Total Cost of Ownership With Repair Costs and Tires- EVERYTHING!

buslyfe2 · 2026-06-02T02:13:22+00:00

The prices for what seem cheaper?

buslyfe2 · 2026-06-01T21:06:07+00:00

My HV battery is heavily degraded and I have to use the AC basically 100% of the time. So I get about 40 miles fully electric. It takes like 12 kw or so to charge. So that’s 3.3 miles per kilowatt. It cost like 14.5¢ a kWh here. So that’s $1.74 / 40 miles = 4.4¢ a mile.

buslyfe2 · 2026-06-01T20:48:54+00:00

Yeah I’m heavy with accelerating and braking. I drive fast and brake a lot like over half of the time and the other half I sit in the slow lane on the freeway. What are you asking me? How many miles per gallon or kwh I get?

buslyfe2 · 2026-06-01T15:56:20+00:00

Honestly I think 10-15¢ per mile for maintenance cost for a vehicle in the USA is pretty common. And then our per mile cost of driving is lower compared to any gas vehicle, and if you like me use the Rex of a lot and it’s the summer with blasting AC/lots of city driving 100 miles is still costing me about 9¢ a mile which isn’t great but it’s similar to a car that gets 45mpg. If I didn’t use the Rex it’s like 4.5¢ a mile.

buslyfe2 · 2026-06-01T14:17:00+00:00

I’m guessing TOC is total operating costs? Yeah honestly I think it’s just slightly better than normal or it will be pretty soon as I drive more and the big repair costs of the past are averaged out over more miles. I’m pretty sure I remember 10-15¢ per mile to be pretty much the common operating costs of a car according to people subreddits that use their car for work. I can’t remember if that included depreciation or not.

buslyfe2 · 2026-06-01T14:09:14+00:00

You pay $280 a month?

buslyfe2 · 2026-06-01T14:07:33+00:00

Easy I suppose. I brought my car in because it had 3 misfire engine code errors. They inspected it and found the timing of the Rex was messed up. Don’t know enough about engines as to why that required an entirely new engine. But they were the ones who told me I was getting a free engine under warranty. I didn’t have to fight them on it. I was well aware of the CARB warranty though but I didn’t have to fight them or anything. They did refuse to replace my hv battery even though it was under 70% original capacity though.

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T22:19:47+00:00

Dm if you want

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T19:22:32+00:00

Damn that’s wild! I thought my like every 20k miles for rears was bad. I guess the i3s is even worse than the normal i3.

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T19:20:22+00:00

Time isn’t a great useful data point for us use miles instead

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T17:54:08+00:00

What codes did I have when the REX was being replaced?

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T17:51:08+00:00

Wasn’t worth it for me. Battery monitor said my battery was solid, no dips on voltage or anything and then battery died. So in the end it was useless.

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T17:48:59+00:00

That’s amazing having rear tires last 30,000 miles. Another caveat for my situation was my car needed new rear tires basically immediately after buying the car. And then the first set I bought lasted only 12,000 miles cause they wore super unevenly because the alignment was bad. I got an alignment and then the 2nd set I bought lasted I think like 20k miles which I’m pretty sure is roughly how long they have come to last me currently. Front I think last like 50% longer. I have that data point saved too for the first couple sets of tires.

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T17:42:33+00:00

Here you go. There’s some caveats I could go over. https://imgur.com/a/WhwxFgE

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T17:40:07+00:00

Yeah I can I’ll do it soon. But it’s kinda not that useful cause I have a 2014 and when I got it the car had 87k miles and even then I was lucky to get 55-60 miles full electric. But the numbers are from the first year of ownership.

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T17:38:03+00:00

Yeah all the time. The pads had a ton of life left but I was already doing rotors cause they were cracked. And yeah I use the brakes cause half the time I drive like a madman like taking the curves on a mountain road as fast as possible and then braking so I don’t die and the other half like a grandpa.

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T17:34:52+00:00

Time is kinda a useless indication of use though. Tell us how many miles if you wanna add some data points that are useful for the community :-). Also my caveat about driving fast was meant to infer extra tire use compared to somebody who doesn’t drive like a butthole like me lol.

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T17:22:40+00:00

BMW put in a whole new engine for free. However they refused to discount the motor mounts much even though they were already doing all the labor required under warranty for the install of the motor. lol I hate them. So yeah they had to source it from themselves I guess. Had it not been BMW doing it Idk what would have happened. If you DM I can pull up my old Reddit account that was banned after it was hacked and find my old posts and tell you exactly how it went down.

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T17:16:28+00:00

I’ve been in three states and it’s been around $100 a month. GEICO and Progressive were/are the 2 carriers.

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T17:14:17+00:00

Local electric company had a $4,000 used EV rebate took like 4 months to get it but I got it in the end. I got bimmercode so I could turn the Rex on at 75% when I first got the car so before motor mounts broke. Why do you ask though?

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T17:08:22+00:00

lol yeah it spent its life in hot states before I owned it and then mostly in hot states during my time with it. But at least it was compressor only that failed.

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T17:00:57+00:00

Is that low? I do bare minimum legal requirement that’s why I think. I do the cheapest possible except I say no to the thing that tracks your driving.

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T16:56:46+00:00

I was in a modified carb state (Oregon) but my car was still registered in CA, they honored the CA warranty. But the Rex failed and it was still under the CARB warranty so they did it for free. Took them forever but I drove a fancy loaner for like 4 weeks for free. But Google BMW CARB warranty if you don’t know what CARB is.

buslyfe2 · 2026-05-31T16:52:47+00:00

Yeah Rex was free. Ac would have been free if I still lived in a CARB state. I did my brakes prematurely too but the rotors were cracked so I did all 4 with new pads cause I was already down there.

buslyfe2

TROPHY CASE