BMW 320d or 330e

Seemingly it can tow, 1500kg braked, just googled it when I read the comment above, I had some of the same concerns about the battery when I bought my first phev nearly 5 years ago, I came to the conclusion if the car can do 30 km new, let it drop 50 % it can do 15 km, my 2017 330e still has a 100% battery best I can tell, 30km on back roads, 20-25 on national roads.

I do alot of 10 km hops, sometimes I charge during the day 42 cents a unit, charge every night on cheaper electricity 20 cents a unit , sometimes I charge when in town shopping etc 55 cents a unit but free parking, this month I have used 66 euros worth of electricity and 7.7 litres of petrol.

Comparing that to a 320d automatic on honest john getting 50 mpg, its 12 euro of a saving, not much in it, but with my driving the dpf would be fecked and I don't know if a diesel needs to warm up to get 50 mpg over 10 km, twice or 3 times a day, comparing to a petrol car its more.

Electricity should come down, petrol will go up, so more of a saving.

On the longer trips I get 40 mpg, over about 7000 km long and short trips the car is returning 176 mpg + electricity (1.6l per 100km and 15 kwh per 100 km.)

The EVanglists would prefer you buy the diesel, last thing they want to see is a phev charging, it upsets them seeing phev drivers going about there business without any of the commitment, pain, effort, waiting or anxiety, plus your doing something to save polar bears and pacific islanders, they want all of the credit.

The 330e is the nicest car I have owned the next was a lexus ct,

From personal experience, do not buy/own a 330e outside of warranty. Failure might be rare (although probably more common than owners will admit), but when it goes wrong you're stuck going back to BMW.

You may see from some of my posts that I'm telling this to anyone who will listen, but that's as a results of BMW's F-you attitude to owners of their cars outside of the 100k km warranty. They want to charge me over €200 just for the bolts that hold the battery cover as it's faster to do that than put them in a box and reuse them.

Around €4k for just one of five battery modules to be replaced in the car, but the kicker is that there is no guarantee (once they open and test each module) that I wouldn't have to replace all five modules - approx. €8k total.

It's a bit of specialist equipment to do it, sure, but the actual work on the battery is not difficult or unsafe. It's really nicely designed and individual modules, about the size of a loaf of bread can be taken out by just a few bolts, but BMW have software locked it, and refuse to sell the necessary equipment or access to reset the battery management system to independent mechanics.

In any case, mine is being repaired at the moment so I'll let you now how it goes. Under warranty - comfortable, powerful, well equipped usually, drive pretty well especially around town, but not worth the headache and cost outside of warranty.

Hi All.

Sorry to resurrect a relatively old thread, but looking for some advice.

So I'm looking at getting a used 2020 330e (currently on UK plates) from an independent dealer in Dublin. The car has 125,000 miles on the clock.

Really not familiar with EV's/PHEV at all.

I've always ever driven a diesel of some sort. I mainly WFH, and do minimal driving around the city, bar one day a week where I travel from Galway to Athlone. Would a 330e be suitable do you think?

To add, I don't have an EV charger at home, so would need to get this installed.

If your willing to charge every couple of days at home then theres no reason it wouldn’t be suitable. If you could charge in Athlone that would be a bonus.

125k miles is very high tho. Battery warranty expired. Whats your annual mileage? Less than 10k miles a year?

Battery and hybrid drive train could be an unknown quantity at that mileage and you have no manufacturer's warranty on either at that mileage. You can also be sure any warranty the dealer gives you won't cover them either if they fail.

A Lexus IS300h would be a much safer proposition or just by a regular petrol car that doesn't have the extra complexity of a hybrid system given your little driving that your not going to really benefit from it anyway.

batteries in phev and electric cars are an unknown quantity , thats the whole problem with them - we dont know how long they will last but buying a VERY high mileage one is very risky .

That was me. It's not even the fact that it had issues, it was that BMW wanted to charge exorbitant labour rates for what should have been a 2 hour job IMO, and they had software locked the car to make it very difficult for independent garages to work on them. I did find someone who, after some months of work on his own, called me back and sorted mine.

In response to abuse I got on here, telling me that lots of garages could help me and that my complaints were invalid, I did try to contact others, but all wanted to get into a discussion as opposed to giving me a yes/no answer, and I didn't want to waste their time.

Suffice to say my new (to me) car, comes with a 4 year manufacturer certified pre-owned warranty.

Do you care about resale value? I mean who is going to buy this car from you in 5 years time with 175,000 miles on the clock? Your basically stuck with it until it comes to its end of life unless you sell it extremely cheap.

Here:

https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sale/bmw-3-series-2-0-plug-in-hybrid-m-sport-auto-r/36035884?campaign=3

The BMWe battery is tiny to start with so it won't make much difference. You need to buy the one which suits your mileage.

I have an electric, early adopter so people would say I am an EV evangelist but I bought a lovely big Q7 diesel because it suited my requirements.

25k is more than just a punt.

And what dirty about modern diesel? Nothing in my eyes your just brainwashed by governments ect

They say in papers that people are dying in cities from nox pollution. But new cars on euro 6 emissions standard are very clean

https://vitronix.ie/home/hybrid-battery/

I'm not 110% sure of how the fix was done, but personally I'd be hesitant to bring the car to a BMW dealer ever again as they previously had diagnosed a problem which has now been corrected.

I’ve been watching 330e prices for a while. Its been for sale months. So have most of the other high mileage ones. 6 days ago is the last time the add was bumped to the top

+1 on Vitronix. He sorted my mate out a couple of times.

Ahh come on now. Diesel is a fuel which was meant for tractors in reality and not cars. So it's not the cleanest fuel around. but then again no car is.

But trying to put the tin foil hat on and say it's only because of the government is wrong.

If the fuel was so clean the car companies wouldn't have went to the bother of developing software to trick the tests

They cheap but don't expect main dealer service

Good to know but that was not my experience few years ago. Maybe things have changed.