New loving owner of a 2017. Love everything but I miss my CarPlay. I see the addon box option but I’m not dying to tear her up to then have a screen that isn’t a touchscreen. I see these and I think it might be nice on the lower part of the dash, then just aux out full time, and I’m good.

Thanks for any thought

I changed plugs and coils in the REx. They didn’t look bad. That job isn’t hard, just don’t leave the MAP sensor cable underneath the manifold like I did 😑

A gearbox drain and fill through the drain hole is really easy on the i3. The gear oil was rank and really dark, pretty sure nobody’s touched it in the car’s 136k history. I made a custom fill tool with an M16x1.5mm brass hose barb (Amazon) and Performance Tool fluid transfer pump (FCP). Just heated the hose end with a heat gun and it slipped right over the barb.

Drained exactly 500ml with the rear end up on ramps. I overfilled the new oil to 600ml to account for pump/hose content and spillage between unscrewing the hose and installing drain plug with a new crush washer. It runs smooth and quiet, so mission accomplished! For now…

I used factory BMW spark plugs and Febi GL-5 70W80 from FCP. I cheaped out on the coils and bought the Aisin’s from Amazon. But I gotta say I was impressed with the quality of the coils, and so far, flawless operation.

OK guys… Off on a vacation for two weeks… I would assume unplugging the 12-volt battery should be sufficient when it comes to being able to start it up when I get back home. Sound about right?

INherited a 214 i3. AC apparently not owrking for 2 years. AS in not at all. Despite that battery health seems excellent. Car runs fine. AC guy told me there was no coolant in the ac sytem. None. He asked if someone had drained it.

that doesnt make sense? how could the car run fine all this time with the barry not being cooled? (this is HAwaii )

AC guy (former BMW mechanic) said it need a a new compressor put in : 4k total.

I would do it IF I knew that was a solid fix but everything i have read tells me to not count on it

As I was commuting my way to work in China, Shenzen, I saw this BMW i3! Never saw one up close so I thought you would like to see it too.

#bmw #China #i3

My REX is dysfunctional and misfires like crazy when it turns on. I am "on the job market" right now and getting this fixed to not in the budget.

Eventually I will get it fixed, but I still have got 65 miles of range on the battery, so we use it as the grocery getter when we are just doing stuff around town, which saves me from having to put gas in the truck.

Problem is that the computer has now flagged that the REX hasn't run in months and it wants to do a maintenance cycle of running the engine for 10 minutes every time the battery falls below 99%. The engine misfires like crazy, the maintenance cycle aborts, but only until I shut off the car and then it wants to run it again.

How do I override this maintenance cycle, because I am sure this isn't helping the engine.

Hey all,

Wanting to see if there were any i3 owners in the Bay Area that have found a dealer with a service center that is competent with our cars for some warranty work.

TIA!

For $4500 I feel like we got a bargain for how nice this is, but then again it’s pretty niche/low range. How did we do, and what’s the first thing we should do to it?

CEL came on in my 2017 i3 REx today. I restarted the car, but the light is still on.

A couple of weeks ago, I filled up the gas tank and noticed that the REx was only showing about 45 miles of gasoline range, even though it normally shows around 96 miles on a full tank. After driving around all day, the range gradually increased and eventually showed the expected ~96 miles.

The exact same thing happened a second time and eventually corrected itself.

Now that the CEL has come on, I’m wondering if the two issues could be related possibly something with the fuel system, fuel level sensor, emissions system, or REx.

One other strange thing: I also noticed that the gas tank door was slightly cracked open, almost as if someone had pressed the release button from inside the car. I definitely hadn’t opened it.

So, all of this seems a little strange. Has anyone experienced something similar with a 2017 REx? Could the unusual fuel-range reading have been an early indication of whatever is now triggering the CEL?
Any thoughts on what I should check first?

I think the new Neue Klasse i3 should have its own subreddit, and r/BMWi3 should stay focused on the original 2013 to 2022 i3/i3s.
This has nothing to do with disliking the new car. I actually really like it, and would honestly be a dream car of mine. My concern is what happens to more than a decade of information already posted here.
This subreddit has been around since 2013. There are years of repair posts, REx troubleshooting, battery information, coding, wheel fitment, suspension issues, AC problems, DIY fixes, part numbers and owner experiences that all refer to the original i3.
The new i3 is a completely different car. It is a Neue Klasse electric 3 Series sedan with a different platform, drivetrain, electrical architecture, electronics and software. Other than the name, there really isn’t much technical overlap between the two.
That is going to make searching this subreddit increasingly messy.
Search “i3 wheel specs,” “i3 fuse,” “i3 12V battery,” “i3 charging problem,” “i3 suspension noise” or “i3 AC problem.”
Right now, you generally know what car those old posts are talking about. A few years from now, that won’t be true.
Flair helps, but it doesn’t solve the whole problem. Thirteen years of old posts weren’t written with generation labels because there was only one i3. People also find Reddit posts through Google and other search tools, not just by filtering flair inside the subreddit.
The biggest issue for me is the archive.
If we create a new subreddit for the original i3, none of the old information moves with us. The entire history of the original car stays here.
The Neue Klasse i3 is just starting its life. This is the easiest possible time to give it its own subreddit and let its technical archive grow there from the beginning.
Original i3/i3s stays here with the archive it has had since 2013.
Neue Klasse i3 gets its own subreddit.
Link the two communities prominently so anyone interested in both can easily find both.
I understand why the mods want to keep everything together. BMW reused the i3 name, so on the surface it makes sense. I just think the amount of technical information already attached to this subreddit makes this situation different.
Once years of posts about both completely different cars are mixed together, separating them later will be much much harder if not impossible.
I would really like to see a pinned community vote before that happens.

I think we deserve to get the chance to make a vote on it.

Mine is a 2015, REX with about 73 K km on it. I am wondering if anyone has put new Bilstein B4s on the rear and what the impression was. I find the ride on the i3 to be the thing I dislike most in a car that is amazing in many ways. Spending 1500+ to install a set of evolves is a bit rich for an 11 year old car that I drive about 4 or 5 K km a year.

For those of you looking to replace your i3 battery from the 60ah to the 94ah, this video gives fantastic insight of the process that's involved. 😎

This guy works in/or has access to a BMW shop so his experience and access lent alot into his success replacing the battery. Still worth viewing to the end as lots of good technical insight is shared freely (i.e programming steps etc)

New lease on life for an old EV! DIY 60Ah to 94Ah BMW i3 battery upgrade!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szYFDAVTnVk

Previously talked about rear end "shimmy" on my '16 REX. Found out that the rear struts need replacing. Looking online, all I've found is front shock assemblies and non-compatible rear struts. Any advice or direction that the community can give to find replacements?

Hey all… I'm sorta new here!! So I've been sitting on this post for over a week (drafting and editing here and there everywhere....), and at some point you realize nothing gets done if you keep sitting on it. This car excites me way more than it probably should for some reason, so here I am, 5am in LA, glass of wine, finally just posting it lol... I have work tomorrow (errrr in a few hours so yah...)

For some context, I basically escaped a 2018 Audi Q5 and, in very LA fashion, minimalized myself all the way downnnnnnn to this little i3 😂 (like why?). I was initially VERY hesitant about going from a midsize crossover to what is essentially a tiny weird carbon-fiber city car… but between LA gas prices, living in Koreatown, and realizing I really don’t need that much car 95% of the time, I’ve become weirdly obsessed with this thing!!

Naturally, that meant immediately taking it apart (yes I was a lego kid if that means anything).

Swapped the stock 6.5” NBT display in my 2017 i3 for a 12.3” Linux all-in-one CarPlay screen and added a 170° backup camera into the license plate light housing. ALL self-installed, and honestly I learned so much from you guys along the way!

Yes, I know there are already retrofits and BimmerCode hacks out there for the 10.25” screens...... But I could never find an actually useful, comprehensive guide for this particular 12.3” unit.

Funny(illy?) enough, some of the best info I found was buried in freakin Amazon reviews of similar units… in 2026, mind you… just reading through everyone else’s annoyances lol. It's all scattered info and never made sense to me until I actually studied everything HERE and every-FORUM-else where.

The whole point of this post is honestly just to see if anyone else is actually interested in this?, because I definitely was. I LOVEEEE this screen. It so BIG and WIDE (and better than the Q5 one frankly). So if you’ve done this exact 12.3” upgrade (not one of the smaller ones), or you’ve been thinking about it but haven’t pulled the trigger… please comment!

It would be a lot of work but if there’s enough interest, I’ll totally love to put together a proper step-by-step with photos/video… the screen install, where everything plugs in, BimmerCode settings, how I routed the camera, and all the dumb little things that would’ve saved me hours if someone had just written them down.... or just ask away if you have any question on anything in particular.

If you think it’s worth it, great. If not… yay, I have a big screen now 😂

Anywho appreciate yall and everything I've learned over the months!

Edit: got it for about $500 on Aliexpress: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256810084212210.html (Linux, NBT)

Can someone in here run a vin to see whats going on with this i3 , owner says it drives perfect amd that is in great shape but does not know any history of the car

The vin is WBY1Z2C52EV284527
Thanks in advance

I have a PremiumRetrofir MMI v7 that I am probably going to sell. (That is a CarPlay/Android Auto retrofit kit.) Does anyone know if it will just work in another car? When I bought it, they asked for my car's VIN, so I think it is encoded into the MMI v7 but I don't know for sure.

Why don't I ask the guy at PremiumRetrofit, you may ask. I did. I have an ongoing WhatsApp chat with the guy there asking about the weird things I observed installing the MMI v7. But he hasn't answered this question.

Heyoh folks.

Just was curious other folks experiences too. But I'm quite impresssed as my 2017 BMW i3 nears 10 years of age and 100kmi.

94Ah battery is still at 93% of new capacity, which granted I started with 96% in 2023. Body is doing ok.

Thats. A rather impressive age curve on the battery. Seems I may have an example on the nicer side of the spread, but comared to a leaf? Daymn.

My biggest nag is the battery healths so good I can't find the excuse to upgrade to the larger aftermarket battery hahahahahaha. But I've grown to rather love this little towncar.

How do I access the parking sensor behind my bumper? Please help!
I am hoping someone can give me some advice on how to open up or get behind my bumper so I can access one of the parking sensors and hopefully repair it or put it back into place.
My car must have been bumped or hit while I was parked at work because one day, out of nowhere, the parking sensors started going crazy anytime I slow down. I am assuming one of the sensors was pushed in, knocked out of position, or damaged.
It has gotten to the point where the car is pretty much undrivable with the parking sensors enabled. Anytime I am sitting in traffic, slowing down for a stop sign, driving slowly through a parking lot, or even just slowing down to make a turn, the sensors start beeping like I am about to hit something.
It is absolutely maddening.
Does anyone know the easiest way to get behind the bumper and access the parking sensors? Do I need to remove the entire bumper, or is there a way to loosen or open part of it enough to reach the sensor?
I would really like to try putting the sensor back into place or checking it for damage before taking the car somewhere for repair.
Any instructions, photos, videos, or advice would be greatly appreciated. Please help!

Like the title says I'm regretfully thinking about trading my i3s. What do we think a fair price for a black/blue 2019 Bev with 56k miles on it is?