Here’s Everything Wrong With My $5000 BMW i3

I recently sold my beautiful gold 2021 BMW i3S for $34 grand and then bought a grey 2014 BMW i3 Electronaut Edition for $5 grand. This, you might think, is a humongous downgrade; let’s have a look at the condition of my dirt-cheap, first-model-year BMW i3.

To replace any car with another that costs $29,000 less ($30,000 after rebate) is going to involve a sacrifice. In my case, I gave up a beautiful color, mint condition, full-body PPF, a 7 year-longer warranty, 90,000 miles of wear and the “S” body kit/suspension. And yet, I remain thrilled with my 2014 BMW i3 Electronaut Edition (among the very first BMW i3s sold in the US over 12 years ago).

I’m happy because, even though this i3 has some significant flaws, it’s in great shape given its price. I’ll let you decide; check out these issues:

The Body Is OK, But Has A Major Roof Problem

One of the BMW i3’s biggest flaws is its carbon fiber roof, which is made of scraps pressed together and then covered in a resin that has little resistance to UV exposure.

Over time, the resin bubbles, flakes off, and exposes the bare fibers underneath. These fibers are neither waterproof (i.e. they’ll leak into the cabin), nor do they like to get wet, so if this situation gets bad enough, the actual roof under the resin can start to flake off. This becomes very challenging to fix once it reaches this point.

My i3’s resin has started to bubble in two places. I need to figure out how to fix this. As for the rest of the body: It’s OK. The mirrors have definitely made contact with things:

The rear bumper has been scratched from loading/unloading:

The front has taken some hits from daily driving:

And there are a few scuffs here and there on the side panels:

But overall, the car looks decent.

My i3 Has Only One Key

It might not seem that having only a single key is a big deal, and as long as you keep track of it, that is true. But if you lose that one key, the price of a replacement is shocking.

Per BMW forums, replacement keys cost between $500-$800. Is this absurd, and should there be some consumer advocate group preventing this kind of gauging? Absolutely. But that’s the way it is, which is why my car not having its second key is worthy of including on this list of flaws.

The Headliner Is Drooping, Other Interior Imperfections

My BMW i3’s interior, while still gorgeous, has a few issues. As you can see in the images, there are a few small white spots on the seats; it appears to be paint. I’ll see if I can get those off.

The biggest issue, though, is the headliner, which is drooping:

Other problems include some imperfect door panels. The driver’s side seems to have an odd shape to it (this is very subtle):

And the passenger’s side door panel almost appears to have been compromised from heat:

In the back, one of the speakers looks rusted:

And up front, on the floor at the base of the center stack, the netting is stretched:

The steering column rubber boot is cracked:

The driver’s seat leather has some imperfections as well:

And I have a few questions about these dimples on the dashboard:

This dash is made of leather. Is this just a grainy piece of leather (much grainier than my 2021’s dash), or has the heat/sun caused these dimples? Maybe it’s just the natural grain of that leather, or maybe it’s been damaged, in which case I may be tempted to replace that dash panel.

It Has No Tint

The state of the interior brings me to another issue: This i3 has no tint. This is a significant problem in Southern California, where it’s too bright and too hot. I find myself having to crank the AC on this car to stay cool, which hurts my range. In order to maximize interior comfort and overall vehicle efficiency, and to reduce interior sun-wear, I’m going to have to spend about $700 on tint.

It Has The Wrong Wheels

Speaking of spending money, another one of the BMW i3’s biggest flaws is that its tires are insanely expensive. There is a workaround that involves installing slightly larger-diameter 20″ tires from a company called Momo, but if you don’t have 20″ wheels, you’re hosed. My 2014 BMW i3 Electronaut has 19s, and the price of a new set of tires is astronomical, as you can see from the Tire Rack invoice below. After rebate, I’d have to pay over $1,100; meanwhile, the Momo tires that I bought cost a total of $300 for the set.

Needless to say, I’m on the hunt for 20″ wheels, though they’re not cheap.

No Apple Carplay, No App For Preconditioning

The 2014 BMW i3 did not offer Apple Carplay, which is unfortunate, because I loved using that on my 2021. Another thing I loved about my 2021 is the app, which allowed me to turn on the AC while I was paying at a restaurant or finishing up my work for the day — this way, I could enter a cool car instead of a piping hot one. My wife especially liked this function for our baby boy.

Both of these deficiencies have a workaround; an Apple Carplay unit will cost me $420, and I may be able to code my key fob to precondition the cabin. We shall see.

Mice Chewed Up My i3’s Wires, Hoses

I noticed that my front windshield washer isn’t working, so I filled the reservoir, hit the switch, and listened to fluid splash on the ground below. It appears that a rodent has chewed through my windshield washer fluid hose:

Repairing this is likely going to require me to remove my front passenger wheel and wheel liner. I’m not looking forward to that, nor am I looking forward to having to fix the wires that the rodent chewed through.

I’m not entirely sure what the wires in that part of the car do; they’re near my fuel filler door, so maybe they deal with the door actuation? In any case, I need to splice in new wires where the copper has been bitten; as for the wires that have only had their insulation consumed, I’ll just wrap some electrical tape around them.

As of now, only my washer fluid hose has caused any functional issues with the vehicle, and I see no other obvious chewed-through wires.

The Rubber Is Cracking

This BMW i3 has been in Southern California since 2014, and as a result, the rubber bits are falling apart. This piece of door trim rubber is disconnecting from the panel:

This rubber between the passenger’s side mirror and the glass is cracked:

Here you can see how the rubber seal between the top of the windshield and the body is broken into a million pieces; this does create a tiny bit of wind noise in the cabin:

The rubber strip on the roof is cracked:

The driver’s side door weather seal needs to be replaced:

The windshield side-rubber is also in bad shape:

The Wood Dash Is Cracking

It’s really remarkable how much tint/ceramic coating can do to preserve a vehicle’s interior. This car’s lack of either of those has resulted in damaged door panels, cracked rubber, possibly a damaged leather dash, and a eucalyptus dash that looks like a dried lakebed.

I’ll see what I can do to fix this.

The Battery Is In Great Shape, But It’s Not Big Enough

This i3’s battery is in surprisingly good shape given the car has 120,000 miles (its modules may have been replaced, but I doubt it). Yes, the pack is about half the size of my gold i3’s battery — and I do miss that car’s range — but the 2014 i3 was rated to go 72 miles in mixed driving conditions, per the EPA. And my i3 does pretty much exactly that.

In fact, there is a “kapa max” option in the i3’s menu that gives you a rough idea of the battery’s condition. From the factory, the 2014 BMW i3’s kapa max was about 19. My BMW i3? 17.6.

That suggests that my battery’s state of health is about 93%. This is good, but again, I’d like to someday upgrade this pack to have closer to 150 miles of range. This isn’t a priority, as 70 seems to work well for my commute.

I Plan To ‘Upgrade’ Many Of These Problems Away

When I first drove this i3, I called my colleague Jason Torchinsky and raved. “Dude, this thing drives incredibly well! Honestly, it drives even better than my gold car!” It’s clear the car’s strut gaiters/bellows have been replaced at some point, the brakes work great, the steering is tight; the gas range extender sounds nice – this i3 shows no obvious mechanical faults. It’s seven years older and has 90,000 miles more wear than my old goldilocks, and yet, it’s not obvious from behind the driving experience.

But it is obvious from the eye test, and it is obvious when looking at the tech features. Over the coming months, my plan is to try to fix all of these problems. The BMW i3 is an credibly mod-friendly car, so there are lots of opportunities to bring this 2014 back into modernity. I aim to replace the wheels with 20s, install Apple Carplay, replace the damaged rubber, install tint, fix damaged/worn interior bits (including the headliner), mend that delaminating roof, and more.

The advantage of the 2021 car is that it would have allowed me to delay these problems or, if I was careful (which I don’t plan to be with a kid and a daily LA commute) prevent many of them. Luckily, I think I can get this $4,250 (after rebate) i3 into nice shape with just a couple grand. Then I’ll start looking into a battery replacement option.