Discussion
Thanks all yet again.
Two final questions relating to options , which are must have and which are a waste of time? I've had a good look and would value current owners opinion.
Stereo - most BMW's standard ones are known to be poor, is this the case with the i3 and the HK is a must or have they bucked the trend?
Two final questions relating to options , which are must have and which are a waste of time? I've had a good look and would value current owners opinion.
Stereo - most BMW's standard ones are known to be poor, is this the case with the i3 and the HK is a must or have they bucked the trend?
I've just enquired about this but its sold already unfortunately. Thoughts on spec and price please?
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...
Then I found this one which has a good spec but isn't a REX or have HK. It has Cruise control with brake function but not the additional buttons on the steering wheel so not sure how that actually works??
http://www.carstable.co.uk/used-car-bmw-i3-e-drive...
Once again, really appreciate all the help and advice.
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...
Then I found this one which has a good spec but isn't a REX or have HK. It has Cruise control with brake function but not the additional buttons on the steering wheel so not sure how that actually works??
http://www.carstable.co.uk/used-car-bmw-i3-e-drive...
Once again, really appreciate all the help and advice.
Edited by Herbs on Wednesday 12th September 14:16
Greg_D said:
Hmmm, best not discuss the handling...
in any measurable way, the handling is terrible (i know max torque disagrees with me) the bump and rebound damping is not right and the car pogoes when you come out of a compression, it also never really settles in long sweeping corners (esp. when they tighten on you), the brakes are literally terrible, borderline dangerous (no power and sink to the floor after the second or third hard stop). The very short wheelbase makes it feel very skittish over compressions. i am quite picky about handling as a result of my racing background, but for 95% of the people 95% of the time it will be totally fine.
that said, you CAN drive around it, and this is part of the charm of the car, but it does appear to be a bit of a bouncy little box on first aquaintance.
The following rating are in comparison with a decent typical cooking model , say a 3 series 320d, and not in absolute terms as clearly and i3 is not an Elise or a caterham!in any measurable way, the handling is terrible (i know max torque disagrees with me) the bump and rebound damping is not right and the car pogoes when you come out of a compression, it also never really settles in long sweeping corners (esp. when they tighten on you), the brakes are literally terrible, borderline dangerous (no power and sink to the floor after the second or third hard stop). The very short wheelbase makes it feel very skittish over compressions. i am quite picky about handling as a result of my racing background, but for 95% of the people 95% of the time it will be totally fine.
that said, you CAN drive around it, and this is part of the charm of the car, but it does appear to be a bit of a bouncy little box on first aquaintance.
And with the Caveat that mine is a pure BEV, and undoubtedly the range extender mass at the back has a noticeable effect!
The fundamental balance of the car is good, actually, extremely good! RWD, with a relatively low mass and a nice low CofG.
Reasonable body control (pitch, heave and roll) more than adequate springing and damping until you get the wheels off the ground on large fast road imperfections (where the landing can be a bit under damped). The wheel base isn't really that short at 2570mm (1 series 2690mm).
Steering light, fast(possibly too fast when > 70mph) and accurate, but significantly affected by cross winds and odd road cambers thanks to the very "square" set up on narrow stiff tyres (not much toe, camber or castor). If you "fight it" then it feels terrible and unsettled. Nervous drivers almost certain will find the car "disconcerting" at speeds above 70mph as they wrestle clumsily and jerkily with the steering wheel. However. learn to relax and all's well, let the car breath down the road, and it's actually totally stable.
Overall grip i'd say is equivalent to a cooking 3 or 1 series, ie 118d etc. However, with such narrow tyres, the car works REALLY well in the wet and in slippy conditions, in conjunction with the super fast acting traction control. I love driving this car in the wet! It honestly feels like it can be driven just as fast in the wet as it can in the dry, thanks to the basic, hard compound "eco" tyres
You do need to be smooth with your inputs, drive it in fact like a classic 911, slightly slower in, then power on and turn, do that and there is zero understeer and decent stability. (i'd love to try one with a proper LSD across the back and with the traction control turned off......)
Brakes - no question, - terrible feel and no power. But you'll never use them, so no probs! (if you are using the brakes, you're doing it wrong!)
I have no problem on long sweepers, even tightening ones, in fact, you can left foot trail brake the car into the turn and get a nice little bit of positive yaw, that picking up the throttle holds nicely (no massive oversteer as you can't turn the DSC fully off)
Two guys i work with and have a similar commute to (18 miles of B road), one has a 320d (Fseries) and the other a 330d (E90) and i can keep up with the 320d, but the 330d just has the legs on the longer straights, mainly because the i3 has a hard max speed limit at 94mph. i3 is actually much better at getting into the turns, esp slipply/wet ones than the 330d, which you can tell has a big engine in the front and is heavy.
So, as mentioned, if you are used to a modern, inert, massively grippy car, then you might find the fact this car actually moves around and can be felt working it's tyres a bit odd. I personally love it, and if you are a good driver then there is actually plenty of cross country pace available. (i've had no probs what so ever keeping up with much more powerful but poorly driven cars like C63 AMGs and other big, powerful heavy cars, where having 600bhp and having the skills to actually use 600bhp are two, often mutually exclusive, things.....)
I'd definitely recommend getting an extended test drive for a few days and putting enough miles into it to get used to how it drives, as i can see it might be a bit "marmite" ;-)
(BTW, as an aside, on it's "bike sized" tyres as standard the i3 is possibly the best car i've driven in deep snow on summer tyres)
Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 12th September 18:22
oh, one more thing, and an important one, is that the i3 is a genuinely ENJOYABLE car to actually drive! It somehow feels fun, maybe because the limits are a bit lower, and are signaled earlier compared to a typical grippy but inert modern car.
I've had days where i've literally stepped out of a 900bhp hypercar and into my i3 and thought, hey, this is fun and in no way felt short changed ;-)
I've had days where i've literally stepped out of a 900bhp hypercar and into my i3 and thought, hey, this is fun and in no way felt short changed ;-)
Herbs said:
I've just enquired about this but its sold already unfortunately. Thoughts on spec and price please?
Then I found this one which has a good spec but isn't a REX or have HK. It has Cruise control with brake function but not the additional buttons on the steering wheel so not sure how that actually works??
Cruise control with brake function is normal cruise control in BMW speak, not the adaptive cruise control that is available as part of the driver assistance pack. The brake function bit keeps the car at a steady speed when going down a steep hill or if you drop the set speed from, say, 60mph to 30mph it will slow the car using the brakes. I have the adaptive cruise and use it a lot although being camera based there are limitations eg when driving facing low sun. Then I found this one which has a good spec but isn't a REX or have HK. It has Cruise control with brake function but not the additional buttons on the steering wheel so not sure how that actually works??
Edited by Herbs on Wednesday 12th September 14:16
We pretty much agree on everything but this
I’m not saying it isn’t fun to drive, but it isn’t ‘well’ setup at all.
Your measurements confirm my position. the wheelbase is 5” shorter than the smallest ‘normal’ car in the bmw Range whilst being 4” wider. So over square, like I said...
Max torque said:
Reasonable body control (pitch, heave and roll) more than adequate springing and damping until you get the wheels off the ground on large fast road imperfections (where the landing can be a bit under damped). The wheel base isn't really that short at 2570mm (1 series 2690mm).
The body control is absolutely not acceptable, it pogoes all over the place as if the dampers just give up once compressed in constant radius corners and the car is just bouncing along on its springs. It literally never settles unless the road is like a billiard table. I’m not saying it isn’t fun to drive, but it isn’t ‘well’ setup at all.
Your measurements confirm my position. the wheelbase is 5” shorter than the smallest ‘normal’ car in the bmw Range whilst being 4” wider. So over square, like I said...
Edited by Greg_D on Wednesday 12th September 23:21
Greg_D said:
We pretty much agree on everything but this
I’m not saying it isn’t fun to drive, but it isn’t ‘well’ setup at all.
Your measurements confirm my position. the wheelbase is 5” shorter than the smallest ‘normal’ car in the bmw Range whilst being 4” wider. So over square, like I said...
is yours a ReX? Or are the dampers buggered? I can get all four wheels off the ground and it lands ok, probably 2 oscillations back to neutralMax torque said:
Reasonable body control (pitch, heave and roll) more than adequate springing and damping until you get the wheels off the ground on large fast road imperfections (where the landing can be a bit under damped). The wheel base isn't really that short at 2570mm (1 series 2690mm).
The body control is absolutely not acceptable, it pogoes all over the place as if the dampers just give up once compressed in constant radius corners and the car is just bouncing along on its springs. It literally never settles unless the road is like a billiard table. I’m not saying it isn’t fun to drive, but it isn’t ‘well’ setup at all.
Your measurements confirm my position. the wheelbase is 5” shorter than the smallest ‘normal’ car in the bmw Range whilst being 4” wider. So over square, like I said...
Edited by Greg_D on Wednesday 12th September 23:21
Having had an i3, and now an i3S , the latter is so much nicer to drive. It is far more planted than the standard car due to revised suspension, wider track and slightly wider rubber. The other big change is around the traction control - pre LCI it would cut regen on rough surfaces or tight bends , no issues now.
Max_Torque said:
Greg_D said:
We pretty much agree on everything but this
I’m not saying it isn’t fun to drive, but it isn’t ‘well’ setup at all.
Your measurements confirm my position. the wheelbase is 5” shorter than the smallest ‘normal’ car in the bmw Range whilst being 4” wider. So over square, like I said...
is yours a ReX? Or are the dampers buggered? I can get all four wheels off the ground and it lands ok, probably 2 oscillations back to neutralMax torque said:
Reasonable body control (pitch, heave and roll) more than adequate springing and damping until you get the wheels off the ground on large fast road imperfections (where the landing can be a bit under damped). The wheel base isn't really that short at 2570mm (1 series 2690mm).
The body control is absolutely not acceptable, it pogoes all over the place as if the dampers just give up once compressed in constant radius corners and the car is just bouncing along on its springs. It literally never settles unless the road is like a billiard table. I’m not saying it isn’t fun to drive, but it isn’t ‘well’ setup at all.
Your measurements confirm my position. the wheelbase is 5” shorter than the smallest ‘normal’ car in the bmw Range whilst being 4” wider. So over square, like I said...
Edited by Greg_D on Wednesday 12th September 23:21
That said, i've had a quote today for a BEV 's' and they want £416+VAT 3+24...... liberty....... i'm currently paying £260+vat for a loaded Rex - may well not get a third on that basis, i don't like getting my pants pulled down.
Max - you will probably be able to answer an idle musing i have. what proportion of each KW that comes out of your charger ends up in the battery, ie are there any 'pumping'/efficiency losses in the charging process?
Greg_D said:
Max - you will probably be able to answer an idle musing i have. what proportion of each KW that comes out of your charger ends up in the battery, ie are there any 'pumping'/efficiency losses in the charging process?
Do you want the short or long answer?The short answer, assuming we are talking about UK 240v mains AC charging at 7kW is "about 2%" the long answer, well, it's rather long and complicated!
Captain Smerc said:
98% ! That's more than I expected.
i3 has a 360v nominal battery voltage (260Vmin to 390vmax). Uk mains is 240Vrms, which is about 340v peak, so the OnBoardCharger (rectifier) doesn't have to deal with a large voltage differential, and with a ZVC resonant convertor the losses in the charger are small, and because the HV DC battery itself is massively parallel (to supply the 147kW the motor can demand) it's resistive losses at just 3 to 7kW are minimal.(losses increase with lower AC supply voltages, higher charge currents (faster charging) with hot or cold batteries (higher battery resistance))
Captain Smerc said:
Let's pretend that I didn't understand much of that .
It charges efficiently ?
yes! ;-)It charges efficiently ?
Basically, the losses in a "charger" that converts Alternative Current (AC) mains electricity into Direct Current (DC) electricity stored in a chemical energy battery depend on the difference in voltage between those two things. In the UK, we have a relatively high voltage mains voltage, that is actually pretty close to the voltage of the battery used in the i3. Therefore, the charger can be very efficient!
Gassing Station | EV and Alternative Fuels | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff