i3s

Dis86

Dis86

Dis86

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Anyone got one? Fancy picking one up as a runaround/first foray in to electric and the reviews on them are pretty positive.
I love the interior styling.
Main downside I can see is they seem to lack a lot of the additional features most bmws come with now and the ride might be a bit harsh on the 20s.
 
Dis86 said:
Anyone got one? Fancy picking one up as a runaround/first foray in to electric and the reviews on them are pretty positive.
I love the interior styling.
Main downside I can see is they seem to lack a lot of the additional features most bmws come with now and the ride might be a bit harsh on the 20s.
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I've driven a few normal i3's and done a few miles in them (3K+).

Overall, I like them, and whilst I'm undecided on what car to get next, I was toying with getting an i3 just to commute around in.

The negatives first
- Narrow/tall body on relatively skinny tyres (even the i3s), so will follow the road and side winds/passing lorries can be 'felt'..
- Styling is marmite (I love it!)
- Options are few/far between, my Mum found a well option'd i3 which was rare, Sunroof, travel assist, adaptive cruise, leather, heat pump are all options AFAIK and getting a car with all options is the usual BMW lottery.
- Battery options are a bit limited, OK, but just need to get the biggest you can IMO.
- The rear door needs the front door opened first.. Personally I love it, but a lot comment on how inconvenient it is. (you have to remove you seat belt to open the front door, then the rear passengers can get out.. hardly a chore IMO).
- The ride is harsh, the i3s I've only had a test drive, but had different suspension anyway, it felt around the same, just a little more fidgety.

The positives
- Fun, very nippy, proper old skool small car kind of vibe IMO
- Amazingly smooth drivetrain/motor, and they pioneered the simple drive select control (ape'd by the ID.3 we now have!)
- Carbon fibre tub is a nice petrol head thing.
- Ingress in the rear is excellent (due to suicide door).
- Looks are almost timeless, they still look fresh 10 years later IMO, the newer facelift is nicer, and the i3s is obviously that bit better.. (Red/Black is sublime).
- The one pedal driving is great, will come to a complete stop and hold, once you adopt this style, it's a game changer for smooth/easy driving.

If my Mum didn't have the i3, I'd never have borrowed it, realised EVs take that whole 'ease' of driving to the next level and it made the ZF auto on our X3 feel archaic and clunky!..

We eventually ended up in an ID.3 (again, not wanting to go mad, just test the waters), and it is that next level up in smoothness, same performance (sub 7s 0-60), and much more creature comforts as standard (or higher end trims), so much so, my Mum ended up getting an ID.3 to replace her i3, the 260 mile range also was a big factor for her, since as we all know, public charging is a bit hit/miss although IMO getting better every month.

However, as a first foray, and assuming you'll take the lack of range as just a feature of the i3s, then I'd consider one myself and probably look for something with 'options'.. the sunroofs aren't essential, just a nice to have, but adaptive cruise was good!
 
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I've been casually looking at them too as an interesting/alternative 'modern' car.

I'm sure at the beginning of 2023 you needed to spend £15k for a nice 5-7year old REx version.
They now seem to hover around £10k?!? Which is a bit of a concerning drop on a not-new car and throws a huge ??? on future expected depreciation.
 
Design and (especially boot) practicality has always looked great.
not sure how you would perform a test drive though to appraise the real winter range you are likely to see to check that would meet any commute requirements (like 60/70 round trip.)
thought there was some suspicion about bmw being able to seemingly 'reset'(re-learn) battery capacity, such that real achievable range may not be what Wh/mile* capacity suggests;
rex engine the sourced from obscure italian/polish mopehead mftr (was it?) seems to have long term reliability issues
Can change the wheels to improve ride but .. if that impacts range significantly....
 
Range shouldn't be an issue for me. Intent is to use this thing mostly to do things like the weekly shop, pop to friends, commute. At most these are 60 mile journeys. We will still have other cars for longer ones if needed.
Styling isn't a negative for me, I think they're cool!
 
I've looked at these as a daily as well. There seem to be certain years to avoid which have more problems.

I'd avoid the range extender and go for one with the larger battery TBH. A few major problems relate to that.

Skinny wheels on a tall car will make the handling interesting at speed. Smaller but wider wheels would help fix that, but wider tyre will effect range noticeably on EVs.
 
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Whatcar had a review on some used EVs - the best range/efficiency etc

I think the i3 return a 4mile/kWh on their test regime which was 40% motorway speeds. It is not the worst out of the lot but not great.

i3 let’s itself down on poor battery really. For a small car it is heavy. It also lacks regen braking on the earlier models.

Certainly wouldn’t pay money for new or almost new models. There are much better EV out there for better prices than i3 offerings.

If you want a cheap first dabble into EV, avoid Leaf (1st gen) or i3. Their battery and tech just isn’t there in terms of keeping the battery condition good in the case of Leaf or have good efficiency and range for i3.

VW groups first EVs eUP/Seat Mii/Skoda Citigo EV are probably where you be looking at for cheap second hand EV with good efficiency and all the bits of tech that protects battery and have good residuals.
 
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Heavy? Its super light! Brilliant urban type car, perfect for 95% of trips. Bit like my Insight really just shame customer demand and hence market trends dont move towards that.
 
Can you do salary sacrifice at your work?

I can get a Citroen AMI for £178/mo including tax, tyres, insurance :D
 
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Lexus hybrids are worth a look as well. Even the older ones are far more reliable. You can drive them on electric for short trips and you aren't totally relying on the batteries or charging points.
 
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dlockers said:
Can you do salary sacrifice at your work?

I can get a Citroen AMI for £178/mo including tax, tyres, insurance :D
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Sadly not. I'm also a bit of an outlier as I don't get a company car or car allowance due to 'having access to company vehicles'.
 
i3 was my first EV and I loved it. For a daily commute car though the early 60aH battery was lacking in winter. For an EV quite light and chuckable to a point until the overzealous traction control kicked in. Lack of tyre choice and odd sizing means they are expensive (i3S more so) and I tended to wear them quickly so traded against another EV brand.

Still a good choice for a fun town car though.
 
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I've had a 60Ah i3 and now have a 120Ah i3S. I love it; fantastic little car which is perfect for our needs as a second/city commute car.
I wouldn't bother with the 94Ah and go for the 120Ah if you can as the range is north of 150 miles, compared to 75% on the 94Ah.

Compared to the regular i3, the i3S is much more planted on the motorway as it's a little lower and has a wider rear track. Much better in the corners and handles better overall, but be aware that the ride is absolutely appalling. The standard i3 is hardly a Rolls Royce, but the S takes the ****.

Other than that, try to get one with a light interior and sunroof as it really lifts the interior. HK, adaptive cruise and Pro Nav were a must for me, but YMMV. You won't find any with the HK Audio from around COVID times obviously, so if you can live with the standard audio then you'll be fine.
 
We were really impressed by the one we test drove.
The biggest issue we saw with it were:
- reliability of the RX version sounded dire
- range without the RX, but you’ll already know that
- they’re quite small inside. Well packaged, roughly on par with a Jazz, but certainly not big
- I’ve read scary numbers for a battery replacement, ie $16k. That was 2-3 years ago, no idea if that’s still true. People like to talk about how reliable batteries are, but they WILL fail eventually
 
I've had one for 2.5 years, just the i3. I looked at both the i3 and i3s and wanted the extra ride comfort of the standard i3 and slightly lower running costs.
I've not reset the efficiency stats for 2 years now and it's has averaged 4.5mi/kwh. Will probably drop to 4.4 over winter then back to 4.5 by early summer next year, as it has previously. It's mostly a local runabout although I have covered some longer motorway trips and it's been fine. The i3S is better planted apparently but I don't think you're going to notice anything 'wrong' :) with the standard i3 unless you try both.
Someone else mentioned getting one with a sunroof but worth noting that adds weight at the top of the car and with the sunroof the rest of the roof is no longer carbon either . It wasn't something I wanted, personally.
I find the standard cloth seats a bit naff. While not a great colour(dark brown), I'd recommend the leather seats.
I've had a few issues with mine, covered under warranty. The driver's seat started creaking so the base needed to be replaced and during the end of warranty check BMW diagnosed a faulty AUC sensor, not something you'd probably know about unless diagnostic equipment hooked up. Oh and on that note, the extended BMW warranty is stupidly priced unless you drive plenty of miles per year to make it more worthwhile.
Overall it's a great little car. Pretty decent sized too IMO. Good for parking and the front area I feel is quite spacious but rear passenger area tight and if using often can be a little awkward due to the suicide doors.
The battery packs are good for something like 500k+ miles apparently, based on charge cycles. Failures are not common.
 
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I've had my i3 for about 3 months now and absolutely love it. I always liked them and when the prices on these collapsed this year I managed to get a 2019 with 50k miles for £12,300 which I thought was a great price. I wanted a 2019 to get the bigger battery and didn't want the rex.
I've had the windows tinted and bought wheel spacers to sort the handling out, it was quite jittery but now feels more stable and planted. It's nippy, peanuts to run and was getting 180 miles plus in summer.
We've also got an i4 but for shorter journeys and nipping into town take the i3 every time.
 
Well, tried to book a drive in one today and the dealer have been absolutely useless. Their ad doesn't actually match the car they have which is a bit worrying from a bmw auc!
 
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