Mark: So, today's victim is a 2014 BMW i3. We've never talked about one of these before. What was going on with this vehicle?
Bernie: Yeah, so this vehicle came to our shop with a concern of a noisy air conditioning system. When the owner turned the air conditioning on, there was a lot of racket coming from the system. Grinding, growling kind of noise coming from the system that was a little too loud to ignore.
Mark: So before we get into that, this vehicle, I think there was couple versions of it. Which version of this EV was this one?
Bernie: Yeah, this is the pure electric version. There are two versions. You can get it EV or you can get it with a range extender, which has an internal combustion engine to sort of take over things when the EV battery discharges. So with that option, you get best of both worlds. You can drive a long ways without charging, but of course then you have to fill up gas and you have the extra complexity of an internal combustion engine system in the vehicle. This is the pure EV, the simpler version.
Mark: So is there anything different as to how the air conditioning system works?
Bernie: Well, the air conditioning is run off the electrical system. So it's an electric AC compressor, whereas in a traditional internal combustion engine vehicle, it's a belt driven compressor run off the engine. So the compressor does actually draw a fair amount of power. So, you know, on an EV system, it will actually draw a fair amount of power as well. But it's done electrically through the high voltage battery system.
Mark: So you did some diagnosis. What did you find on this air conditioning system?
Bernie: Well, the first thing we tested, of course, is there refrigerant in the system? We tested the pressure, basic operating pressures were normal. And then we listened for noise when it was running, it was pretty clear the compressor itself was causing the noise and something inside the compressor was worn out. So we opted to replace the compressor.
Mark: What kind of mileage was there on this vehicle?
Bernie: You know, I don't know off the top of my head. It's a 2014, so yeah, I actually don't know. I should have researched that for you and we can put it in the show notes if we need to. It's 10 years old, let's put it that way.
Mark: Let's look at some pictures. So what are we seeing here?
Bernie: So what we're looking at here, this is under the hood, under the front of the vehicle. There's a little storage compartment that sits on top. And when you remove that, this is all the valving for the AC system. So we can see that the blue and red hoses are our diagnostic equipment and discharge and recharge hoses. So from this, we can evacuate the gas in the system, recharge it. And if we look sort of in the centre, sort of to the right of the red valve. Yeah, you're moving your thing around there. This is the valving for the AC system to control the temperatures and pressures in the system. The compressor is located in the rear. This is all up front.
So here we're looking at the compressor. This is the old one before we removed it. I would say there's a couple of options for repair and we ended up opting to put a used one in. We can talk about that in a minute, but this is the compressor. We're sort of looking underneath the vehicle. Up at the left side of the motor, I'll call it the motor compartment, not the engine compartment. And that's the compressor.
There's another view of it. Those two orange cables are the high voltage cables that go to the compressor. And then there's a smaller connector on top of the compressor where it receives electrical signals to turn it on or how much speed to operate it at. And then there's, of course, the air conditioning pipes, which are sort of, well, I guess on the right hand side of the compressor, you can just sort of see in shadow. Yeah, right there. Those are the AC pipes coming off the compressor.
Mark: So how difficult a repair was this?
Bernie: Well, once the system's evacuated, it's not too difficult. I mean, it bolts out fairly easily. And actually there's not too much in the way of getting the compressor out. So it's a bit of work, but certainly not as bad as it could be. Actually fairly straightforward remove and replace of the unit. There's seals that need to be replaced and a few bolts and bits and pieces, but other than that, it's pretty straightforward.
Mark: So, once the compressor is replaced, everything's working fine?
Bernie: Yeah, it's all good. Nice and quiet. What we did find when we discharged the system, is it was a bit low in refrigerant. So, once the refrigerant gets low, it could have caused the compressor to wear out prematurely, but it could have nothing to do with it as well. As it's electric motor driven, it had a sound that we don't normally hear on a gas powered compressor. So my suspicion is the electric motor is probably something had packed it in with the electric motor that drives the compressor itself, the compressor itself. Yeah.
Mark: Another happy customer.
Bernie: Another happy customer.
Mark: So BMW i3, is this a pretty rare vehicle? It's a square looking little vehicle. How are they for reliability?
Bernie: Well, we don't see a lot of them. There aren't a lot of them around, so we haven't worked on too many of them, a couple here and there, but so far, they seem to be pretty good. And, you know, the thing with EVs is that we're just going to find over time that certain parts and pieces wear out. Random things will go wrong and you know, they'll need to be repaired. They're generally pretty reliable. You can drive them. You should service them and have them inspected for steering suspension issues, brakes, tires, those kinds of things.
It's important to have the car looked at. Generally repairs are going to be something that just happened on an as needed basis, like this particular vehicle.
Mark: There you go. If you're looking for service for your BMW in Vancouver, the guys to see are Pawlik Automotive, you can reach them online at pawlikautomotive.com. You can book your appointment right there. They'll get back to you. They'll get ready for your appointment. Or you can call them at (604) 327-7112 to book your appointment. You have to book ahead. They're always busy. Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Thanks for watching and listening. Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thanks Mark. Thanks for watching.
