BMW i3 (2013 - 2022) 120Ah Atelier Interior World auto 5d Owner Review

Bought our i3 new to replace the Mini Clubman Cooper S we had as a our main run around car. The i3 was pre-registered by the dealer so technically is used, but had never been driven with only 16 miles on the clock so as far as I'm concerned it was new but heavily reduced in cost. Had it around a year now and absolutely love it. As it was pre-registered the spec was already fixed and so came with the traffic jam assist package which TBH I really wouldn't have bothered with and is only really useful on motorways which, as my car is mostly used for city driving, is hardly ever taken advantage of (thought the street speed display is useful).

I love the ease and stress free way this car drives, and I love embarrassing so called performance cars (in a straight line anyway). The 0-60 times do not do it justice as the 0-30 acceleration is something else, definitely quicker than my old 335i ever was! Very nippy for getting through the traffic around town

Space inside the car cabin is deceptively good, though the boot could be a little bigger, and considering there is no REX on my car it would have been nice if BMW had thought to create an extra storage space under the boot floor where the REX normally is. Also because of the carbon fibre construction of the safety cell it's not possible to fit a roof rack so if you ever need to move larger loads you may want to consider something else.

Rear doors can be a bit of a pain in tight car parks, usually have to let rear passengers out before parking - might be an issue if you have young children, also the rear windows do not open, again something to consider if you have regular rear passengers in the rear.

Never bothered having a fast home charger fitted. Did consider it when we first bought the car but I found the supplied granny charger is more than capable of overnight charging a couple of times a week to provide all the power I need. Hardly ever use public chargers, though if I shop at Tesco I always "top up" on their free charging points even if they are only 7Kw and I can only get about 10% in while I shop, this still equates to around £1.50 of free electricity.

Dealership were hopeless, they couldn't answer many of the questions I had before I bought the car, and worse still some of the sales people contradicted each other or told me incorrect info. Lots of research was carried out online before I bought. Even so I didn't find out about the charger current limiting setting in the iDrive which was set to low on the car as received and meant that the car would only charge at half speed - no one at the BMW dealer thought to mention it to me - took me a few weeks to discover that and get charging to happen at max speed.

Cabin preconditioning is a godsend in winter - leaving at 5am on a winters morning and I have the car configured to pre-heat ready for departure, leave the house and get straight into a car that is heated up and defrosted for immediate use. No more scraping windscreens in bitter cold. Similarly with the recent heat waves I've been able to just press the diamond button on my remote and this will automatically turn on the air conditioning cooling the car for a few minutes before I get in it. On the subject of the remotes, why can't BMW get their remote design right - on our Cooper S the boot open button was on the edge of the remote, and on the i3 the unlock button is on the edge of remote, these edge buttons get squeezed when in pockets and often result in the car unlocking as you walk away from it - I know I'm not alone with this issue having talked to other owners.

BMW app is good, tracking all kinds of info for the car such as charge history and cost, and also letting you do some basic operations remotely, such as checking if the car is locked, locking and unlocking / opening closing windows etc.

Yet to experience servicing etc but I'm expecting no different experience to other BMWs I've owned in the past. Overpriced, but at least the i3 should be cheaper to service than regular ICE cars ( first service looks like it will cost around £230 ).

Talking to lots of existing owners, some with very high mileage and some with 8+ year old cars has put my mind at ease with regard to battery deterioration as I've yet to speak with anyone who has experienced significant capacity loss due to age or mileage which is very reassuring.

I've been so impressed with our i3 I was considering getting another to replace our diesel second car but this time buying an older plate i3 with REX for the odd occasion when we have to do a longer journey.