely loving mine after just over 24 hours, just about getting used to it and the different modes and settings. Latest thing I'm struggling with is when listening to a podcast from iPhone via bluetooth connection, the podcasts are very quiet and the volume needs to be turned up to around 75% to make it audible. Problem obviously comes when you forget that you've cranked the volume up so high when you switch back to radio and your eardrums nearly explode.

Does anybody else have this issue or know of a workaround perhaps?

Thanks

Seems to be a weakness of the BMW system - my F10 is the same.

[emicen]

Trabi601 said:

Tony Angelino said:

Absolutely loving mine after just over 24 hours, just about getting used to it and the different modes and settings. Latest thing I'm struggling with is when listening to a podcast from iPhone via bluetooth connection, the podcasts are very quiet and the volume needs to be turned up to around 75% to make it audible. Problem obviously comes when you forget that you've cranked the volume up so high when you switch back to radio and your eardrums nearly explode.

Does anybody else have this issue or know of a workaround perhaps?

Thanks

Seems to be a weakness of the BMW system - my F10 is the same.

I recently tested the new G30 prior to UK release and that was one of the quirks that I noticed. Doesn't make sense, it's not a wired connection so having to crank up your phone volume for a decent car stereo base volume is bizarre.

[Trabi601]

emicen said:

I recently tested the new G30 prior to UK release and that was one of the quirks that I noticed. Doesn't make sense, it's not a wired connection so having to crank up your phone volume for a decent car stereo base volume is bizarre.

I generally use the wired USB connection anyway, as I want to keep the phone charged.

[Coyote86]

Question:-
Have any chavs tried it on yet and if so what were they in and did they get treated to a nice image of the back of your car pulling away?

I'm not advocating nor encouraging street racing though.

[essayer]

Trabi601 said:

Seems to be a weakness of the BMW system - my F10 is the same.

Is there a setting somewhere to control Bluetooth audio volume?

[Orion917]

Preconditioning - what am I missing?

Car is plugged in. Preconditioning set to ON in the app and departure time set to 0800. When I got out of the car last night, I turned on the climate system, set it to 20C both sides and on to Auto.

But this morning (near zero outside) when I got in the car it was cold inside?

BTW, is there a way to join up the cabin temperature setting so that you only have to adjust the drivers side knob? I haven't found that yet!

Cheers

Edited by Orion917 on Friday 24th February 09:36

[bmwphever]

Orion917 said:

Preconditioning - what am I missing?

Car is plugged in. Preconditioning set to ON in the app and departure time set to 0800. When I got out of the car last night, I turned on the climate system, set it to 20C both sides and on to Auto.

But this morning (near zero outside) when I got in the car it was cold inside?

Not sure what you could be missing. Note though that the precondition temperature is not set by the cabin heat controls. It has its own precondition target temp. So I leave mine set to 16 degrees (also on auto) and it still feels warm inside after preconditioning.

When you ignition-off the screen will show what the current charging settings are. Do they match what you've set in the App? Those iDrive settings will be accessible through the menus as well, I just haven't needed to find them so I don't know where they are.

[Orion917]

bmwphever said:

Not sure what you could be missing. Note though that the precondition temperature is not set by the cabin heat controls. It has its own precondition target temp. So I leave mine set to 16 degrees (also on auto) and it still feels warm inside after preconditioning.

When you ignition-off the screen will show what the current charging settings are. Do they match what you've set in the App? Those iDrive settings will be accessible through the menus as well, I just haven't needed to find them so I don't know where they are.

Ah, OK. Where is the precondition target temperature set then? In the car?

[Coyote86]

Orion917 said:

Ah, OK. Where is the precondition target temperature set then? In the car?

Precondition works on the outside temp from what previous posts have stated. You can set the temp on the 5 series but not the 330e or 225xe models from what I have seen on past posts.

[bmwphever]

Coyote86 said:

Orion917 said:

Ah, OK. Where is the precondition target temperature set then? In the car?

Precondition works on the outside temp from what previous posts have stated. You can set the temp on the 5 series but not the 330e or 225xe models from what I have seen on past posts.

Indeed; you can't set the temperature for cabin preconditioning. I'm guessing it'll aim for about 18 when warming and maybe 21 when cooling, but that is a complete guess.

[bilen]

Hi Everyone
I have a little issue about my 330e. Whenever i want to enable max edrive mode, i can see that option is disabled in eco pro, comfort mode with D transmission and information is saying that "max edrive is not avaliable. system request". Today i drove around 100km in the city with a very bad traffic and sometimes i used sport mode.
(image is at below)
I checked the car manual and it says, max edrive may not work if hybrid mode is malfunctioning or very low level battery (mine has %40 now), or very high battery temperature.
I stopped the car, waited for 2 hours (ambient temperature is 31degree celcius), still the same message :/. ( i will check in the morning as well)
If i press start button, combustion engine starts immediately, (normally it should start in electric ready-state mode)
If i drive in sport mode, i can see both combustion engine + electric engine is working, i can see the electric consumption. i assume hybrid mode is working fine.
Can it be a problem or i just panic for no reason ?

[bmwphever]

bilen said:

Hi Everyone
I have a little issue about my 330e. Whenever i want to enable max edrive mode, i can see that option is disabled in eco pro, comfort mode with D transmission and information is saying that "max edrive is not avaliable. system request". Today i drove around 100km in the city with a very bad traffic and sometimes i used sport mode.
(image is at below)
I checked the car manual and it says, max edrive may not work if hybrid mode is malfunctioning or very low level battery (mine has %40 now), or very high battery temperature.
I stopped the car, waited for 2 hours (ambient temperature is 31degree celcius), still the same message :/. ( i will check in the morning as well)
If i press start button, combustion engine starts immediately, (normally it should start in electric ready-state mode)
If i drive in sport mode, i can see both combustion engine + electric engine is working, i can see the electric consumption. i assume hybrid mode is working fine.
Can it be a problem or i just panic for no reason ?

It could well be that the battery is too warm, so it won't be able to give enough power to drive in electric-only mode.

Have you tried preconditioning? That should cool the battery (that's my understanding, but it's still winter here...).

I have seen the same message when it's been around or below freezing (I don't remember exactly). I had preconditioned but I'm only on a 13A socket at home, so likely that it couldn't do all it wanted. That did seem to disappear after a while though, so my reckoning is that as current passed through the battery it warmed itself sufficiently.

Edited by bmwphever on Saturday 25th February 21:49

[bilen]

bmwphever said:

It could well be that the battery is too warm, so it won't be able to give enough power to drive in electric-only mode.

Have you tried preconditioning? That should cool the battery (that's my understanding, but it's still winter here...).

I have seen the same message when it's been around or below freezing (I don't remember exactly). I had preconditioned but I'm only on a 13A socket at home, so likely that it couldn't do all it wanted. That did seem to disappear after a while though, so my reckoning is that as current passed through the battery it warmed itself sufficiently.

Edited by bmwphever on Saturday 25th February 21:49

thx man
in the morning, before going to washroom after waking up, i went directly to my car and check immediately. everything is fine, i think battery was too warm to work in max edrive mode. At first i though something is wrong with battery and i afraid only spending a couple of weeks to convince bmw that something is wrong with the battery in 1 night, i got 5 years older i think . BUt car should inform "battery is too warm to swtich to max edrive mode". damn i am also programmer and for this small details is very important for the end users ://. i live in malaysia btw, always summer here. 24 at night, 32 degree celcius in the morning whole year.
Anyway thx, everything is fine. now flowers smell better, coffe tastes better, life is much more nice ehehe.

Edited by bilen on Sunday 26th February 07:01