It’s a seller’s worst nightmare: You put a car up for sale for dirt cheap because it’s broken. Then someone stops by, pays you, and then immediately fixes the car, adding $3,000 in value in just three minutes. That’s what happened to a Sacramento-based BMW i3 seller, and it’s also what happened to me except I was on the fixing side of the equation. Here’s what happened with both the i3 owner and me in these “mechanic’s special” situations.
The article was titled “Here’s What Happened When I Drove 500 Miles To Pick Up A Free Car,” and it’s one hat picked up so much steam, it led Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame) to tweet it out onto his page:
.@Jalopnik writer drives 500 miles for free Jeep, renews my faith in humanity. https://t.co/EB3uJbHeNg
— Adam Savage (@donttrythis) June 27, 2017
As you can probably surmise by the tweet and my introduction, I managed to fix the car in question, which had been offered to me for free by an Ohio State University college student who thought his engine had blown up and who had no space to fix it. I drove around four hours from Detroit to pick up the Jeep, only to realize that the issue was that the flex plate bolts had backed out of the torque converter. So I simply screwed those things back in and voila! The Jeep fired up like a dream.
Here’s a look at the “concerto of mechanical decrepitude,” as the young seller put it:
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Now behold the repaired machine:
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You may be wondering if I had any interest whatsoever in driving that free Jeep away and thus scoring the Deal Of The Century. And the answer is: Absolutely not. At no point did I ever think that the right thing to do was to fix the Jeep in 20 minutes and then drive it away as the seller looked on, upset that he hadn’t been able to diagnose and repair the vehicle on his own. It’s not a matter of whether or not it’s acceptable — certainly it would be acceptable had I driven off — it’s a matter of whether or not I want to upset someone else, and I don’t. Perhaps if I were in a tougher financial situation I’d weigh scoring a hot deal higher than my unwillingness to upset others, but given the situation I was in at the time as an entry-level writer living near Detroit, the right move was clear as day.
I bring this up because recently I was considering buying a broken BMW i3. Here, check out the listing:
The vehicle was listed as a “MECHANIC’s SPECIAL,” with the full description mentioning what the seller thought was wrong with the electric BMW:
I have a 2014 BMW i3 60Ah with the range extender engine (REX). If you see this ad, then the car is still available. This is being sold as-is and is a MECHANIC’s SPECIAL and I believe needs the EME motor controller repaired or replaced (it is also known as a motor inverter). I have a clear and clean title, with no liens. Interior is in like-new condition with no scuffs, no scratches, no tears. Rear seat are like new since it hardly ever had any rear passengers. I still have the original factory window sticker which has been laminated (photo shown in this ad).
EME is short for “Electric Motor Electronics,” (which includes the inverter that converts DC current from the battery to AC for the motor) and it is covered by California’s mandatory Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle (PZEV) warranty, but only up to 10 years, 150,000 miles. This 2014 i3 for sale has nearly 170,000 miles on the clock.
The seller describes what led to the failure:
Here’s the current problem. During the heat wave in early August, I was driving on the freeway and suddenly a warning light popped up on the dash saying “Transmission Malfunction” but the car kept driving normally. Got it home, parked it, fully recharged it overnight. By morning, the car shuddered when I put it into reverse or drive. After trying a few times, the car now won’t move at all. After doing my research online, it looks like either the motor position sensor has gone bad (buried inside the motor), or possibly the EME has a glitch (electric motor electronics, also known as the inverter), which is a module mounted on top of the electric motor. My research says that if it gets hot, the sensor or the capacitor(s) pop and gives the symptoms as I described. It’s apparently an expensive part, costing a couple thousand dollars (on eBay it looks like a used part is between $1000-3000) plus whatever ridiculous money the dealer wants for labor to install it. When I look into the engine hatch, I can see the module sitting on top of the motor. I’m pretty mechanically inclined but I don’t have the equipment or courage to tackle it, particularly as I’m worried about the high voltage battery. Nobody has tinkered with it, so it’s all original and untouched. I’ve purposely left the motor/engine bay in original slightly dusty condition so you can see that nobody has gone into it. This might be a good project car for someone who wants to fix it, or probably be good for someone who needs a good engine, battery, body, or interior parts to repair a wrecked i3.
The seller mentions that, outside of this problem, the i3 is in excellent shape, with a battery that still offers great range:
It has been very dependable up until a couple weeks ago at the beginning of August. It has a bit over 169,000 miles on it, mostly driven on the REX engine since I do a lot of highway commuting. It has fast charging capability, but I hardly ever used the fast charger to reduce wear on the battery. I carried around a personal No-Spill gas can and topped off the little onboard gas tank at rest stops. The battery pack has almost no degradation, as I avoided running it below 10% and most of the time kept the charge between 50-75% and drove it like a gas car, using the battery as a range extending buffer…basically I did the reverse of everyone else who uses this as a battery car and using the engine as the range extender. At last check when it had around 150k miles, the battery only had about a 12% degradation using an online diagnostic menu (however that menu can no longer be accessed because of the error/warning message). When the car had about 168k miles, I took a photo of the instrument cluster showing that on a full charge it was still estimating 89 miles of electric range and 118 miles on the gas tank if driven in Eco Pro mode. I drive slowly and carefully, which is why my mileage range estimates are above average. Photo of that is attached. I performed the European firmware upgrade so the full 2.4 gallon fuel tank is usable, the hold-charge function is activated which allows you to turn on the engine at any time once the battery is 75% charge or less, and the AM radio has been activated. It pretty consistently gets around 36-38MPG running on gasoline. The window sticker says the EPA rates it as 39MPG on the gas engine. I have the original owners manual. The engine runs perfect, does not burn oil, does not smoke. It received oil changes regularly and was meticulously maintained. Has a newer 12v accessory battery as well.
Air conditioner works perfect, steering and alignment is crisp and perfect, wheel bearings are excellent, no odd noises or sounds. Up until recently, it drove like a new car.
[…]
This model is fully loaded. It has the larger console display, Harmon Kardon speakers, automatic emergency braking, automatic self-parallel parking, curb distance sensors, adaptive cruise control using the front camera. I found that a good used main battery pack alone sells for around $3000-5000 on eBay, and that the wheels are worth $250-500 each. If you part it out yourself, you’ll get plenty back for your efforts. However, I don’t have the willpower or space to do that.
The rear tires are still about 90% tread remaining. The front tires are about 20% tread remaining.
Title in hand and ready to transfer. Sold as-is.
“Asking $5,000,” the seller concludes. “The car WILL NOT drive or move. The computer turns off the car when you step on the accelerator pedal as a safeguard to protect the motor due to the warning message. It must be towed away. Alternatively if someone is interested in just buying parts off of the car, let me know what you want and if I don’t sell it as a complete vehicle, I will consider parting it out.”
I emailed the seller about the car and asked if he’d had it looked at by a dealer. He replied with a negative, saying it was just going to cost too much. From the seller:
Nope, I haven’t had any professionals look at it. I already know that if I took it over to the BMW dealer, they would charge a fortune just to diagnose it, and even if they could fix it, the cost of labor would probably be something crazy. A few years ago on this car, the airbag light came on, and I took it over to Neillo BMW, the local dealership. They said it was just a sensor glitch but got the factory to approve a goodwill free driver airbag replacement anyway (I have the receipt for the work order). The bill was like $300 diagnostic (plugging in a scanner), $600 labor (basically using two rods to pop the old out out and snap the new on in and took them like 30 seconds, and $2000 for the new replacement airbag). So if the factory hadn’t done that for free, I’d be looking at a a $2900 bill for replacing a driver’s airbag. If it was a Toyota, that job would be like $300. Based on that, if the drivetrain needs diagnosing…I’d rather not even bother with having the dealer look at it because they’re going to charge me something crazy.
He told me he was worried the issue might be something silly, recounting a story of an unnecessary $8000 expenditure on an air conditioning unit for his house:
I just hope it’s not something silly, or I’d be kicking myself. About a decade ago, our house air conditioner quit working. I checked the main circuit breaker panel and it looked OK. The unit was about 8 years old so I figured it probably just wore out. I hired an HVAC shop to install a new unit, costing me about $8000. After they ripped out the old one, and did all the work to install the new one, it wouldn’t turn on. They then walked around the house and said there was a secondary breaker for the AC unit, flipped that ON and the new unit started running. I had a horrible realization that my old AC unit was probably still good, and simply tripped the secondary circuit breaker. SO….if I had a BMW dealer look a the car, it might be something simple, but even simple things at the dealer will still cost a fortune. So, I’ve just decided to see if someone wants it as a fun project car.
Sadly, the seller’s fear came true, as he followed up on my email with:
Hi I didn’t want to leave you hanging, so wanted let you know that I already sold the BMW i3. A guy from Washington drove down here and was looking to fix up the i3 for his kid’s first car. However, I thought you might be curious on what happened. The guy came with a car dolly, and brought along a buddy who is a BMW i3 enthusiast and came with a computer and cable, plugged into the OBDII socket. After looking at everything he agreed to buy it. As soon as I signed over the title, I asked if he needed help getting it on the tow dolly. Instead, he said he was going to try something. Removed the motor cover, disconnected the high voltage cable and rubbed a nail file on it, reconnected, hooked up the computer to reset. THE ERROR MESSAGE DISAPPEARED AND HE DROVE IT AWAY. It was a corroded connector on the high voltage cable! Took him like 3 minutes to fix. Oh well… At least a kid is going to have a nice first car, and I drove it plenty enough to get my value out of it.
Oh boy. That’s an absolute nightmare for the seller!
He actually told me a bit about how he felt afterwards, saying he’d done something similar to what his buyer had just done:
The thing is that I could have, but didn’t want to tinker with it. I also refused to let others come tinker with it before buying, or else someone else might have figured out the actual problem before I sold it. My logic was that if people saw that I already fiddled with the car…then anyone who legitimately wanted it as a project car would probably go away because they think that nobody else could fix it or that something is ruined. Besides, the likelihood of me tinkering and fixing it myself wouldn’t have worked. I didn’t have the BMW computer to reset the car. Moreover, even if I got it in fully working condition, the KBB private party value is only about $6000-7000 due to the high mileage. If I towed it to a BMW dealer for diagnosis, paid for the diagnostic fee, and towed it back again, just that alone would have cost me $1000. So, I figured if I could get $5000, as-is, then it’s the same as selling it for $6000-7000 after sinking money for the dealer to diagnose or fix it.
In all honesty, I’ve done something similar years ago. There was a Honda 2-cycle motor scooter that I picked up back in the 1980’s and it was really sluggish, as if the engine had low compression and no power. The prior owner had already tinkered with it, so I swapped a new carb, new intake, new spark plugs, took apart and reassembled the gearbox, etc. It still didn’t run right. By pure chance I saw some carbon buildup in the exhaust manifold and chipped away probably a tiny spec of carbon, which I didn’t think would matter much. Immediately the motor scooter ran great, had plenty of power, and started right up. Since the scooter was a bit beat-up from the former owner trying to fix it, I decided to buy a nicer one. Found another for a deep discount with a similar problem. That owner didn’t know what’s wrong and thought the engine had no compression and was basically junk, so he was selling it cheap. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t buying a lemon so I asked if I could try removing the carbon on the manifold first, and if it worked, I would buy it. We agreed on a price. I spent 15 minutes removing the muffler, chipping some carbon away, and put it back together. The scooter started right up and ran perfect! EXCEPT the owner now refused to sell it to me, but also refused to pay me for my “volunteer” work of fixing the scooter. Well, when I found another similar motor scooter a few months later suffering the same problem, and the owner was selling it for half price, I just bought it, came home, did my 15 minute repair, and got a perfectly working motor scooter out of the deal.
So, if someone knows what they’re doing, I’m not going fuss or get upset because it’s something I can’t do anyway. It would have been nice to know it was a simple fix….but the reality is it could have ended equally badly where I tinkered with it, maybe damaged something else, and now nobody wanted it. Looking at it another way, as the car already has 169k miles, even if it’s running now, it’s just a matter of time before the other mechanical stuff will need replacement. Things like the AC compressor won’t run forever, that little scooter engine I’m surprised is still operating, the wheel bearings would eventually wear out, the motor mounts will eventually crack, etc. Any one of those things would cost money to fix..
He’s a good sport, but I think the lesson to be learned here is simple: If you buy a broken “Mechanic’s Special” vehicle at a discounted price, don’t fix it in front of the seller. Certainly don’t fix the thing before they sell it, and even if they do hand over the title, fixing it in three minutes is likely to upset them. Just drag it, tow it, or roll it around the corner out of sight and then get to wrenching.
Personally, if I knew the seller had put some effort into fixing something and I knew for sure that the repair was super simple, I think telling the seller what the problem is is the nice thing to do. But that’s just my personal view.
This seller sounds like a super nice guy, but reading his notes he sure spent a lot of time and energy talking himself out of the obvious step of taking it to a professional, and then justifying it to someone who asked.
Use your AAA or insurance tow plan to get the car to the local dealer, and invest two or three hundred bucks in a simple diagnostic. IMO that’s actually way easier than selling a non-running specialty car. Worst case, they give you the giant repair estimate you feared, and you go ahead and craigslist sell the car as planned, but from the dealership lot instead of your driveway.
Such a minimal investment to be able to make an educated decision. You can even do it over the phone!
Not doing that $300 tow cost him a few thousand in the selling price.
^ THIS ^
That i3 listing was informative, honest and well written. All hallmarks of a decent person.
Tis a quandary to be sure.
I got a Euro version of the Honda Civic VX a few months back. Bought cheap because it looked terrible, all scratches and dents and a turn signal broken and hanging out of the bumper.
Only after getting on the freeway, turning back because the seller gave me the title to a different blue Civic, and settling in did I notice that the engine would stutter at a steady cruise. Found I could modulate it by feathering the pedal and it made it hours home. Parked it up to research and gather parts before bothering my beloved mechanic to use his lift.
Finally, months later, we recently replaced the timing belt, water pump, belts, plugs, service. Saw underneath that it is in amazingly good shape, so worth rehabbing, just need to wait for my paint friend to be bored. But the hesitation remained. Did some more research and finally, belatedly, looked at the service manual. We replaced the timing belt based on where the old one was set, with the obvious pointers all lined up. But turns out it’s not the one pointer in the middle of three but another, separate pointer that needs to be aligned.
Suddenly, it all made sense. Timing belt and water pump looked pretty new, not out of the ordinary on these Civics, I’m learning. But I think what happened is that the previous owner had had a bunch of work done, including the belt, and it didn’t run right after. They probably went back to the mechanic, who said he did everything right, look at these pointers. Perhaps got fed up, maybe even paid scrap prices to have it taken away. Ended up with the seller, a guy selling random cheap junkers from a parking area, who didn’t care to bother.
So, will adjust the belt one of these days when it’s cooler, do a bunch of other things for which parts have arrived. Maybe put in AC. I’m a happy camper. It’ll make a good car for someone, another Civic is saved, and I get to learn new things.
Good that the seller was in good spirits. While I agree that repairing the thing in the driveway is a bit upsetting, the buyer bought the risk along with the car. Those sellers getting angry in other commenters’ stories are arseholes.
That being said, if the prospective buyer wants to tell the seller what the problem is, that’s a different story, and a whole new level of niceness. Especially if they fix it anyway after driving 500 miles 🙂
Make the deal first, get the title. Many years ago I was dating a girl who lived on a quiet back road. Every time I drove over, I passed a triple black 65 Bonneville convertible in an open barn. Car was rusty and unkempt, but I eventually put a note on the door asking about it. Little old lady called me. It was her car, and she wanted it to go to someone who would clean it up, but didn’t know how to go about finding that person.
I went out there the next Saturday with compressor, battery, gas can, rubber hoses, etc in my little Opel Manta. Within a couple hours I had changed out the split rubber fuel lines, added enough gas that it would run from the tank, and had the tires up and holding air. She was delighted, I took her for a little spin around her property.
The car was a rust bucket and needed so much work. I doubt I would have even been able to restore it, but why not try? I was a college student with time, not money. I offered her the $100 I was carrying, explained that I probably just put $50 in gas and parts into it. I thought I was doing a good thing. I told her that periodic joyrides as I restored it were also included.
She agreed, but said she needed to get the title out of her safe deposit box at the bank. Monday comes and I call her about a time to get the car. Well, there’s been a few people looking at it since Saturday, and maybe she was too hasty on the deal. I drove over, pulled it back into the barn, yanked my battery and told her to call me if she wants to sell it to me.
I drove past the car in the barn the rest of the summer, then went back to college. Car still there over winter break. Next summer comes, no car and a for sale sign on the house. I’m assuming a junkyard towed it away when the house was cleaned out. RIP little old lady, RIP my classic convertible. I could have saved that beast if she didn’t get greedy on me.
Seen this many times during my shit box-chasing days. Probably the best/worst was a pristine 60k-mile Volvo S70R sold as a non-runner at auction for like $300 that I saw on Craigslist the next day advertised as having a new starter with a $5500 asking price…
I went to look at a minibike for my son for his birthday. Found one on Craigslist got $150. I went to look at it, and the guy said it ran great, his kids just outgrew it.
Wouldn’t start.
I offered him $50 and he agreed. I loaded it in the back of my Trans Am and took it home.
I got it out and looked it over. I opened the gas cap, and it was dry as a bone.
I filled it with gas, shot some starting ether into the carb, and it fired right up.
I had the same thing with a lawnmower. Newer Craftsman they sell at Lowes for $350 – I got it for $20 not working. I flipped it over to drain the oil and a bunch of smooth river rocks fell out of the gas tank. I suspect his kids put them there.
Insert Slingblade gif here.
My dad was the king of buying a car cheap, fixing it in the seller’s driveway, and driving away.
He bought a non-running BMW 2002 (can’t remember what year) for a few hundred dollars, played with the carbs a bit, figured out the choke was screwed up, got the car running and drove home with the seller flashing at him.
Years later, he bought a Nissan 510 wagon that hadn’t run for years for $50, threw a new battery in it, spliced in a new starter lead (some animal had chewed through it), and the car fired up. The seller asked if my dad would sell it back, to which he declined, and we drove that and the BMW 2002 for years.
He also did it with a F250 with the 460, a Volvo 242, a Mercedes 280S, and a few other cars that escape my memory, but I wasn’t around to watch him fix those like the BMW and Nissan.
The real villain in this story is old mates AC guy!
This is the truth! Freaking guy didn’t even test his installation!
I once fixed a Toyota Prius from an auction with a few packets of ketchup and a wet wipe.
How, HOW?!
I’m guessing it had to do with corroded battery leads for other wires.
Also definitely curious what gen/year. Doesn’t sound like something for the usual problems I’d anticipate (at least from my gen 3 Prius v).
Did this once with a really nice Beetle, lady had listed for sale. Thousands of dollars in receipts for a still broken car, we agreed on a price, I showed up did a scan and performed a reset with vcds, car was fine. She then asked if she could pay me for the fix and keep the car, no dice, I drove it home, listed for sale and made a few bucks.
I’m reminded of an old yarn about fixing an expensive sea going vessel. The vessel won’t move, so the owner calls a high-priced technician out to fix it. While the owner looks over the shoulder, he pokes around a bit, pulls out a screwdriver, turns a screw a quarter turn clockwise, and ‘voila’ the big boat works now! The technician then hands him a bill for $10,000.
The owner is livid, thinking he’s been totally ripped off–“You just turned that screw a smidge and you’re charging me $10k?!?! Why don’t you break down that bill for me into an itemized list so I can better understand what kind of “”work”” it took to earn $10,000!!?!?”
The technician says “Sure!” and hands him a two line invoice:
1) Turning the screw: $1
2) Knowing which screw to turn: $9,999
Don’t underestimate the value of your own expertise or let people belittle you for making a hard job look easy. It wasn’t really easy–that technician had to spend a lifetime of work to know what to do.
I would have fixed it for him. No charge. I dont like to take advantage of sittuations like that. If it inly takes a few minutes, no effort and it benefits another a great deal its worth it to me. Im happy to do it.
Yeah that would have been the neighbourly thing to do.
My similar experience happened when I was stationed in Okinawa. I was looking for some wheels to get around base and out to Futema. Found another Marine who had an old 64 Beetle that wouldn’t move. Ran great but he couldn’t get it to move at all. I looked it over and offered him $200 which he gladly accepted. After the money changed hands and I had the signed title in hand, I crawled underneath with a 10mm wrench and adjusted the clutch free play. It of course would now move so I drove it back on post.
When it was time to return to the states, I assumed that the VW would follow me back to the US, only to discover that the VW had never been to the states and was in fact a direct import from Germany to Okinawa and was thus ineligible for a free ride back on Uncle Sam’s dime! Sold it to my boss for $500 thus creating a smile where a frown had been.
Yay, me!!
Wait, so the government pays to ship home US-spec cars but if you buy local spec you have to ship it yourself?
At that time at least (1972) that was the case.
Similar experience. Saw a CL ad for an 03 Dakota for $3,000 about five years ago. Went to look at it and it had 72,000 miles on a 4.7L. A few dings but otherwise pretty good. The seller said he thought it needed valve work. It had a CEL and was making a noticeable ticking sound. I pulled the code (I always take an OBD reader) and it was the evap canister sensor which was very common. The ticking was an exhaust manifold leak. I told the guy it was not valves and he should have it checked. He said he just wanted it gone and would take $2,500. So, I bought it and spent $300 bucks on an exhaust manifold, factory gas cap and fixed everything. Still driving that truck.
Well damn!
Username checks out
Followed quickly by
“Not that there’s anything wrooong with that!”
This guy babied that battery but on the first sign of trouble just sold the whole car for basically scraps. There are some weird people out there.
I think I learned the wrong lesson here, somehow. I learned that it’s usually really, really, expensive to fix or even diagnose a used BMW EV unless you just happen to be an expert or just plain get dumb-lucky.
The seller seemed to have a good attitude about it. I’d like to think I would have the same attitude if it ever happened to me. But, I likely would have tried tinkering, which he stated he simply wasn’t willing to do.
I don’t think I’d be willing to tinker on it. I have a health respect for electricity, but that’s a story for another day.
It’s all about perspective.
I’m picturing myself in the i3 seller’s shoes. I have a car that will not work. I know that even a diagnosis will be expensive, so even if I attempt to get it repaired, it will cost me more than I want to put into the car. So I put the car up for sale for a price that I agree is fair. Remember, at this point, the car is no longer an asset from my perspective — it has become a liability. I find an interested buyer who checks the car out and agrees to buy it. He then pops the hood and gives part of the car a pedicure, and all of a sudden it works again!
What am I feeling at this point? I’m ecstatic! Not only am I rid of the car that was previously useless to me, but someone else was able to get a great deal and now has a running car! That’s a win-win!
This is absolutely the right take – perspective is everything.
With that said, it would be hard to keep that perspective as the seller in this situation though.
I agree with Amberturnsignalsarebetter…your way is the right way to see things.
Investors often talk about the time value of money, but lesser known is when economists talk about the money value of time. Time is valuable, and sounds like the seller here understood that.
If there’s a guilty party at all, perhaps it’s manufacturers who build things of such complexity and of a proprietary nature that the only troubleshooting route is to commit to an expensive and time-consuming process that they control.
In fairness to the automakers, such manufacturing may be unavoidable to deliver the things consumers say they want, but it always strikes me a pretty significant change in how we relate to vehicles.
“Investors often talk about the time value of money, but lesser known is when economists talk about the money value of time. Time is valuable, and sounds like the seller here understood that.”
This is my perspective on having a garage sale that my wife doesn’t understand.
Had the same sort of thing happen with a ’05 Cummins Ram. Owner was told it needed all new injectors and let it go for 5k. I had it shipped out to seattle, changed the fuel filter, fired right up.
Knowing what those go for around here, that’s one heck of a deal.
Agreed, that’s a crazy good deal!
I get where you’re coming from about fixing it out of their sight, but on the flip side, learning a valuable, expensive lesson like this might encourage the seller to do a little more digging or pursue a solution a little longer before giving up the next time.
Good on you for being a good guy and doing the nice thing.
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Screw you, Herb…
Human kindness is a good thing.
In this case it seems to be plain old karma (CARma).
I like the cut o’ your jib, Mr. Syruncle!
I got a 1995 BMW 540i 6spd for a $1000 that wouldn’t start in 2015, car is notorious tough to start with a dead battery, it had been on charger overnight, we put a jump box on the battery and 2nd on engine terminals at the same time, but that car with a toast battery won’t start. Got it home, bought new battery, started on first crank. Mind you it had some minor issues unable to confirm unless started; leaky coolant system, leaky valve covers, and few things I can’t recall. Still have the car today, don’t care it’s worth 10-15x times what I paid, never selling it.
I really hope it has those M5 slicer wheels (or whatever they were called)… those wheels on that car (chef’s kiss)
Those are not “leaky valve covers”, they’re just called “valve covers” on a BMW
I’ll give you $1100 for it
car is notorious tough to start with a dead battery
must be a BMW specific thing lmao
I had a 740iL that the nav computer would drain the battery if it sat for more than a few days (it wasn’t a daily driver so it usually sat for a few days.) Never had a problem jump starting it, or I could put a charger on it and it would start after a few hours of charging. Until the battery finally gave up and I had to buy a new one.