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.