BMW 330e ordered...

[humpy999]

edbcfc said:

So after loving my car for nearly 11 months, I've now hit problems, on Sunday driving on the motorway I experienced loads of errors- electric charge not working, drivetrain fault and aircon not working. The car felt really wrong, so took straight to the dealer who at first were really good, and sorted me out a hire car etc. I've now been told that all this has been caused by a stone damaging 1 of the radiators, and therefore leaking coolent. They are saying this won't be covered under warranty and I have to cover the nearly £600 bill!? Has anyone had similar issues? Thanks

I had a leaking low temp radiator - the car felt really wrong - the elctric motor had locked out as it was overheating. I asked if the damage had been caused by a stone, they said it hadn't and replaced it under warranty...

[Robv1]

wobert said:

D-Day tomorrow, the A4 Avant TDI is clean and ready to go back to the lease co, delivery is confirmed for the 330e in recession white..... :-)

Well? Where are the photos...?

[wobert]

Robv1 said:

wobert said:

D-Day tomorrow, the A4 Avant TDI is clean and ready to go back to the lease co, delivery is confirmed for the 330e in recession white..... :-)

Well? Where are the photos...?

Here you go...





Initial impressions are refinement, especially in EV mode and even with the ICE running, I've lost the diesel clatter of the TDI engine.

Ride and ride control is significantly improved over the Audi.

Sports seats are great, again over the Audi (I specced sports seats as an option)

Getting to grips with the iDrive, and discovered the voice control doesn't work as I didn't spec the enhanced BT!

Boot bigger than I expected...

Plus £250pm off my tax bill.....!!

[Robv1]

Lovely, enjoy!

The Sport seats are amazingly comfortable, good choice.

[Somebody]

wobert said:

Sports seats are great, again over the Audi (I specced sports seats as an option)

I though sports seats were standard on the Sport?

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Also, how long was the wait from order to delivery?

Cheers

Edited by Somebody on Friday 9th June 12:50

Edited by Somebody on Friday 9th June 12:52

Edited by Somebody on Friday 9th June 12:53

[wobert]

Somebody said:

wobert said:

Sports seats are great, again over the Audi (I specced sports seats as an option)

I though sports seats were standard on the Sport?

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Also, how long was the wait from order to delivery?

Cheers

Edited by Somebody on Friday 9th June 12:50

Edited by Somebody on Friday 9th June 12:52

Edited by Somebody on Friday 9th June 12:53

They are on the BMW, but I added them as option on the Audi SE Technik.

Car was ordered in mid-February 2017

[MaxOverdrive]

Robv1 said:

was quoted around £1000 here to get them OEM which is nuts.

Getting them done from a highly recommended reputable installer here, is going to cost me around £100 for the pair of back windows.

That sounds pretty cheap - who is that with and where are they out of interest?

[edbcfc]

Happy_Harris1431 said:

edbcfc said:

So after loving my car for nearly 11 months, I've now hit problems, on Sunday driving on the motorway I experienced loads of errors- electric charge not working, drivetrain fault and aircon not working. The car felt really wrong, so took straight to the dealer who at first were really good, and sorted me out a hire car etc. I've now been told that all this has been caused by a stone damaging 1 of the radiators, and therefore leaking coolent. They are saying this won't be covered under warranty and I have to cover the nearly £600 bill!? Has anyone had similar issues? Thanks

Yes i had electrical issues and a drive train fault message.. mine was in BMW for 8 days but seemingly fixed with a software update!! I wasnt convinced they were telling me the truth but its all fixed under warranty, and it has been fine since.. Im sure a few folk on here have had the drive train fault

Thanks for the reply, that's really interesting about the software update...do you know what the update was? I'm still in dispute with them, and still without the car. They haven't mentioned any kind of software update being required, just a new rad and coolant for £600 😯

[edbcfc]

humpy999 said:

I had a leaking low temp radiator - the car felt really wrong - the elctric motor had locked out as it was overheating. I asked if the damage had been caused by a stone, they said it hadn't and replaced it under warranty...

Did they say why it was leaking? I'm still really suspicious as the supposed damage is so small, but they are refusing to budge :-( starting to think I'm just going to have to pay up...gutted!

[Duffman786]

For anyone that is interested. A tip to keep the price low.

I'm not sure what formulas they run in the background but worked out by keeping the p11d price below £40,000, it attracts a decent discount. Spend a penny more and you loose it.

E.g. Total p11d is £39,960 and monthly cost is £475. Add the smokers pack which adds £45 to P11d and thus £40,005 and the monthly cost jumps to circa £500.

Something to bare in mind. I thought it was because you loose the government grant but you don't loose that until it's over £60,000.

[Somebody]

I would say it's to do with the vehicle tax rates from 1 April.

New vehicles with a list price of more than £40,000: If a vehicle has a list price (the published price before any discounts) of more than £40,000, the rate of tax is based on CO2 for the first year.

After the first year, the rate depends on the type of vehicle (petrol, diesel, alternative fuel or zero emissions) and an additional rate of £310 a year for the next 5 years.

So on 2 years incremental tax = 2 x £310 = £620, which divided by 24 is about £26 per month.

[Duffman786]

And here's me thinking I cracked the lease code !

[humpy999]

edbcfc said:

humpy999 said:

I had a leaking low temp radiator - the car felt really wrong - the elctric motor had locked out as it was overheating. I asked if the damage had been caused by a stone, they said it hadn't and replaced it under warranty...

Did they say why it was leaking? I'm still really suspicious as the supposed damage is so small, but they are refusing to budge :-( starting to think I'm just going to have to pay up...gutted!

I guess before you agree to the work you could ask to see the damage or, when the work has been done, request to have the part returned for inspection? Or take it somewhere else?

[Somebody]

I'm expecting delivery of a Sport at the end of July/early August, and hope with everything crossed that the shortage of steering parts will not cause the date to slip: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bmw-production-sl...

Edited by Somebody on Sunday 11th June 17:57

[MaxOverdrive]

Duffman786 said:

For anyone that is interested. A tip to keep the price low.

I'm not sure what formulas they run in the background but worked out by keeping the p11d price below £40,000, it attracts a decent discount. Spend a penny more and you loose it.

E.g. Total p11d is £39,960 and monthly cost is £475. Add the smokers pack which adds £45 to P11d and thus £40,005 and the monthly cost jumps to circa £500.

Something to bare in mind. I thought it was because you loose the government grant but you don't loose that until it's over £60,000.

So this sounds like you've gone for the 330e as a company car? If so then those figures seem significantly higher than I would expect. Do they include a "personal contribution" amount that you must pay your employer in addition to the vehicle and fuel card BIK tax amounts?

[bp1]

Price has certainly jumped a lot since I ordered mine last February. 330e Sport, pro media, metallic and msport suspension and its 270 a month including Vat.

Not looking forward to next September when it goes back and the price more than doubles looking at current lease deals.

[MaxOverdrive]

So it looks like I may be in danger of getting the car in the next 2-3 weeks. Unfortunately I still don't have a definite date yet though

In the meantime, I am trying to sort out a means of charging as right now it'd be a ballache. I'm considering either just a weather-proof mains socket near enough to the front of the house to make it accessible or a full-on charging point.

Does anyone know off-hand if I use the grant for my current property and I then move house am I able to get a grant for this also? If the answer is no I presume I will be screwed then if I want to use the grant on a new house (assuming I'm not moving for 6 months) as I believe there's a fairly strict deadline for getting a charge point on a grant when you've got a company vehicle?

Finally, last question, I'd be interested to hear of any experiences using some form of timer to charge the car on a schedule. I don't recall seeing the ability in the BMW Connected app to set a schedule - is there one? If not what options are you using to turn the mains on/off?

Thanks in advance

[Orion917]

MaxOverdrive said:

So it looks like I may be in danger of getting the car in the next 2-3 weeks. Unfortunately I still don't have a definite date yet though

In the meantime, I am trying to sort out a means of charging as right now it'd be a ballache. I'm considering either just a weather-proof mains socket near enough to the front of the house to make it accessible or a full-on charging point.

Does anyone know off-hand if I use the grant for my current property and I then move house am I able to get a grant for this also? If the answer is no I presume I will be screwed then if I want to use the grant on a new house (assuming I'm not moving for 6 months) as I believe there's a fairly strict deadline for getting a charge point on a grant when you've got a company vehicle?

Finally, last question, I'd be interested to hear of any experiences using some form of timer to charge the car on a schedule. I don't recall seeing the ability in the BMW Connected app to set a schedule - is there one? If not what options are you using to turn the mains on/off?

Thanks in advance

You must have the record for the person waiting the longest for their 330e while being on the forum Max Nearly there though, it's worth the wait!

The grant is linked to a vehicle at a registered address. You can't claim twice for the same vehicle at a different address it seems, but you can take the chargepoint with you (at your own cost) as long as you inform OLEV. Details here:-

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/electri...

I use the Android "Blue" connected App and it definitely has a timer function used to allow you to charge "off peak" if your tariff allows

I only use the brick charger that came with the car. ChargedEV messed me about so I gave up. It's mostly about convenience, because I doubt I would have recouped the £175 install charge over three years! So I ran my own cable and outside socket, loosely screwed the brick charger to the wall and put a saddle lock across the cable between the plug for the car and the brick. So it's easily removed if I need to take it with me. Which is rare since I can't charge at work ATM. My charger is under cover and not visible to the road, otherwise I would have fitted a weatherproof lockable box around the brick.

Pro's
Saved myself £175 minus the cost of a cable, socket and MCB (£40).
Effectively a tethered charger (most convenient).

Con's
Charges slower, 4 hours from empty.
Pre-conditioning uses up charge, you have to anticipate your leaving time to recoup the energy loss. Not a big issue.
Might not have it with me on the off chance I could use it (not happened so far!)

[wobert]

A week and 650 miles in....

Have to say I'm impressed!

Long distances are run in "save mode" to recharge the batteries, full "e-drive" is used in traffic or for local journies.

Journey from Redditch to Dorking netted 45mpg.

As I went through 600 miles on the way home I decided to use sport mode for both the transmission and throttle.

Feck me, this thing shifts.....

Only downside I've found is I don't have split rear seats and therefore can't fit my road bike sans wheels in the boot.

Rectified by buying a new bike carrier with fork mounts out of this month's £250 tax saving...

[MaxOverdrive]

Orion917 said:

You must have the record for the person waiting the longest for their 330e while being on the forum Max Nearly there though, it's worth the wait!

The grant is linked to a vehicle at a registered address. You can't claim twice for the same vehicle at a different address it seems, but you can take the chargepoint with you (at your own cost) as long as you inform OLEV. Details here:-

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/electri...

I use the Android "Blue" connected App and it definitely has a timer function used to allow you to charge "off peak" if your tariff allows

I only use the brick charger that came with the car. ChargedEV messed me about so I gave up. It's mostly about convenience, because I doubt I would have recouped the £175 install charge over three years! So I ran my own cable and outside socket, loosely screwed the brick charger to the wall and put a saddle lock across the cable between the plug for the car and the brick. So it's easily removed if I need to take it with me. Which is rare since I can't charge at work ATM. My charger is under cover and not visible to the road, otherwise I would have fitted a weatherproof lockable box around the brick.

Pro's
Saved myself £175 minus the cost of a cable, socket and MCB (£40).
Effectively a tethered charger (most convenient).

Con's
Charges slower, 4 hours from empty.
Pre-conditioning uses up charge, you have to anticipate your leaving time to recoup the energy loss. Not a big issue.
Might not have it with me on the off chance I could use it (not happened so far!)

I might be extending my own record here as I spoke too soon ...yet another delay. ETA is now 2nd week of July. Looks like BMW need to go and beg Tesla for some spare EV batteries as Samsung certainly aren't up to the job

Thanks for the info!. Can I confirm that you meant the BMW Connected App that has a blue logo? If so you're saying you can assign a charging schedule from within the app? This would be extremely useful if that's the case. I can't check the app as I dont have a VIN yet - even though it's already on my mobile and I've already registered...it's been sat on there for months actually

I am tempted to do something similar to you on the charging front. I just need to suss out where I could place a weatherproof box. The location of the garage and my driveway don't ideally lend themselves to having a simple socket on the front of the garage unfortunately - garage is set back to the rear of the house and the drive starts level with the front. No way to walk past the other half's car without scratching it each time...and I like to keep my testicles intact

So I'll likely face the same preconditioning dilemma as you also. Out of interest how long after the preconditioning has been set to come up do you allow the car to continue charging for to recoup the lost energy?