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225xe |
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T11YNG
Forum Member Joined: 21 May 2020 Location: West Wales Status: Offline Points: 16 |
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Posted: 21 May 2020 at 12:23pm |
Hi Guys,
I'm about to join your ranks (I sincerely hope; delivery next Tuesday...) with the arrival of an M Sport 225xe. It's an ex-demo. with 2+ years left of BMW warranty. Quaetion. What 'equipment' (charge leads, Jack?, Tyre pumper upper etc) should I check are present on delivery? Any and all thoughts are extreeeeeemely welcome! Yours (positively quivering with anticipation about the new arrival!) gratefully. AJJ |
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AJJ
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T11YNG
Forum Member Joined: 21 May 2020 Location: West Wales Status: Offline Points: 16 |
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An add-on, please, to my earlier plea for help. And an apology; 'Question' is not, ever, spelled 'Quaetion'....
Any thoughts on Charge Point installation? Thanks in anticipation of your pearls of wisdom. |
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AJJ
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rpennington
Club Member Joined: 22 Apr 2013 Location: Leic Status: Offline Points: 978 |
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Hi
What 'equipment' (charge leads, Jack?, Tyre pumper upper etc) should I check are present on delivery? Any and all thoughts are extreeeeeemely welcome! You won’t have jack or tyre inflator due to having run flats. Regards
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1999 E46 323i se Saloon - sold
2011 E90 325d msport - sold 2014 F30 335d xdrive msport plus pack |
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T11YNG
Forum Member Joined: 21 May 2020 Location: West Wales Status: Offline Points: 16 |
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Cheers for that, and for the 'Run Flat' prompt. That will be another first for me and with zero facility to change a wheel 'on the go' it doubtless makes tyre replacement with runflats a foregone conclusion.
The brochure download from BMW is apparently silent on the topic of wheel nut security keys and the like while the owners manual (download: another first...) seems to require details of the car which I will not possess until delivery. Many thanks for your input. Regards |
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AJJ
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rpennington
Club Member Joined: 22 Apr 2013 Location: Leic Status: Offline Points: 978 |
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My e90 i have now is the first car i have had with run flats, i didn’t know much about them or what to expect at the time. i had the tyre pressure warning came up on my idrive last year & thought i just needed to put some air in the tyres. This came on over a couple of days & i thought i had a problem with the system, but it was a nail in the tyre which fortunately still was repaireable without the cost of a new tyre. It does enable you to drive still for a few more miles,not sure how many as i was local when I had my puncture.
The vehicle will have a locking wheel nut on each wheel & the removal nut will be in the bmw tool kit. I don’t know about the brochure / owners manuals because mine has those in the leather wallet to do with the car. Regards Rich
Edited by rpennington - 23 May 2020 at 8:53am |
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1999 E46 323i se Saloon - sold
2011 E90 325d msport - sold 2014 F30 335d xdrive msport plus pack |
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T11YNG
Forum Member Joined: 21 May 2020 Location: West Wales Status: Offline Points: 16 |
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SO the car arrived, despite the 'lock down'....
The good guys delivered it from a long way away and it's delightful. Run flat Goodyear tyres and no jack or any other tyre-type accessories except, naturally, a locking wheel nut key. It comes with one charge lead only: a 13amp plug 'normal' at one end and a Type 2 plug at the other for insertion into the NSF wing charge port on the car. The car is a very complex beast requiring an enormously detailed electronic manual. And it requires reading too, because, for instance, the car gets a bit tense if you plug in the Type 2 before you turn on the power at the wall/other end of the cable. So a 'live wire' insertion is the order of the day. And extracting the Type 2 requires application of the car unlocking-key-process unless you might feel the need to tear the nearside front wing off with the plug still attached! Still pondering the Wall Socket matter. Costs around £550, after an available Govt. grant, seems possible for a 32amp 7Kwh type 2 system. However a Type2 to Type 2 lead, 7.5 meters long (5 M would be too short) is another £170 ish. Which magazine recommends a tethered version, but again they tend to be equipped with a 5 M lead, and the lead is usually ungainly, draped over the wall socket box. We'll see after more research. |
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AJJ
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T11YNG
Forum Member Joined: 21 May 2020 Location: West Wales Status: Offline Points: 16 |
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Five months in, and all going swimmingly-ish.
First; the home plug-in decision. An outside, weather-proof, 13 amp double socket was fitted by a local electrician. I do not need 'fast charging'. so a few hours plugged in overnight works fine for a complete charge-up. The plug cost £100; not a fast-charging, in every sense! £550! That included an interior switch so the outside socket can be isolated, just in case. The car comes with timer software so it will switch itself on and off. Economy Seven electricity, which costs around 6p per kilowatt hour does the job between 0200 and 0700. The car battery holds 10 KW, so a 'fill up' is 60 pence and takes about 4 hours, all while I'm fast asleep!! I was wrong to tell you that the car plug is recalcitrant! There is now no problem connecting or reconnecting, 'live' or 'inert'. Driver error.... My tension, about what happens in the rain(the car lives outside) when charging, was also misplaced. The BMW engineers have, as you might hope, thought it through and have done a good job. Electric range? Well, like every MPG statistic I've ever seen, the manufacturers gild the lily. Twenty five miles is about right in reality, not the advertised thirty miles. So far so good. |
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AJJ
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T11YNG
Forum Member Joined: 21 May 2020 Location: West Wales Status: Offline Points: 16 |
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Seven months in and
'Honeymoon' rather over... But then, in every good marriage there
has to be a bit of 'give and take', right? A recall was necessary for a problem
identified with the charge lead. The original lead had been under-engineered,
was not beefy enough and thus was prone to over-heating. But the process took two visits; round
trip of 60 miles each. The first time there was no new cable; but a new warning
sticker to be attached to the existing cable! On the second visit a new, slightly
chunkier, cable was supplied. As the second visit to the workshop was
necessary and coincided with some cold weather I took the opportunity to ask
about a couple of issues. There is an intermittent fault with the
cigar lighter socket. The socket was cleaned, works a bit
better, but still has a problem and will need to be replaced. It can wait until the service date in a
few months time. The exterior mirrors freeze/steam up
and the windscreen washers also will not work in freezing temperatures. The handbook tells me these are heated.
It turns out the handbook is WRONG! These features are therefore not part
of the standard equipment on a car with a new cost of more than £37,000! So my satisfaction with
previously-praised BMW engineers has been slightly diminished. Cars in the past could usually be
relied upon to heat windscreen washers from the engine bay. This car tends not
to use the petrol engine on short trips!! Solution? Lots (and LOTS!) of washer
fluid. Antifreeze and car paintwork used to be
very uneasy bedfellows. Let's hope that is no longer the case. The mirrors are indeed electrically
adjusted. But they are not heated. Caveat emptor... The ability to 'climatise' the car on a
cold morning, heating turned on remotely or on a timer, is a boon. However, the heating does not extend to
the electric plug which can freeze into its socket! On a particularly cold morning this
week I was late for an appointment because I could neither unplug the car not
lift the frozen-shut bonnet. It was nice and warm inside the car as I made my
telephoned excuses from the heated seat, but that was very small
compensation... It seems the car was not well designed
for the cold, although Bavarian winters might make you wonder why not. Time for charging the battery has
increased and capacity/range has reduced. Cold weather is unkind to the battery
as is the energy extracted for heating screens and interior. So that's the bad news. The good news is the way the car
handles in seriously icy road conditions. The rear wheels, with massive torque
from the electric motor, can, and do, slip although the traction control
operates very rapidly. On very slippery uphill slopes, when
necessary the petrol motor will eventually kick in and wake up the front
wheels. The combined drive systems really do work
very well together. |
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AJJ
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rpennington
Club Member Joined: 22 Apr 2013 Location: Leic Status: Offline Points: 978 |
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Except for the few little niggly problems your having, are you enjoying the car?
Rich
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1999 E46 323i se Saloon - sold
2011 E90 325d msport - sold 2014 F30 335d xdrive msport plus pack |
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Mike Fishwick
Forum Member Joined: 04 Aug 2006 Location: France Status: Offline Points: 2742 |
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What is the range on a cold winter morning, using battery power to pre-heat the inside?
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A Z3 is not just for Christmas - it's for life!
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T11YNG
Forum Member Joined: 21 May 2020 Location: West Wales Status: Offline Points: 16 |
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Answers (at last: apologies)) to questions.
To RP. Yes, on balance I am enjoying the car. And it's not a 'Curate's Egg' (good, in parts...) situation either. Overall I am glad I bought it. The 'niggles' are just that; altho' the list increased a bit last week when I discovered the downside of run-flat tyres. A fixing (plastic and nail) for an electric cable had attached itself to a rear tyre, between the side wall and the tread area. Deep enough to 'hiss' at me when I hesitantly tried to remove it. 'Puncture repair' thinks I. No chance! A new tyre (£160) was required... But niggles aside it is good stuff in the main. In fact the car is something of a 'wolf in sheep's clothing'. The ride is quite hard, not least because the tyres run at 40ish psi. The car will 'scamper along' happily. It reminds me a bit of the Lotus 7, now buried in the deep past of my car-owning history. Maybe the overall handling, when pressed, is rather more 'Impreza Turbo' (I drove about 100,000 miles, fairly pleasurably, in one of those). On paper at least it's as quick to 60mph as our SL500 but, naturally, not so 'relaxed'. The combination of engine front and electric back is controlled by software which intervenes, at times, when my sense of balance might disagree. But I have reached the 'old and not -so -bold pilot stage' and therefore 'behave myself' rather more than in the past... The sun roof can be used quite comfortably up to 60mph. The 'trip to the skip' can be accomplished with the back seats down. Yes; overall it's grand. MF asked about electric range. I would not expect to get more than 20 'electric' miles on a cold day. The 'pre-conditioning' facility works well. It makes the car comfortable on a cold day. It also makes the car useable!! The rubber seals around the doors can freeze into position, so hot water would be needed to enter the car on a very cold morning if the heating was not available. Range-wise, we live in a fairly hilly area and while it charges up a bit on the downhill sections, the uphills are very draining. As I type, on a day with outside temperature of 13 C, the software tells me there are a 'fully charged' 24 miles available and a 'hybrid Range of 268 miles. The 'last trip' was 5.6 miles, which took 9 minutes (1.5 miles of that is in an uphill single track lane where 20 mph is mostly advisable!) and 'Combined Consumption' was 64.2MPG. Usually I would not expect to use any petrol on a Sunday trip to get the newspaper. The round trip distance is maybe 11 miles. But that measured trip data shown above was on a chilly day when the car had been unused for 4 days. The starter battery may well have become rather depleted which will cause the motor to kick in. And when the car has decided that all four wheels should get some exercise who am I to demur?! Deserted roundabouts become places of fun; dual carriageways designed to clear the 'cobwebs'. Hence 64MPG as opposed to Nil consumption of petrol. In fact the tank was filled during the trip. £9!! 4280 miles under the existing management and so far so good. |
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AJJ
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T11YNG
Forum Member Joined: 21 May 2020 Location: West Wales Status: Offline Points: 16 |
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15,000 miles.
The first 'service' took place in late June. There were 12365 miles on the clock and the software told me that 'time's up'! During all these miles there has been no necessity to add engine oil or water. An oil service/change and a 'microfilter (£52 PLUS VAT!) service cost £285.17... Hmmmm. Very nice folks and good coffee! The cigar lighter was not changed, but seems to be behaving itself, at least for now. Warranty has another 12 months to run, so we shall see. We've been on a few lengthy trips, including one to Cumbria (500 miles) and another to Newcastle upon Tyne (600 miles). As I have yet to 'plug in' the car while away from home, these trips were accomplished using petrol in the 'usual' way. Consumption? Don't reeeely know; but I suspect around 45 ish mpg. I definitely noticed the tank isn't quite big enough so range nervousness might be completely eliminated, but there was really no problem. A 'feature' of the car became apparent. If 'Sport' mode is chosen (as it does tend to be on junctions and roundabouts in particular) then the car recharges the battery quite rapidly. Bit like the so-called 'self-charging Toyota range I suppose. Also, big suitcases were required. So the rear seats needed to be lowered; at which point the car adopts one of the unadvertised features of a Porsche 911 in that the luggage shares the passenger compartment....! Yeah, well maybe there is the matter of a couple of seconds faster to 60, but who's counting? Still happy with the car overall. |
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AJJ
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