[Goldfish120]

A short Covid19 story.

Mrs Goldfish a couple of weeks ago had a small accident, to cut a long story short she hit a curb, completely ruptured the off side front tyre resulting in vehicle having to be recovered to BMW.
After a new tyre and 4 wheel re-alignment the i3 had quite a bit of cosmetic damage and a buckled near side wheel. So car tested by BMW and all good but needed booking in to get a new rim and paintwork sorted. Car was all booked in for Friday this week.

Over the weekend I thought due to the madness of "Corona-idiots" treating the weekend like a bank holiday that we would be going into serious lock down. So Monday morning called the dealership where my Summer Wheels are in the "BMW Winter Wheel Hotel" , Anyway it turns out they are not stored at the dealership but at their central warehouse. So I thought I will not be seeing them now! (The wheels are put into a special cage all standing up which is then allocated a specific BMW part number linked to the vehicle (quite impressed as this really protects them)). They said however they would place an order on the warehouse and would call when they arrived at the dealership. I then received a call from the other dealership who was going to sort the body work saying they were shutting down and cancelled all work, so asked if they could even do the replacement buckled rim, sadly not. So it looked like the i3 was going to be semi off road now.

Tuesday morning I got a call from the dealership with the wheel hotel wheels saying they had arrived that morning. Also they were about to have a meeting as to whether they would be closing. I said can I come and get them swapped, sadly not so asked if they could just throw them in the car! They said yes.


So turned up at dealership, stayed in car park, phoned person in dealership, told me where to go, I opened boot and all doors, walked away from car, he put wheels in car thus keeping a good "social distance". So now have wheels, I have an old trolley jack in garage, have bought a BMW jack pad off ebay which arrived today. Will give the wheels a good clean and then will have to jack vehicle and fit myself. I also have a torque wrench just hope I have the right sockets.

If anyone has any tips on fitting process please feel free to share. Stay Well and wash your hands

 

[freddym]

They are wheels, just bolt them nice and tight using handtools ( no airgun).

 

[andrew*debbie]

There is a tightening sequence and torque specificion. Details should be in the owner's manual. You can download this to your phone ... Might even be in the iDrive version. Bolts should be re-torqued after a few hundred miles.

You also need to check air pressures and reset the TPMS.

 

[freddym]

The tightening sequence is exactly the same as for any 5 bolt wheel, any good mechanic will know how.

Tip, opposites in a rotating pattern. It's a good idea to tighten the bolts to at least 50% of their final value with the wheel off the ground, jam tyre with you boot. Doing this ensures the wheel and hub are properly seated. Make sure you go around the bolts on their final tightening two or three times as they will relax fractionally. Final tip, use a long handled breaker bar, 24" is a good size.

 

[Somebody]

Not an i3 but I store mine with the local ATS Euromaster. Charges £68 every swap for balancing 4 wheels.

 

[freddym]

My garden shed charges me nought, nothing😁
It not very helpful with the actual changing.
It's a good chance to clean an grease the brakes.

 

[Boxbrownie]

As far as I am aware our local dealer workshop is still open, the government dictate is essential repairs can be done by garages to keep vehicles road worthy, I’d suggest trying another BMW dealer.

Then again it may be that your not deemed an essential service soooooo.......

 

[Goldfish120]

Job done.

A few photos. Didn’t take long one I got everything ready. Torque wrench, jack etc. Resetting the Tyre Pressure Monitor was interesting. Didn’t realise you had to drive the car took a 5 mile run to get it calibrated and happy. Anyway all good.

Really notice the difference now the i3s is back on its summers, a bit quieter and amazingly engaging to drive far more fun. A very noticeable difference between the summer and winter tyre set up.

First the comparison between the i3s 19 inch Winter Tyre and rear summer tyre.

I put bricks in front and behind all the wheels which I was not working on, this worked well and had to drive car to release some bricks. So vehicle had move slightly (drive has small

These show the small rubber jack pad I purchased, seems to have protected the jacking points. However I think an aluminium one may be better as it did deform slightly.