BMW 330e

BuzzFish wrote: »

My latest fill. Very impressed. I have a charger at home and we have chargers in work so the only petrol mileage is when we head across the country some weekends. I also find on pure EV mode, even though it has just 80bhp, the torque is huge so it feels a LOT more. Hard to beat from the lights, even without the engine.

Well there's your answer as to how many miles/ klms you are doing, with regard to oil changes at any rate, but bear in mind that oil/ filter changes are not just the only changes made in a service...I would imagine that any BMW main dealer would have the official servicing schedule.

Leonard Hofstadter wrote: »

Oil degrades over time regardless of mileage covered, depending on usage and how much time the engine is running it may not be necessary to change it every year but I wouldn't leave it go much beyond that on the same oil anyway.

A good point was made above, depending on how the car is used the engine may not warm up that much or get as warm as it would in an ordinary car, so that would actually mean more wear and tear on the engine than an ordinary car - most engine wear occurs when the engine is warming up.

Equally if you were always charging it before a drive and did lots of short journeys, the engine may never come on whereas an ordinary car may have lots of cycles of the engine being warmed up and cooled down - in that scenario you're being much kinder to the engine than you would be if you were driving an ordinary car so you could go a lot further on the same oil.

Interesting points I had considered myself.

I was very disappointed to see that the battery cooling does NOT heat the engine. I had assumed that the water used to cool the batterypack would be used to warm the engine instead of going straight to radiator. I plugged in my ODB2 gizmo with the torque app and after running 25kms on battery the engine had not heated a single degree. This is something I worry a little about when I'm accelerating past 80 hard and the engine comes in to support the battery.

On the other point, the service interval (for oil change) is dropping inline with mileage increase regardless of the fact do run a lot on battery. My Audi A4 had much longer intervals also.

Hi folks, I'm now a proud owner of the 330e. I brought one in from the UK last week.

Quick question on the charger you get with it. It's very hap hazard, and am wondering is there some order I need to do, when connecting it up. Last night I had a bit of trouble charging it. Both the 'Ground Present' and 'Charging Fault' lights were flashing on it. I tried disconnecting/reconnecting it several times. Turned the ignition off/on. Changed the charge settings from Maximum and back...... until eventually I got the constant green light on 'Charging'!

Anyone know what might be up here? One thing I did notice when charging was that it was on full charge within 3 hours, from a 1 bar start to full charge, with 21km range?!! I don't know if that's the norm either?

Thanks. Spoke to my buddy who's an electrician, and is actually fitting an outdoor socket tomorrow, says he'd do a test on it when spurring it off to fit the outdoor one. He thinks it's possibly an issue local to the socket

When I got home earlier, I stuck it on charge without any trouble. It started charging first time!

Super car by the way, and so fun to drive. Daily commute is a touch over 20km round trip, so I nearly get the full distance on a full battery at a moderate pace, with moderate traffic on route

MaceFace wrote: »

Got my 162 330e serviced yesterday. 60k km on the clock. Serviced under service agreement that came with the car
I was expecting a call about something that needs replacing, but call never came.
When I collected it I was told the brakes were at 10mm and 12mm (IIRC), "so they must be reasonably new".

Actually, I have never replaced the pads, so I guess the regenerative braking is very good on the car.

A bonus I guess.

I was told on a service last year in Colm Quinns that my rear brake pads had 10mm left on them when they actually had 3mm and needed to be changed.

MF290 wrote: »

Might be a silly question but will the car run more or less as a standard petrol when the batteries give in if new batteries aren't fitted?

Apparently you'll always be able to get the full power out of them, so it's never the case that it will be like a 320i (which uses the same engine) except with a lot more weight to blunt the performance, it's set up in such a way that you can still get the boost from the battery if you need it. What is different is you won't be able to drive in electric mode and the corresponding increase in fuel usage.

MaceFace wrote: »

No auto hold as you describe it but it’s an auto gear box so you can’t roll back unless you manually choose neutral or reverse, which you would never really do in the situations you mention.

Thanks for that.. so that means in stop start traffic if I was to stop using the foot break the car would then start creeping forward towards the car in front of me unless I used the handbreak or put it in neutral.. might seem like I’m over reacting but that would almost be a deal breaker for me being so used to auto hold

Mine is an auto and has Hill-Start Assist so no need to use the handbrake except at the start and end of your journey. In auto it does not rollback on hill, foot brake to accelerator only :-)

User1998 wrote: »

Thanks for that.. so that means in stop start traffic if I was to stop using the foot break the car would then start creeping forward towards the car in front of me unless I used the handbreak or put it in neutral.. might seem like I’m over reacting but that would almost be a deal breaker for me being so used to auto hold

I think people are missing the point you’re trying to make.

What you’re saying is when you come to a full stop you just take your foot off the brake because the electric handbrake has kicked in.

And no, this won’t happen on the manual handbrake. So yes, you will have to either keep your foot on the break, or pull the handbrake etc

Moe1013 wrote: »

So I've just pressed the button on a new model. I have been driving an older model for three years..It was all very interesting..

I was not expecting to be impressed by the changes in the new model. I have an msport plus 171 reg, perfect nick. Driving a similar new one I was struck how much better the steering, suspension (adaptive) and quietness was. The interior and displays were finally up to standard too. The main draw for me was the bigger battery though.

All very interesting but I wasn't expecting to buy as I was anticipating a rubbish trade in deal. Particularly from my previus experience. I was very much wrong. Transpires 2nd hand 330e's are very much in demand and judging by the figures I got, easily sold. Pretty much the opposite of what the naysayers were predicting when I bought the thing. I presuming a hefty enough discount from BMW was in there somewhere but it was quite obvious they really wanted to sell the things.

In the end the deal I got was far better than I could have anticipated, so one excited customer. Good news for those owning too, these things have some value (well, at the moment anyway)

Anyone else have recent dealer experiences?

Good to hear. I do think the G20 is a big improvement on the F30 on a number of fronts, but the biggest step forward has got to be with the 330e. There's a big (albeit only temporarily available) upgrade in power and obviously the battery range is double the old car (probably more than that really because the new car is tested under the stricter WLTP cycle not the NEDC).

I do agree that the interior is mostly a massive step forward also, although I much prefer the instrument cluster of the old car, much easier to read the fuel gauge, speedo and so on, it's also a more traditional BMW layout. I'd prefer the traditional parking brake the old car has also, one less thing to go wrong.

I have heard great things about the improvements in the driving experience, particularly the steering. If you've driven an older BMW with hydraulic power steering, you'd see why I love the old ones so much - it's reassuringly heavy compared to most modern cars but the level of feedback it provides the driver is just unrecognisable compared to many modern cars. The G20 is meant to be much closer to the old BeeEms for feedback so hopefully they've finally cracked electric power steering. (I'm told Porsche's electric power steering is nearly as good as hydraulic also.)

I'd definitely love to drive one some time that's for sure.

Best of luck with it:)!

Can anyone tell me if the older 330e (2016 - 2019) has Apple CarPlay?

Thanks

Ludikrus wrote: »

Can anyone tell me if the older 330e (2016 - 2019) has Apple CarPlay?

Thanks

Officially it needed the enhanced bluetooth option, then it cost an additional €300 from the connected store.

For a while it was an easy retrofit with a bit of coding (via USB) and the addition of a wifi aerial to the head unit. Unfortunately, the USB coding route was locked out late last year.

It still can be coded with OBD but I believe this can cause issues with dealer updates, the other option is an add on unit.

Looking at the VRT for the 330E on ukcarimports.ie, they list is as €3000+.
When I try calculate it myself I get ~€900.

Is the ukimports number incorrect or am I doing something wrong?

I'm considering importing a 2016 330e.

Has there been any issue popping up with these older hybrids once past warranty?

Is maintenance/servicing more expensive for a hybrid compared to a normal petrol/diesel? Will I have to go to a main dealer for a service rather than my local guy?