BMW i3 a cautionary tale

[forgotusername]

I bought a nearly new BMW i3 a couple of months ago. I love the car. It's a pleasure to drive and economical too. However, dealing with a puncture has not been foremost in my mind until the other day when a rear tyre suffered a rapid loss of pressure. Somehow it incurred a 3mm slit in the sidewall about 200 yards from home and by the time it got to my drive the tyre was flat.

Of course there's no spare, just a can of sealant and a pump to re-inflate the tyre and get you to the nearest repairer. As I was at home I decided to save the sealant for a puncture miles from home and get a mobile repair. The man arrived next day with the tyre but said he couldn't do the repair as I didn't have the special jack point plug. This is a rubber, rectangular projection about the size of a matchbox cast onto a 60mm disc. This fits into the jacking point under the car which is shaped like a small inverted box made of hard plastic. It seems BMW don't think you'll need one so it isn't supplied with the car but they don't bother to tell you to get one as it will be needed unless you go to a BMW dealership. By not being able to fit the tyre the mobile fitter is charging me a call out fee which to be fair, I knew might occur. The reason for not proceeding is that damage to the jacking point as a result of not inserting the plug could be very costly and the mobile fitter wouldn't take the risk.

So what next? I called my local tyre dealer and enquired if they had the right tyre in stock. No, but it can be ordered in next day. Does my tyre dealer have the jack plug? No, owners have to provide this along with the wheel locking nut key that is supplied with the car. I've ordered a jack point plug at the princely cost of £8.When it arrives I can jack up the car, remove the wheel, take it to the tyre repairer and return to refit the wheel to the car.

I'm left wondering what would have happened if I had a puncture 50 miles from home. Yes, I could repair the tyre using the sealant but there would be no point driving to a tyre dealer as it would be unlikely they would have the jacking plug nor would they have my tyre in stock. That's fine if you know the score as you can drive home and make arrangements there (or go to a BMW dealership and get charged their prices) so I'm posting this message to let others know it's not as straightforward as BMW think. The i3 is a great car but if you buy one, make sure you have a jacking plug.

[AsleepInYorkshire]

And a spare tyre in the garage?

AiY

[Sobraon]

I *think* the pads are standard on BMW and about £2 from HK ( £7 UK) £8 specifically for the i3 pad from Amazon. For the fitter not to have one is bad (no ... very bad, IMHO). I didn't get the rubber pads with my last 2 BMWs but bought a couple from China via EBay when I got the cars.

A little OT but if you have the time to write a review of the i3 I would love to read it as it is certainly on my list as a potential next car.

[PhaseThree]

The requirement for a specialist jacking disk seems to be the same for all modern BMWs - My 5-seies definetely needs one. I bought one from ebay so I could work on the car at home if required. I think the stange thing here is that you tyre supplier does have one or something similar. I have had no problem with having tyres changed at our local specialists.

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Being an avid maintainer of our own "fleet" of cars, we only purchase cars known to be very reliable + easy to work on.

And the first thing we check, is that wheels can be easily removed for tyre changing, e.g. no broken wheel locking nuts, and no alloys seized onto the wheel hubs.

Tyres are the point of contact with the road, so to my mind, one of the most crucial aspects of driving experience.

Matt

[JoyofBrex8889]

Tyre sealant is pretty useless stuff anyway, I find. A jacking point that doesn’t jack is just terrible design.
When you have a flat tyre and things are getting stressful, that’s the last thing you want.

I once spent half a day without water on a hot Greek motorway verge in August following a tire problem. There was no spare in the hire car, just a can of spray sealant that did nothing to fix my problem. A jack,a tyre iron, and a spare would have seen me at my destination half an hour late. Instead I got to wait 4 hours in the baking sun with a pissed off family without any shade whatsoever. The police turned up, got angry with me for blocking the hard shoulder and then left. Then it became apparent the tow truck sent by the roadside assistance company was intent on fobbing me off over the phone in Greek because it was a public holiday. Not a good day out, sunstroke all round and as I had booked the car, I got the blame.

Since that I have taken to adding water and a space saver spare to my own vehicles instead of sealant, and have checked out the tyre iron and jack for usability. One car (Peugeot 307sw) I owned had a real spare wheel. Cue false sense of security: On inspection I found the release mechanism relied on a wire cord attached to a winding point inside the boot. The wire had corroded so badly that it could not physically release the wheel. I had to grind through the wire to actually cause it to release. Needless to say, I flogged the car pretty quickly after that. God knows what else had rusted solid but I didn’t want to find out the hard way.
.

[DrFfybes]

The requirement for a specialist jacking disk seems to be the same for all modern BMWs - My 5-seies definetely needs one. I bought one from ebay so I could work on the car at home if required. I think the stange thing here is that you tyre supplier does have one or something similar. I have had no problem with having tyres changed at our local specialists.

Am I right in assuming that an pretty essential and extremely cheap spare part is not supplied by the manufacturer on cars costing £30-£50k, and yet doubtless they supply a towing eye and a triangle as standard?

That really is ridiculous.

Paul

[supremetwo]

By not being able to fit the tyre the mobile fitter is charging me a call out fee which to be fair, I knew might occur. .

Did he warn you in advance that he did not have a disk and ask if you did?

If not, a call-out charge is an unfair contract term.

[PhaseThree]

[quote="DrFfybes"][quote="PhaseThree"]The requirement for a specialist jacking disk seems to be the same for all modern BMWs - My 5-seies definetely needs one. I bought one from ebay so I could work on the car at home if required. I think the stange thing here is that you tyre supplier does have one or something similar. I have had no problem with having tyres changed at our local specialists.[/quote]

Am I right in assuming that an pretty essential and extremely cheap spare part is not supplied by the manufacturer on cars costing £30-£50k, and yet doubtless they supply a towing eye and a triangle as standard?

That really is ridiculous.

Paul[/quote]

Should have been clearer. They are not essential. The commercial tyre outfits typically use large rubber pads/cussions on their jacks which do the same thing (not BMW specific). The BMW part allows you to jack your car using a cheap scissor jack without risk of damaging the car or of the car slipping of the jack. On my car (fitted with runflats) this part was not included, neither was any type of jack. Triange, towing eye, yellow jacket and first aid kit were included as standard.

[forgotusername]

Yes, the car came with a towing eye, warning triangle, pump and sealant. No spare wheel, jack or wheel brace on grounds of weight saving no doubt. Rubber jacking pad weighs next to nothing so no excuse there. My other BMW has same jacking point and I've had new tyres fitted without ever being asked for a pad. Of course that car is not a lightweight carbon fibre job so perhaps an ordinary trolley jack would not cause damage without the pad.

Re. the mobile fitter, no he didn't ask for the pad nor did anyone tell me I needed one. I found out by looking up how one is supposed to change a wheel. My wife whom I had briefed because I had to go out, asked if he had one as they were supposed to be used. He phoned his supervisor who told him not to proceed.

At the time I didn't realise all BMW's have to same jack point. If I'd known I would have argued more forcibly that the fitter should have had one or done what he normally does when he changes a wheel on a BMW.

I'll be taking it up with the mobile firm.

[forgotusername]

Despite making a strong argument for not being to blame for the lack of a jack point plug, I got charged £40 because the fitter (who didn't carry one) was unwilling to jack up the car unless I signed a waiver in case of damage (which he was at pains to point out might be very costly).

My contention was that since most BMW's have the same jacking system, it's not unreasonable to expect to need a jack plug when attending a BMW and given that they cost peanuts, the fitter should have had one.

Nevertheless, I'm £40 poorer but a little wiser.

I will never use tyresonthedrive.com again and would not recommend their service to anyone else.

[bungeejumper]

I will never use tyresonthedrive.com again and would not recommend their service to anyone else.

I had three tyres fitted by tyresonthedrive last year, and it was a total shambles from start to finish. Besides my two front tyres, I wanted the offside rear changed. (The nearside rear, OTOH, was in good shape with 10K plus left in it.)

Leave it to me, sir, he said, as he started work. When I came back out, I found that he'd changed the (good) nearside rear and left the worn offside rear on the car. I protested, and the eejit said it was too late to correct his error now because he'd damaged the beading during the removal. He did, however, suggest that he could make things right by moving one of the two new front tyres onto the back of the car and …….. (wait for it...) putting the worn rear tyre onto the front. Which, as I pointed out, would have been a fat lot of good.

Unfortunately I had to head off to mid-Wales the next morning, but as luck would have it the worn tyre wasn't so bad as to be urgent. I had no sooner hit the M4 than my tyre pressure indicator came on because one of my new fronts was soft.

Long story, I pumped the tyre with air and completed my journey, and then sent TOTD a stinky email. To their credit, I suppose, they phoned me within half an hour and sent out another fitter. Who found.....

…..That dozy fitter one hadn't screwed up the valve core correctly, which was why the tyre was leaking on the motorway. Thank goodness for the TPMS telling me about the low pressure. That eejit could have killed me.

BJ

[quelquod]

I have a 5-series with run on flats. No wheel changing kit supplied as standard. The BMW jacking point suits a BMW jack if you acquire one (oddly enough) which is in my experience par for the course with most manufacturers’ jacking points. The hard rubber pad is only needed if you use a jack which does not fit inside the jacking point onto the load-bearing point, as if you jack using the periphery (which is only there to prevent jack slippage) you are likely to distort it given the car’s weight. IMHO people who claim to work on BMWs should have the correct tools. Nor are they the only car where casual use of a trolley jack without careful inspection can cause damage. FWIW I have the £5 rubber plug for my trolley jack but my ancient non-BMW screw jack fits inside the jacking point OK and lifts the car quickly using a battery drill to operate it.