XSeries-forum

I was thinking of buying an early i3 (year 2024/15) prices are around £7-£8k. I don’t drive daily nowadays and probably won’t do more than 20miles weekly at most dropping kids to school.

I’m fully keen on the doors but the driver seat are a good position off the ground making entry and exit easy on the knees.

Other option is to spend a bit more for 2.0 or 3.0 X3.
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If i was going electric/hybrid thats where my focus would be, purely based on its quirky looks. What its range is and stuff i have no idea. Been a passenger in one once, courtesy car drive home and i liked it.

For twenty miles a week wouldn't a taxi be viable?

One of my colleagues has an early i3 and loves it. Not had any issues and the battery should be fine. If it’s at a main dealer, it would be worth asking for a Cardata report as that will tell you what state the battery health is. You can get the report for yourself, but you need to (a) own it, and (b) have a valid ConnectedDrive account subscription.

Can you plug it in on your drive/property? If possible you can plug them into a standard 13A socket (which will take a while to complete) and will cost you just £0.07p/kWh(electricity unit) to charge it (with Octopus and you need a smart meter). If you’re only doing 20 miles a week, keeping it charged would be simple and only take a couple of hours or so. Public charging is a lot more expensive! Anywhere from £0.30p to £0.94p/kWh. I have a proper home charger (32A) and that will fully recharge my i4 for just £5.76 (over two nights as the 6 hour slot isn’t long enough for the 84kWh battery it has fitted).

Servicing is just brake fluid, cabin filter and a safety check every two years.

I dont have an electric charger nor will i be installing one in our current property. We intend to move in the next 2yrs so will have to make do with flinging a 13amp plug out of the landing window unless I get an electrician to install a plug outside.

I have about £18k cash to put into another car. The X5 F15 would be ideal car but with the strong used prices it probably wont get more that a 2014/2015 which is still an old car and I thinking at that age, originally parts starts to fail even on a well looked after car and those bills could be expensive.


If I want to stay with a bmw (gosh i hate being a brand snob) £7-£8k spend is not so bad, meaning I could just keep adding to the rest for a future purchase . If I was doing a lot of miles then I would have gone down the pcp route

There’s very little in an i3 to fail. If you can get a slightly newer one, they have better range and faster charging. There is a version with a Range Extender (petrol powered generator in the boot), but with your usage I doubt you’ll ever need it so a non-REx would do.

The biggest cost is the main battery, but they are expected to last well beyond the service life of the car itself (200,000 miles +). They come with an 8-year 100,000 mile main battery warranty anyway. Production ceased in 2022. The next ‘i3’ will be a 3-series ‘Neue Klasse’ due sometime late next year.