"phenotyp" (phenotyp)
08/23/2020 at 18:25 • Filed to: BATTERIES SUCK, BMW i3, i3
1
26|
"phenotyp" (phenotyp)
08/23/2020 at 18:25 • Filed to: BATTERIES SUCK, BMW i3, i3 | 1
| 26 |
Shit, I moved my i3 from the garage to the front of the house this morning, and it gave me a “BATTERY DISCHARGE WHILE STATIONARY” warning, then proceeded to go on like NBD, I went to the menu to check warning messages, and get the green “ALL SYSTEMS OK” so I figure, well, all systems must be OK.
Parked in front of the house until the evening, went out to grab something from the glovebox, and when I unlocked it, the mirrors didn’t unfold.
“Odd,” thinks I. So I get in and turn it on, and it throws all manner of warnings at me, somewhere in the middle it says “START ENGINE,” which, thanks, can’t until the HV battery’s at 75%, and ending with “DRIVETRAIN CANNOT BE ENGAGED.”
Son of a fuckin whore. So I get out, after a couple more tries, and hit the lock button on the fob, and the goddamn siren starts wailing. Both when I lock and unlock the car.
Most likely the 12V battery is low on charge; I can’t get it to shift into neutral so I can push it around to the garage. Some people on forums seem to have had success with trickle charging the 12V, but... I don’t have a trickle charger.
Lights still flash, and as the day turned to evening and the air cooled down a bit, there was enough charge for the screens and console controls, but still no shifting into neutral. I’m gonna try again in the morning, once it’s cooler, and if there’s still no joy, I may try jumping it. The HV batteries are at 76%, so even if I could get enough juice into the 12V to get it into drive, I’ll have to putz around until I can maaaaybe turn the range extender motor on.
If not, hoping I can find a 12V replacement and DIY the BMW battery registration bullshit. I’m quite sure this is related to the fact that I have only driven it to my studio (about 3 miles) and the grocery store since March, and only plug it in to charge on the 220 like once every week or two, once I hit 50-60% (HV) battery level.
Any thoughts, Oppo?
Edit: Upon further burrowing down the rabbit hole, it looks like I should be able to manually start the range extender by putting it in emissions inspection mode, which should also charge the 12V... will probably try that first.
Edit, after a day of clusterfucking around:
First thing was to see if I could run the charger out to the street. Frunk opened (alarm screaming the whole time), got the 120 charger out, met the extension cord, and.... fucker wouldn’t unlock the charging door. Even with accessories on.
OK, so, dig around, find the little hidey-hole for the manual filler door release in the rear passenger doorframe. Super hard to get out (ribbed for pleasure). Fight it out by putting my keyring around it and yanking, give it a little pull, pop it back in. Go around to the door, and it’s still locked. Ok, fuck. Do it again. Pull a little harder.
Yyyyyyyyyyyyep. Fucker just pops off in my hand. Goddamn German plastic shit. Emissions test mode activates, but ReX doesn’t start up, so that’s out.
——- A GIGANTIC FAFF LATER ——-
Car’s back in the garage, after an extremely sweaty push, which I’m thankful there were a couple neighbors were around to help with. Now the 12V’s so dead that it won’t lock/unlock anything, so there’s a trickle charger on the way, and probably a new 12V after that. Already got all the shit out of the way in the funk to get the battery, but all the stories I’ve read so far about i3 12V battery failures are either “piece of cake” or “BLEW UP MY EME, $12K MISTAKE.”
The saga continues.
Chariotoflove
> phenotyp
08/22/2020 at 23:19 |
|
Nothing helpful, I’m afraid. Just that I wish someone would make this the error message in their EV.
atfsgeoff
> phenotyp
08/22/2020 at 23:21 |
|
Just get a battery charger/maintainer, hook it up
and call it good.
jminer
> phenotyp
08/22/2020 at 23:23 |
|
You can pick up a cheap trickle charger from O’Reilly’s or Harbor Freight for under $20. Or get a nice one from Amazon for about the same.
I have this one and love it.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07W46BX31?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
Sorry no other help from me
|
phenotyp
> atfsgeoff
08/22/2020 at 23:24 |
|
Yeah, I *will* be doing that, but the first trick will just be getting it around to the garage, and off the street,
so I can plug it in.
|
phenotyp
> jminer
08/22/2020 at 23:26 |
|
No prob, same reply as above:
Yeah, I *will* be doing that, but the first trick will just be getting it around to the garage, and off the street, so I can plug it in. Then I’ll worry about dealing with the 12V.
Thanks, though!
|
atfsgeoff
> phenotyp
08/22/2020 at 23:36 |
|
Extension cord?
|
phenotyp
> atfsgeoff
08/22/2020 at 23:45 |
|
Last time I did that, I came back to a melted plug... but it might be the only option. Will find out in the AM.
|
atfsgeoff
> phenotyp
08/22/2020 at 23:46 |
|
4 amps at 12 volts is only a ~48 watt draw, so even a thin extension cord should handle the load just fine on 120 volts AC.
subexpression
> phenotyp
08/22/2020 at 23:47 |
|
I know nothing of the i3, but for a lot of BMWs the battery registration only configures the adaptive charging system and you can drive without doing it . The battery won’t last as long if it’s not registered.
|
phenotyp
> atfsgeoff
08/22/2020 at 23:55 |
|
*fingers crossed*
BaconSandwich is tasty.
> phenotyp
08/22/2020 at 23:55 |
|
I know I’m not an engineer, but I don’t understand why they can’t run a giant buck converter (or something similar) to trickle charge the 12v battery from the traction battery - or possibly even eliminate it
. I understand not wanting to wire the entire battery pack in two ways (one for the high voltage/traction system) and a second set of bus bars for a 12v system... but still.
I wish I could talk to some EV engineers. I’d love to ask them a lot of questions.
This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja:
> phenotyp
08/23/2020 at 00:52 |
|
If you have a 12v wall wart power supply kicking around and an old cigarette lighter powered device, both of which you don’t mind sacrificing, you can wire them together and use it to bring the battery up to 12v. Just plug it in and wait a number of hours, depending on how many amps the wall wart puts out. 12v won’t be fully charged, but it should be enough to get it fired up and the alternator going, assuming the battery hasn’t gone completely tits up. You can safely use an extension cord for this, no worries.
BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast.
> phenotyp
08/23/2020 at 01:17 |
|
the concept of a hybrid vehicle that can’t utilize it’s drive batteries to recharge it’s 12-volt engine-start and and body electrical system battery, is ludicrous.
A DC-to-DC transformer is not that foreign of a concept... especially in a car that is intended to run in electric mode often, and may not start the range extender engine for long periods of time... which does the same thing as storing a car for long periods of time... depletes the 12-volt battery. Most automotive batteries are not deep-cycle, and not intended to deliver a lot of amps when in a somewhat discharged state.
|
phenotyp
> BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast.
08/23/2020 at 01:35 |
|
Yeah, the ReX is an oddity. It’s a BEV, but with a neutered scooter motor that’s essentially emergency-use-only. But it still uses that scooter battery to start all the ECUs and shit until the traction motors are engaged. And if that little battery runs low enough, because you haven’t been driving much, and consequently not plugging in often enough, it’ll freak its little brains out.
Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen
> BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast.
08/23/2020 at 02:21 |
|
Even if it can charge from the HV that doesn’t necessarily get you out of trouble.
Early Leafs (like Mrs Distraxi’s) have a “feature” where the HV only charges the LV if the car is running or charging, since the rest of the time the HV is disconnectedby a safety cutout. So if you leave it for a while the LV battery goes flat from parasiticscanyway. Better yet, if you leave it plugged into the wall for three or four days, it’ll also got flat , because after it’s charged the HV to full and disengaged it, it sits there the whole time with the (LV powered) charge circuitry active going “D o I need to charge? No. Do I need to charge? No”. Eventually that flattens the LV battery, which doesn’t get topped up because it never actually engages the charger again so the HV battery remains disconnected . At any point before it’s flat you can fix it by just turning o n the ignition, but once it’s flat turning on the ignition doesn’t help because it doesn’t have the juice to trigger the cutout relay: you need to jump start it.
Better than that, it doesn’t have an undervolt age shutdown on that circuit, so it’ll flatten the LV battery right down to < 3V, which fucks it.
In later ones they gave the system the ability to enable the HV and start an LV charge by itself if the LV gets too low.
Guess how I know...
facw
> phenotyp
08/23/2020 at 18:33 |
|
That sucks, hope you can get it all sorted:
Also:
Car’s back in the garage, after an extremely sweaty push
I still think Dusty should have given me points for this:
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
|
phenotyp
> facw
08/23/2020 at 18:39 |
|
Yeah, apparently every 2014/5 i3 owner in the world, especially those who are driving and charging far less these days (like, I charge about every week and a half or so, these days, when I teach about 50% or so), have had this issue.
The trick is gonna be fixing it for less than $600.
Verdog ~ manual Bro, Bro - HellHawk Equipped
> phenotyp
08/23/2020 at 19:03 |
|
Trickle didn’t work on the daughters car. Towed it to the shop, $100 Rx was a dead 12v battery, plus a tire and out the door.
Worth the BMW service. I was given a X2, the little crossover thing bwcuase she was too young to drive. Plus a Carwash and a valet at the dealer.
https://oppositelock.kinja.com/daughter-s-i3-died-got-a-loaner-what-do-you-want-to-k-1841678560
bison78
> BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast.
08/23/2020 at 19:17 |
|
the concept of a hybrid vehicle that can’t utilize it’s drive batteries to recharge it’s 12-volt engine-start and and body electrical system battery, is ludicrous.
Unfortunately, it’s not unique. I just replaced the 12V battery in my Leaf for the same reason. It sounds like this is a much easier job on a Leaf. Th
e leaf charges the 12V battery
from the traction (high voltage) battery, but only when it is started .... and you need the 12V battery to start it. A trickle charger got it going, but then the 12V battery kept losing charge.
|
phenotyp
> Verdog ~ manual Bro, Bro - HellHawk Equipped
08/23/2020 at 21:13 |
|
Nice. I don’t think BMW will be as nice to me, if if we’re to tow it there. I bought my first i3 there, but not this one. I don’t have the fancy pants CPO this time.
|
jminer
> phenotyp
08/23/2020 at 21:45 |
|
You’re reminding me it’s been two weeks since I’ve driven my wife’s hybrid RAV4. Not as finicky as yours but I still need to take it out and let it charge and discharge the hybrid battery a few times.
DipodomysDeserti
> phenotyp
08/23/2020 at 22:07 |
|
“ Goddamn German plastic shit.”
Well, hello, fellow BMW owner! At least you don’t have to worry about a fuel pump or oil pan being made out of their shitty plastic.
|
phenotyp
> jminer
08/23/2020 at 22:42 |
|
Probably less of a worry for the hybrid— I’m guessing there’s no parasitic drain from the HV battery, just the regular car battery (which * is* a regular car battery)?
Either way, probably needs to be driven, I have read that hybrid batteries do experience heavy load cycles. I learned my lesson about charging more frequently, here— the 12V went from fine to fucked over the course of a day.
Mostly I feel like I’m talking out my ass when it comes to electrical shit.
|
phenotyp
> DipodomysDeserti
08/23/2020 at 22:47 |
|
I got that over with during my ownership of 2 E60s, and experienced it vicariously with a friend’s E92 M3.
Mine were 2 HPFPs and a water pump (‘09 535), and every single valve seal, motor mount, and gasket (‘07 550).
At least with mechanical stuff I can *understand* what’s fucking up, how to fix it, etc. Electrical stuff might as well be some Aramaic demon-summoning spell.
tpw_rules
> BaconSandwich is tasty.
08/24/2020 at 09:39 |
|
They do, but only when the car is on. The high voltage battery is physically completely disconnected from the car when off for various safety and regulatory reasons. Even though the 12V battery doesn’t start the engine, it still has to have enough power to boot up the computers so they can switch on the high voltage contactor to power the DC-DC converter (and the rest of the drivetrain) and recharge it. Teslas, i3s evidently, and pretty much all other hybrid and electric cars work this way.
The very first Tesla Roadsters apparently did not have a 12V battery, but this is problematic as it means a complete loss of vehicle power in the event of a severe crash or electrical
fault where the high voltage battery must be disconnected to keep the vehicle safe. They pretty quickly added one so convenience features
like the airbags and brake booster
could remain powered in those situations.
|
phenotyp
> Verdog ~ manual Bro, Bro - HellHawk Equipped
08/25/2020 at 00:57 |
|
Trickle didn’t work for mine, either. Flatbed’s coming in the morning.