[germandrive14]

Originally Posted by JasH

In the UK, perhaps email corporatecustomerservice@bmw.co.uk

I am sure there are other email addresses here (ask your dealer), and also equivalents in the USA and elsewhere. Hopefully someone in the US will know of the relevant contact there.

When you call can you please find out when my M3's airbag (recall) will be replaced. holy cow still waiting.

I am getting an I8 and very excited about it. It will be with my M3 and 640 GC.

[emmfive]

I had to come back to this thread to vent. I forgot the one thing about this car that really chaps my ass. When it's in all electric mode, and I come to a stop, and then hit the gas to start again, sometimes the car will do nothing. Actually, worse than nothing- it will creep out into the intersection/street at about 1 mph, and then after maybe a couple seconds power will be restored. When I pull out of my parking lot at the office onto the busy street this can be really effing scary.

[zagaboo]

Originally Posted by emmfiv3

I had to come back to this thread to vent. I forgot the one thing about this car that really chaps my ass. When it's in all electric mode, and I come to a stop, and then hit the gas to start again, sometimes the car will do nothing. Actually, worse than nothing- it will creep out into the intersection/street at about 1 mph, and then after maybe a couple seconds power will be restored. When I pull out of my parking lot at the office onto the busy street this can be really effing scary.

Stick it in sport. Just to be sure!

[emmfive]

Originally Posted by zagaboo

Stick it in sport. Just to be sure!

True. I'm almost always in sport, today I'm low on gas and trying to put off filling up. That's what caused me to remember this "feature".

[Jo-Sta07]

Originally Posted by emmfiv3

True. I'm almost always in sport, today I'm low on gas and trying to put off filling up. That's what caused me to remember this "feature".

I'm always in sport unless I'm sitting in traffic.

[NGR]

Originally Posted by emmfiv3

I had to come back to this thread to vent. I forgot the one thing about this car that really chaps my ass. When it's in all electric mode, and I come to a stop, and then hit the gas to start again, sometimes the car will do nothing. Actually, worse than nothing- it will creep out into the intersection/street at about 1 mph, and then after maybe a couple seconds power will be restored. When I pull out of my parking lot at the office onto the busy street this can be really effing scary.

If you're in comfort, pull one of the paddles before you set off, this will engage the gas engine rather than waiting for it fire up after you've started moving!

Or, I find when I'm in pure e-drive there are no hesitation issues except for the few seconds after I swap into/out of e-drive. E.g. don't engage/disengage full e-drive just before pulling out or will creep as you say.

[Sehat Sutardja]

I have been driving the i8 for about 2.5 years now and in general I love it. Having said that there are a few major flaws that none of the BMW dealers that I had sent the car to could fix the what I call e-Drive fatal flaws.

First the annoying part. After about 45 minutes of driving in Las Vegas local roads using Sport mode only during acceleration from the red light the e-drive would disable itself. The car basically turned into a full blown ICE car! This happened despite the battery still had lots of capacity (50%). To be fair the dealer had sort of fixed this problem with a SW patch a couple of months ago as it used to happen all the time (don't have to wait for 45minutes for this to happen). Now it only happened once in a while.

A more important one is however the e-drive hesitation issue when launching from a very slow speed (from a creeping few miles an hour speed). It scared the hell of me when this happened which was quite often but not always. At one time I almost got into an accident when I was driving out of a parking lot trying to cross the road to the opposite lane. In this case the parking lot is slopped quite a bit from the main road and I had to slow the car down to prevent the car nose from hitting the pavement. As I pushed the gas pedal down the car suddenly refused to move for at least a second. This was enough time for another car on the nearby lane to almost hit my car.

Unfortunately, none of the BMW dealers believes what I am talking about because this problem is so hard to replicate. Of course after many times that this had happened to me I took some video clips to prove at least the annoying part of the e-drive problem. Hopefully BMW headquarter would treat these problems as safety issues and help my local dealer to fix these problems.

I hope these are just specific to my i8. If not please share your i8 issues with all us who own an i8. Thank you.

[MalibuBimmer]

Originally Posted by Sehat Sutardja

I have been driving the i8 for about 2.5 years now and in general I love it. Having said that there are a few major flaws that none of the BMW dealers that I had sent the car to could fix the what I call e-Drive fatal flaws.

First the annoying part. After about 45 minutes of driving in Las Vegas local roads using Sport mode only during acceleration from the red light the e-drive would disable itself. The car basically turned into a full blown ICE car! This happened despite the battery still had lots of capacity (50%). To be fair the dealer had sort of fixed this problem with a SW patch a couple of months ago as it used to happen all the time (don't have to wait for 45minutes for this to happen). Now it only happened once in a while.

A more important one is however the e-drive hesitation issue when launching from a very slow speed (from a creeping few miles an hour speed). It scared the hell of me when this happened which was quite often but not always. At one time I almost got into an accident when I was driving out of a parking lot trying to cross the road to the opposite lane. In this case the parking lot is slopped quite a bit from the main road and I had to slow the car down to prevent the car nose from hitting the pavement. As I pushed the gas pedal down the car suddenly refused to move for at least a second. This was enough time for another car on the nearby lane to almost hit my car.

Unfortunately, none of the BMW dealers believes what I am talking about because this problem is so hard to replicate. Of course after many times that this had happened to me I took some video clips to prove at least the annoying part of the e-drive problem. Hopefully BMW headquarter would treat these problems as safety issues and help my local dealer to fix these problems.

I hope these are just specific to my i8. If not please share your i8 issues with all us who own an i8. Thank you.

Is the electric battery shutting down because of heat?

As for your hesitation in electric mode only, I've had the same thing happen. Now I try to remember to put it in sport. Funny thing, I had the same hesitation with my M6 with SMG, perhaps the worst gearbox BMW has ever inflicted on its drivers. And there was no workaround. Well, there was one -- get rid of the car. Which I happily did. It was a real disappointment. (My M4 with DCT is fun and has no hesitation issues.)

[iHyperMiler]

Switching into, but also switching out of e-Drive will cause hesitation, as the electrical front end engine is in first gear during e-Drive and in second in all other modes, and this gearbox is an electrically operated "manual" two speed. So the gremlins under the front hood do. need a second or two, and are withholding you from "teethbrushing" this gorgeous little twospeed box.

If you sportgear around for a while, there is a cooling of in ICE mode to a) not kill your engine and turbo, and b) working under the assumption you might chose to gun it again, and should not have to complain about the aforementioned hesitation issue. Also, if your gunning heated the battery by numerous rapid charge discharge cycles, your electric mode is being sidelined to cool off back into survivable territory.

[HondoMac]

Originally Posted by iHyperMiler

Switching into, but also switching out of e-Drive will cause hesitation...

Geez, who knew.. sounds a bit like my '13 Prius.
N' exactly why, as a general rule, I always pre-load "POWER" mode when merging onto a road and/or going through any intersection.
Gotta have some juice in reserve to get the F' outta the way.

Out of all the items on the Wish List, (imho) MORE POWER should be #1.
Especially with the assertion that you're rolling in the supercar category. Which is a tuff sell right now.

But as a daily driver.. it's off the scale awesome.
I think it's a nice daily driver Wish List.

[NGR]

Originally Posted by Sehat Sutardja

Unfortunately, none of the BMW dealers believes what I am talking about because this problem is so hard to replicate.

One way to replicate a hesitation is to take the car somewhere safe like large car park, put it in comfort and crawl along on very light throttle e.g. couple of mph. Then push the e-drive button whilst putting your foot halfway down on the throttle pedal - lo and behold, you go absolutely nowhere for a few seconds. Once you start moving, stop and do it again but leave it in e-drive mode, you'll find you take off without hesitation.
As someone posted above, I'm sure it's the 2-speed transmission taking time to shift gears while you're crawling across an interchange waiting for a truck to wipe you out.

[fishpond]

Originally Posted by NGR

One way to replicate a hesitation is to take the car somewhere safe like large car park, put it in comfort and crawl along on very light throttle e.g. couple of mph. Then push the e-drive button whilst putting your foot halfway down on the throttle pedal - lo and behold, you go absolutely nowhere for a few seconds. Once you start moving, stop and do it again but leave it in e-drive mode, you'll find you take off without hesitation.
As someone posted above, I'm sure it's the 2-speed transmission taking time to shift gears while you're crawling across an interchange waiting for a truck to wipe you out.

Agreed - it's not hard to replicate.

As a general rule, I only push the e-drive button either when stationary or alternatively whilst coasting. If you do it whilst you have your foot on the accelerator, then you will suffer the power lag issue.

[NGR]

Originally Posted by fishpond

Agreed - it's not hard to replicate.

As a general rule, I only push the e-drive button either when stationery or alternatively whilst coasting. If you do it whilst you have your foot on the accelerator, then you will suffer the power lag issue.

Indeed, I never switch if I'm about to set off and personally I think it's dangerous. I'm sure the software is trying to protect the hardware but getting wiped out by another vehicle wouldn't be pleasant.

It's also important to distinguish different types of lag - the other is when you set off in comfort and the gas engine isn't started, you start moving off only on e-power after a short delay the gas engine starts and you have more power. In a normal car with stop/start you simply wouldn't go anywhere before the gas engine starts but in the i8 you do move on reduced power and it feels like a hesitation. The way around this is pull a paddle before you plan to set off and manually fire-up the gas engine.

I'd like a comfort (or non-sport) mode where the gas engine remains on when stationary or something like stationary + hard brake pressure means engine off, I'm not going anywhere quickly, stationary + light brake pressure means keep the engine running I want to move quickly.

[iHyperMiler]

Am not sure what the problem is. If you kickdown in E Drive the ICE will still kick in and help accelerate plenty. So no problem unless you actively mess with the shifting at that very moment.

[NGR]

Originally Posted by iHyperMiler

Am not sure what the problem is. If you kickdown in E Drive the ICE will still kick in and help accelerate plenty. So no problem unless you actively mess with the shifting at that very moment.

There's still a lag because you move on e-power initially then a short delay while the gas engine fires up - you're halfway across the road/interchange before the gas engine has started and hooked up power to the rear wheels. Do this when wet and and your front will struggle for traction waiting for the gas engine to sort itself out. If you've already started the gas engine, you have all four wheels getting power and you don't need to floor it and move off nicely and with AWD.

It's ok if you're setting off in a straight line but if you're crossing traffic, my arse twitches like a rabbit's nose.

[drlonline]

On a somewhat similar note, do any of you i8 owners have trouble with regulating the braking at very low speed? I had one for a test drive, and found when trying to ease into a parking spot at very low speed, the braking was rather jerky. This was done in normal mode. I suspect this may be related to the regenerative braking system, but am curious if others have had to deal with this and found it troublesome.

[ChiTownM]

Originally Posted by drlonline

On a somewhat similar note, do any of you i8 owners have trouble with regulating the braking at very low speed? I had one for a test drive, and found when trying to ease into a parking spot at very low speed, the braking was rather jerky. This was done in normal mode. I suspect this may be related to the regenerative braking system, but am curious if others have had to deal with this and found it troublesome.

Not at all, regardless of mode.

[iHyperMiler]

Originally Posted by NGR

There's still a lag because you move on e-power initially then a short delay while the gas engine fires up - you're halfway across the road/interchange before the gas engine has started and hooked up power to the rear wheels. Do this when wet and and your front will struggle for traction waiting for the gas engine to sort itself out. If you've already started the gas engine, you have all four wheels getting power and you don't need to floor it and move off nicely and with AWD.

It's ok if you're setting off in a straight line but if you're crossing traffic, my arse twitches like a rabbit's nose.

Sorry, but not normal. Electric Drive with close to zero delay, 0 to 30 time I would guess somewhere around 4 s in E Mode? The computer can show the kWh applied.

[NGR]

Originally Posted by iHyperMiler

Sorry, but not normal. Electric Drive with close to zero delay, 0 to 30 time I would guess somewhere around 4 s in E Mode? The computer can show the kWh applied.

Yup, no delay in e-drive mode but you need to be aware of what mode you're in and what power is available at what time, e.g. if you're pulling out of a junction quickly in the wet, my thought process is something like:

(1) e-drive: no delay, I'll move off with good power but likely get wheel-spin and TC will slow me down - problem and arse is twitching
(2) Comfort mode: see #1 but gas engine will kick-in shortly after and I'll start moving faster and with AWD - still a problem and likely arse twitching
(3) Comfort mode with gas engine already running: see #2 but no lag and instant AWD - no problem
(4) Sport mode: see #3 but more power - no problem, lots of traction, lots of noise, smug look on face.
(5) I've just engaged or disengaged e-drive: Going nowhere at all, likely end up in hospital and have an i8 minus the front end.

In the dry it's fairly similar but #1 is less likely to break traction.

[JasH]

I've not had the problems listed in the few posts above. Braking is smooth, and I can modulate regen/physical brakes as required by watching the gauge.

No pauses moving off, but then I never switch to e-drive at critical points. I can confirm that switching does cause a physical gear shift at the front motor, so it will need a couple of seconds.

Any time I know I need to move quickly, I always bump the gear lever to Sport beforehand. Maximum power and 4WD traction, and you can't go wrong.

[Taxdr1965]

I do find the brakes a bit touchy. You get used to it. My son drove it and could not get used to the brakes