330e Battery out of warranty

I sold my 330e, 2017 70000km, just got a 2 series phev, very happy with both, I would probably sing a different tune if the battery gave trouble, Its a popular car and a lot of them on autotrader, donedeal with high miles, I would love to know the % of failures.

Doing some searching on repairs I came across this crowd,

they rebuild the most common types of hybrids, also Mitsubishi and BMW, prices start at 3200 euro for BMWs 2012-2018 .

Agreed, I don’t like how the poster tells everyone to completely avoid out of warranty 330e because of their one issue. Like I said, its probably a less than 1 in 100 event and people shouldn’t be too put off by it.

If its such a rare event, why is the battery excluded from the approved used warranty. Would seem to be a complete own goal by bmw...... unless of course the insurers sh1t the bed over associated claim coats.

It is pretty crap.that bmw have all these systems locked down but I don't believe they can prevent repairs to modules or even repairs to battery where a basic cell is replaced without altering any of the electronics.

The company above offering battery repairs on units up to 2018 might just be down to the 6 year warranty from bmw covering most of the newer stuff.

Expecting someone to be ok about having 8k put aside for the privilege of driving something that is borderline mass market car is drivel.

Perhaps my advice is bit black and white, and borne out of personal experience than statistical likelihoods of a problem happening - but you don't have those stats either.

What I do know is the following:

1. BMW themselves told me it was common enough. When I asked the mechanic, whether in his experience I'd likely be looking at the high or low end of the €4-8k range, he said, to paraphrase "done a good few of these now, normally just one module, so hopefully it's the low end, but your battery is fairly bad. I give the report to the guys in Germany and they make a decision".
2. The place I did bring it to be fixed (eventually) had so much interest from others with the same problem, that the owner of the company actually bought a working car for himself to help reverse engineer the issue, and that when I was in the workshop, there was still one totally disabled 330e, and another BMW hybrid model sitting waiting to be fixed.

Yes, I did say in my post that it was impossible for third parties to work on it - which isn't entirely true. However, there is one place in Ireland, who can only fix certain issues, I got no warranty (that has since changed, but comes at a price), and the car can never go near BMW again as far as I'm aware, lest a software update disable the fix. It's not back to 100%, but tbh is in a good condition. It still costs a fortune, but does at least seem to be capped below the BMW lower limit.

Secondly, the owner of the company who did fix it, told me he didn't want it advertised, as BMW themselves might have issue with it and try to stop him. It seems since, that he's changed his mind, and is now advertising. I had actually PM'd someone else who was looking for advice in the meantime though.

As for your thoughts on keeping €8k lying around should a problem arise, that's fine if it were a part that cost that, and I actually got some usage from this premium part before it broke.

But it's isn't, it's a €644.07 + VAT part, which costs over €3k to fit because reasons. Oh, and to add insult to injury another €227 + VAT for replacement bolts - none of which are torqued to any serious level so could be reused, but who cares when a customer is paying. I could afford the fix no problem, I just refused to as it's taking the piss out of me for what should be a warranty issue if BMW wanted to maintain their reputation.

As you probably notice, I don't really seem to care about absolutely slating my own car's resale value, and by extension yours too. You seem to be much more concerned about that than I am. Can you not afford it or something?

So you’ve basically been lying the whole time and you knew all along that it could be repaired outside of BMW? And not only that, you actually got it repaired outside of BMW too? Yet still insisted here that it was main dealer only costing €8k+ ?

Very strange post all together, why don’t you tell us all where you got it repaired and how much it cost to repair? I would love to know myself for future use and it would definitely help other posters here too. Instead of scaring them out of BMW ownership.

The whole time? You mean one post in this thread, which I then corrected?

To my knowledge, my car was the first in Ireland with this issue to be fixed outside of the BMW network, a matter of weeks ago. Yes, I should have said "nigh on impossible", but I know too that not all issues can be fixed still, and (up to a few weeks ago), there was another bricked car sitting in the same workshop, after another garage messed up trying to fix it. I waited about 6 months from first calling, for a fix to be devised.

I got it fixed by Vitronix. At the time he specifically said that he didn't want it advertised as they were unsure if they could stand over the work. I won't say how much I paid, as I got a discount for A) being a guinea pig, and B) no warranty, but it was still in the thousands, and battery capacity (kWh, not range) is still down about 45% from when it was new.

Will either of those open up a battery and replace a module do you know? I'd love to hear that they could, but I spent a long time calling every garage I could find, including those two you mention - they couldn't help. Maybe that has since changed - I'll check it out again and report back.

Even putting a battery from a crashed car is problematic, because the contactors cannot be reset without a BMW EOS Tester, which are in very short supply. I found one in the UK, but would have required me to bring the car there, and purchase a second hand, untestable battery.

I made a warranty enquiry with bmw in relation to a 2017 740e they have for sale.

They came back after going away to check and stated that there is 2 year warranty on the high voltage battery from date of sale.

This seems to be at odds with what is stated here.

Check the service history and do a history check and it will show any mileage discrepancies.

Tell the seller to fully charge the battery and take it on a good test drive.

Pretty sure that engine uses a timing chain not a timing belt?

I'd agree - a friend of mine with a much lower mileage, but otherwise identical 330e to mine has just had a bill in the thousands (although less than the €7k BMW quoted), and weeks without the car, to sort an issue with the EME that caused a total lockout of the HV system, meaning that the 12V system wasn't being charged, so the car died on the road.

I posted before as to why I was at first cagey about suggesting (to anyone who read this pubic page for years to come) that you could go outside of a BMW main dealer to have issues fixed - but given that Vitronix are now advertising this service themselves, and seem to be able to fix more than one issue, they're who I'd recommend.

https://vitronix.ie/home/hybrid-battery/bmw-plug-in-hybrid/

Still, I wouldn't be buying and BMW PHEV out of warranty - failures just seem too common.

I know this is kind of anacdotal, but your man Vitronix put a video on TikTok of his workshop full of BMW 330e in for hybrid repairs. Like 5 or 6 cars. So they must be failing somewhat regularly outside of warranty

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGepQb6gk/