[Jimrod]

Hi guys,

I'm due to find my next lease car soon (11th November old one goes back) as lead times are getting pretty long. I was hoping for an Ioniq 5 or EV6 but grant changes have pushed them well out of contention and only really left the likes of Zoe's, ID3's or another of my current car - BMW i3.

I was pretty keen on the ID3 but seeing the huge number of faults and issues even with press cars has really given me concerns - I'm aware of updates but seeing varying reports of their effectiveness. The interior on the lower specs looks pretty low rent (especially coming from a pretty nice i3), touch controls flaky etc so I'm wondering how they're all going in the real world? I know the basics of ride/handling/performance/range are decent, what concerns me is the day-to-day living with it. I already know the gloss black trim is going to frustrate my OCD!

Cheers for any info and real-world experiences, especially of newer production runs!

 

[93410]

My 1st Edition was “born” in August 2020, the only physical issues have been the front bumper section not quite aligning with where it meets the side panels over the wheels, the glovebox not opening properly sometimes, and one of the rear decal stickers not aligning to the bodywork panel - that’s it.

In terms of software, it’s had every version available to date (0564, 0570, 0783, 0792) and has improved each time in terms of performance, functionality, and stability. It’s feature-complete, and works to a standard that I am happy with.

I wouldn’t swap it, it’s great to drive, I still find excuses to go out for a drive. Is it perfect? No, but what car is? Would I change some aspects of it if I could? Yes, but there’s nothing that I can’t live with.

Why not go and try one for yourself?

 

[Jimrod]

My 1st Edition was “born” in August 2020, the only physical issues have been the front bumper section not quite aligning with where it meets the side panels over the wheels, the glovebox not opening properly sometimes, and one of the rear decal stickers not aligning to the bodywork panel - that’s it.

In terms of software, it’s had every version available to date (0564, 0570, 0783, 0792) and has improved each time in terms of performance, functionality, and stability. It’s feature-complete, and works to a standard that I am happy with.

I wouldn’t swap it, it’s great to drive, I still find excuses to go out for a drive.

Why not go and try one for yourself?

Thanks for the info, I may well do that if it's even still allowed nowadays! I'd like to try the stereo (literal stereo it seems) as well since I design speakers for a living so like something at least adequate. I do think the i3 has spoiled me in some ways with the interior and a full-sized glove box etc, not the usual left-to-right hand drive conversion losses. There's a white ID3 around the corner from me and do think it looks very smart with the Derry alloys. Funny how white is now a premium colour and they've chosen the grey as standard, so little colour available on new cars!

 

[srichards]

If it's any help the stereo in the Honda E is pretty good... Range is poop! It's probably got the build quality I'd guess of the i3. Had a go in one a few months ago. Boot is minuscule but it does fold totally flat for van mode.

 

[Jimrod]

If it's any help the stereo in the Honda E is pretty good... Range is poop! It's probably got the build quality I'd guess of the i3. Had a go in one a few months ago. Boot is minuscule but it does fold totally flat for van mode.

Yeah, I really like the Honda E - as for most the range makes it a non-starter for me! Crazy thing is they take around 7kw/h of the 35 kw/h battery just for the operating system! They could easily free up an additional 15-20 miles range you'd think!

I thought there'd be loads of great new choices this year but delays and shortages mean most releases/production has been delayed and deals nearly non-existent. It's all Ioniq's, Leafs and Zoe's.

 

[srichards]

There's often Corsas around as well. They have been silly cheap - £175 a month with £175 down at times. Build quality is poor and software is poor which ruin what could have been quite a good little car.

 

[6652]

My own anecdotal evidence, on top of the above, is it’s a good car, particularly on the 2.1 software.

There are still a few minor software anomalies floating about, seemingly only since a ‘phantom update’ a few weeks ago, but any new order now would be leaving the factory with 2.3 software anyway.

I think it’s important to distinguish build quality from material quality, the two are very different. Personally, I think it’s well screwed together, and I had far more interior rattles and other issues on my particular i3, although it was a mark 1 60Ah version. It was still a nice place to sit though, mine had the brown leather interior and bamboo dash top. 👍 Overall, I find my 1st Edition a pleasant enough place to spend time, and seems to attract positive comment from people who’ve never seen one before.

There are still a few people struggling with updating older models to 2.1, but once they’re updated most stuff seems to be sorted.

A neighbour was pointing out to me the other day that there were some £250 a month lease deals he’d seen, but no idea where or for what models, but the lease prices are coming down a lot last time I looked.

 

[Talaipwros]

I thought there'd be loads of great new choices this year but delays and shortages mean most releases/production has been delayed and deals nearly non-existent. It's all Ioniq's, Leafs and Zoe's.

nothing wrong with them, Leaf e+ is a bargain and a much better car than ID3

 

[vc-10]

I think it’s important to distinguish build quality from material quality, the two are very different.

This is vital. I'll take hard plastics but an interior that's well screwed together over soft touch and rattles after 10,000 miles!

 

[Jimrod]

My own anecdotal evidence, on top of the above, is it’s a good car, particularly on the 2.1 software.

There are still a few minor software anomalies floating about, seemingly only since a ‘phantom update’ a few weeks ago, but any new order now would be leaving the factory with 2.3 software anyway.

I think it’s important to distinguish build quality from material quality, the two are very different. Personally, I think it’s well screwed together, and I had far more interior rattles and other issues on my particular i3, although it was a mark 1 60Ah version. It was still a nice place to sit though, mine had the brown leather interior and bamboo dash top. 👍 Overall, I find my 1st Edition a pleasant enough place to spend time, and seems to attract positive comment from people who’ve never seen one before.

There are still a few people struggling with updating older models to 2.1, bit once they’re updated most stuff seems to be sorted.

A neighbour was pointing out to me the other day that there were some £250 a month lease deals he’d seen, but no idea where or for what models, but the lease prices are coming down a lot last time I looked.

Thanks for that. Yeah the lease prices are reasonable - I currently pay around £280 for the i3 (£2.5k up front from memory, 10k miles/24 months) and that's the ballpark I'm looking at. I think the Family Pro Performance is probably the sweet spot though I'll have to pay more up front for alloys rather than the plastic bin-lids! The prices are fluctuating a little and gone up a touch, I think I'll realistically have to order in the next month or so, so will have to keep an eye on any deals which look good!

 

[Jimrod]

nothing wrong with them, Leaf e+ is a bargain and a much better car than ID3

On paper it looks good but for the model with the decent range/performance I've heard the ride is very harsh due to extra battery weight. Looks a little marmite too! My new office on a farm might appreciate the impressive quoted 70cm wading depth come winter though!

 

[Mr_ess_jay]

I love mine, it does exactly what it says on the tin and costs nothing to run.

5.5k into ownership and the only random bug I've noticed was the other day where miles and km were both displayed at once but that fixed itself after an hour.

No rattles or squeaks and no issues with reliability. I've had 2 front tyre punctures though which I've not had in 10 years...

I've never been stopped anywhere like I am by random people in the street to talk to me about it and lots of them don't even know its electric.

 

[loggamatt]

I heard 'ID.3' and 'speakers' so this seems like a thread for me!

First on general "is it a good car?" stuff... what you have to bear in mind with the ID.3 is that 1) it is a fairly radical departure from the 'norm' in some ways, and 2) the early software was abysmal. Those things have combined to mean there's a lot of hysteria about the car floating around on places like YouTube car review channels.

On my point 1 - you yourself have said that other cars you might have considered competitors are way more expensive. The other options you have listed as being within your price range have smaller batteries. How are VW selling long-range EVs (with a lot of new tech in them!) at such a competitive price point? Because they have clearly taken a long hard look at where to spend money on materials, etc. and where not to. They have obviously decided that EV buyers are more likely to prioritise clever technology like matrix headlights over wood interiors, and lots of leather all over the place. For me, they were right to make that call. For you? Only you can say. But if you want both things, you'll have to spend more money and get an Audi or something like that.

That said, I personally like the interior design overall. It seems light, spacious, minimalist, modern. It definitely matches my idea of what a stylish, modern interior is. But everyone's taste is different.

There are other calls they made that are just new, and different, and YouTube reviewers who jump from car to car to car clearly don't like that. There's a lot of emphasis on what is 'intuitive'. Well, the most intuitive way to do car design is to never change anything, but that's not really progress is it! Cases in point,

• Rear windows button - YouTube reviewers scream about that being unreasonable cost cutting. I think it's genius. I was forever accidentally opening rear windows in other cars, but in the ID.3 I never do. Times that I actually do want to open the rear windows from the front (which is never), it is just one additional button press.
• Steering wheel touch controls - are they as intuitive as physical buttons when you're a YouTube reviewer who only has the car for a couple of hours? Maybe not. But they are brilliant! It is so much more functional once you realise that swiping and tapping do different things and learn that. It'll take you a week or so to figure all that out, but then it is so much better.
• Volume/temperature sliders - as above. I can control music volume with one fluid hand gesture without looking at this point. So much better than old fashioned volume knobs once you get used to it.

Ok, now onto point 2 - almost every YouTube review you see was done with a car on the original software. Hence the infotainment seems horrible, laggy, fault-ridden because it was. Even for newer YouTube reviews, I think it has become so accepted as 'fact' that the ID.3 infotainment is horrible that reviewers go into planning their review thinking "oh yes, I must mention that the infotainment is horrible, because that's one of the essential things to do in an ID.3 review" before even trying it for themselves. FWIW, I think the infotainment is great! Best I've ever had on any car. Wireless CarPlay is a game changer too.

This isn't to say that the ID.3 is entirely fault free yet. There are still forum reports of issues here and there. But there are for most cars. Certainly the ID.3 has come on leaps and bounds since the early software builds and I know that my own ID.3 has been fault free and dependable for a while now (despite being a former problem child on the early software!)

Finally, onto my signature topic on this forum. One of the areas where VW seem to have cut costs that did bother me was in the audio system. Lower-to-mid spec trims don't have rear speakers at all. I also found the front speakers that it did have caused a lot of vibrations at louder volumes on bass heavy songs. If you just like casual music listening or spoken word while driving it will be fine. But if you're really into music, I think you'll find it disappointing. I remedied it for myself by sinking over £1,000 into an aftermarket audio upgrade, and it now sounds amazing.

Ok, that was quite long wasn't it? I think I'll go lie down now...

 

[Talaipwros]

On paper it looks good but for the model with the decent range/performance I've heard the ride is very harsh due to extra battery weight. Looks a little marmite too! My new office on a farm might appreciate the impressive quoted 70cm wading depth come winter though!

Ι owned an ID3 first edition, rejected it and now own a leaf e+

overall material quality, silence inside the cabin and Ride are much better in the e+

 

[Jimrod]

I heard 'ID.3' and 'speakers' so this seems like a thread for me!

First on general "is it a good car?" stuff... what you have to bear in mind with the ID.3 is that 1) it is a fairly radical departure from the 'norm' in some ways, and 2) the early software was abysmal. Those things have combined to mean there's a lot of hysteria about the car floating around on places like YouTube car review channels.

On my point 1 - you yourself have said that other cars you might have considered competitors are way more expensive. The other options you have listed as being within your price range have smaller batteries. How are VW selling long-range EVs (with a lot of new tech in them!) at such a competitive price point? Because they have clearly taken a long hard look at where to spend money on materials, etc. and where not to. They have obviously decided that EV buyers are more likely to prioritise clever technology like matrix headlights over wood interiors, and lots of leather all over the place. For me, they were right to make that call. For you? Only you can say. But if you want both things, you'll have to spend more money and get an Audi or something like that.

That said, I personally like the interior design overall. It seems light, spacious, minimalist, modern. It definitely matches my idea of what a stylish, modern interior is. But everyone's taste is different.

There are other calls they made that are just new, and different, and YouTube reviewers who jump from car to car to car clearly don't like that. There's a lot of emphasis on what is 'intuitive'. Well, the most intuitive way to do car design is to never change anything, but that's not really progress is it! Cases in point,

• Rear windows button - YouTube reviewers scream about that being unreasonable cost cutting. I think it's genius. I was forever accidentally opening rear windows in other cars, but in the ID.3 I never do. Times that I actually do want to open the rear windows from the front (which is never), it is just one additional button press.
• Steering wheel touch controls - are they as intuitive as physical buttons when you're a YouTube reviewer who only has the car for a couple of hours? Maybe not. But they are brilliant! It is so much more functional once you realise that swiping and tapping do different things and learn that. It'll take you a week or so to figure all that out, but then it is so much better.
• Volume/temperature sliders - as above. I can control music volume with one fluid hand gesture without looking at this point. So much better than old fashioned volume knobs once you get used to it.

Ok, now onto point 2 - almost every YouTube review you see was done with a car on the original software. Hence the infotainment seems horrible, laggy, fault-ridden because it was. Even for newer YouTube reviews, I think it has become so accepted as 'fact' that the ID.3 infotainment is horrible that reviewers go into planning their review thinking "oh yes, I must mention that the infotainment is horrible, because that's one of the essential things to do in an ID.3 review" before even trying it for themselves. FWIW, I think the infotainment is great! Best I've ever had on any car. Wireless CarPlay is a game changer too.

This isn't to say that the ID.3 is entirely fault free yet. There are still forum reports of issues here and there. But there are for most cars. Certainly the ID.3 has come on leaps and bounds since the early software builds and I know that my own ID.3 has been fault free and dependable for a while now (despite being a former problem child on the early software!)

Finally, onto my signature topic on this forum. One of the areas where VW seem to have cut costs that did bother me was in the audio system. Lower-to-mid spec trims don't have rear speakers at all. I also found the front speakers that it did have caused a lot of vibrations at louder volumes on bass heavy songs. If you just like casual music listening or spoken word while driving it will be fine. But if you're really into music, I think you'll find it disappointing. I remedied it for myself by sinking over £1,000 into an aftermarket audio upgrade, and it now sounds amazing.

Ok, that was quite long wasn't it? I think I'll go lie down now...

Thanks for that, great informative post! Agree on much of it! I still prefer touch buttons in many cases (don't like smeary fingermarks on gloss black trim everywhere I have to touch!) and when I designed a Bluetooth speaker with touch controls we actually reverted it to push buttons as you often didn't know if it was responding properly and the inclination was to push harder until it did.

I'm ok with an "Ok" sound system, I listen to very high end stuff all day at work so don't expect the same from a car, I've been perfectly happy with the standard system in the i3 which can similarly get a little thumpy on the door trims when really pushed. The system itself works well though with a USB containing music and while not particularly loud is nicely balanced which is far more important to me than making sub-bass etc! I love Suzuki Swift Sports I've borrowed for work numerous times from a local garage but their system is thin and harsh so inevitably gets turned right down for background radio. From what I've heard about the ID3, cost-cutting removal of rear speakers aside, the sound is not too bad.

 

[loggamatt]

Ι owned an ID3 first edition, rejected it and now own a leaf e+

And have made it your life's mission on this forum to prevent other buyers making the same mistake you did

Confirmation bias is a thing for everyone of course. My positive posts about the ID.3 are probably part-influenced by this as well. But the regularity with which you pop up on threads where people are considering buying the ID.3 to say "it's terrible! Don't do it! Buy a Leaf!" demonstrates a real commitment and passion to the cause of proving the Leaf is better than the ID.3.

Like you, I was very close to rejecting my ID.3 in the early days. I took a look around at the competition and didn't like what I saw in any of them. Either they had old fashioned, 'fuddy-duddy' design, or smaller batteries, or obsolete charging types (Leaf), or something else that seemed lacking to me. At the point of rejection, I decided to give the ID.3 one last chance after all, and I'm glad I did because it has been bullet-proof since then and I think is the best EV you can get for the money.

 

[loggamatt]

Thanks for that, great informative post! Agree on much of it! I still prefer touch buttons in many cases (don't like smeary fingermarks on gloss black trim everywhere I have to touch!) and when I designed a Bluetooth speaker with touch controls we actually reverted it to push buttons as you often didn't know if it was responding properly and the inclination was to push harder until it did.

I'm ok with an "Ok" sound system, I listen to very high end stuff all day at work so don't expect the same from a car, I've been perfectly happy with the standard system in the i3 which can similarly get a little thumpy on the door trims when really pushed. The system itself works well though with a USB containing music and while not particularly loud is nicely balanced which is far more important to me than making sub-bass etc! I love Suzuki Swift Sports I've borrowed for work numerous times from a local garage but their system is thin and harsh so inevitably gets turned right down for background radio. From what I've heard about the ID3, cost-cutting removal of rear speakers aside, the sound is not too bad.

Yeah, definitely has to be a try it for yourself thing when it comes to the sound quality. To be fair, most people on this forum have said it sounds fine and think I'm nuts to have been so bothered about it to spend the money I did (or they just think I'm nuts generally? Some combination of the two probably!). So I think odds are that you'll be at least content with it judging by common consensus on here.

 

[Talaipwros]

And have made it your life's mission on this forum to prevent other buyers making the same mistake you did

Confirmation bias is a thing for everyone of course. My positive posts about the ID.3 are probably part-influenced by this as well. But the regularity with which you pop up on threads where people are considering buying the ID.3 to say "it's terrible! Don't do it! Buy a Leaf!" demonstrates a real commitment and passion to the cause of proving the Leaf is better than the ID.3.

Like you, I was very close to rejecting my ID.3 in the early days. I took a look around at the competition and didn't like what I saw in any of them. Either they had old fashioned, 'fuddy-duddy' design, or smaller batteries, or obsolete charging types (Leaf), or something else that seemed lacking to me. At the point of rejection, I decided to give the ID.3 one last chance after all, and I'm glad I did because it has been bullet-proof since then and I think is the best EV you can get for the money.

I accept the criticism but I only popped in when he mentioned the Leaf, If prospective buyers are victims of VAG aggressive marketing, well, we need to show VAG that they should spend their money in quality and software testing rather than advertisements

You consider ID3 the best car for the money, fair enough, this is your view - perhaps until the next malfunction - and your are entitled to it and is fully respected

Like wise I can compare Leaf and ID3 as I have owned both from new and state my experience to help fellow forum-members when they compare the two.

If I can help a forum member to make an informed decision all the better for everyone.

 

[loggamatt]

I accept the criticism but I only popped in when he mentioned the Leaf, If prospective buyers are victims of VAG aggressive marketing, well, we need to show VAG that they should spend their money in quality and software testing rather than advertisements

You consider ID3 the best car for the money, fair enough, this is your view - perhaps until the next malfunction - and your are entitled to it and is fully respected
Like wise I can compare Leaf and ID3 as I have owned both from new and state this view to help a fellow forum-member when they compare the two.
If I can help a forum member to make an informed disicion all the better for everyone.

And that's fine, but it is an outlier opinion - most ID.3 buyers have chosen to keep them and not swap them for Leafs after all. Of course, a range of views are important to consider when buying a new car so there is a place for outlier opinions. I just want to make sure anyone reading it knows that there are others who had early issues with their ID.3, decided to stick with it, and are happy that they did.

 

[ChrisCross123]

I am not an owner, but hired an ID3 for a couple of days.

I agree with the other comments that the negative reviews on the interior are over stated.

The haptic feedback on the steering wheel controls in particular worked well and gave good feedback.

The biggest annoyance was it was very difficult to see what the rotary control for adjusting / folding / heating the mirrors was set to.

We drove a mix of motorway, fast single carriageway and country lanes and it was just really nice to drive.