I bought a second-hand electric car – continued

In the first instalment of this series, I told you why I wanted to buy a battery-powered vehicle as an everyday driver.

Now, I’ll explain the hurdles I had to jump over to get the right one.

Fact is, buying a second-hand electric car is a little more complicated than conventional counterparts. Think consumer electronics – like buying a used laptop or mobile phone, you have to consider how the vehicle has been recharged, and if it comes with the right features and accessories.

With enough money in the bank and hundreds of hours of research in my head, I set my sights on a BMW i3.

First introduced to Australia in 2014, the i3 was offered as a fully electric model (BEV) with a 60Ah (18.2kWh) battery that could deliver around 130km of driving range.

The other variant featured a 650cc twin-cylinder petrol engine as a range-extender (REx) that BMW says could recharge the car on the run to double the distance.

Neither variant was cheap when they launched, the BEV was $63,900 plus on-road costs, while the REx commanded a $6000 premium. And, in typical BMW fashion, there was a long list of options plus four different wheel designs and two levels of interior trim – Lodge and Suite.

The initial carsales review reported the majority of early owners had ticked all the boxes and paid up to $90K for their car. That’s a lot of coin…

My ideal specification at first was a REx model with the Lounge interior trim and equipped with a few must-have extras like LED headlights, fast-charging capability, heated front seats, adaptive cruise control and the high-quality Harman Kardon audio system.

I preferred the contrast of the silver and white exterior colours with the black and blue highlights too.

As it is with any second-hand car, my options were dictated by what was being sold. And at the time, there wasn’t a lot.

The most BMW i3s I saw for sale at any one time was 21, with about three quarters of those new stock or demonstrators. Among the remaining six or so, only a couple of them were private sellers while the others were obviously trade-ins.

It was obvious early people who actually owned the i3 were the ones who knew exact specification and features and could talk to their charging behaviour, which dictates the battery’s state of health.

On the flipside, the majority of those cars being sold by non-BMW dealers didn’t know much at all. I found one that was advertised as a BEV that, upon closer inspection of the photos, was clearly a range-extender model as it had the additional fuel filler cap.

And another was advertised as a 60Ah REx when it was, in fact, the updated model with a 94Ah (27.2kWh) battery and no range-extender motor.

It was obvious that the electric car landscape is unfamiliar territory for most. It will become much clearer over time, but let me tell you that if you’re looking to buy a second-hand EV right now then it definitely pays to do a lot of research to ensure you know exactly what you’re looking for.

Chances are you’ll also need to widen your geographical net and prepare to look interstate to find the car you want.

For me, the first BMW i3 I seriously considered was an original 2014 60Ah gunmetal grey REx with just over 30,000km and almost every option I wanted. It even came with the wallbox charger, which is rare. But it wasn’t close to my base in Newcastle, NSW. In fact, it was in South Australia.

It was initially advertised for $45K and piqued my interest when the price was dropped. Considering it was being sold by a specialist dealer surrounded by classic Ferraris, Jaguars and Porsches, it stood out like an iPhone in a telephone exchange. Perhaps they would be desperate to move it on.

So, I tried to low-ball them with a first offer of $38.5K, which would give me enough money to fly from Newcastle to Adelaide to sign the deal and then either drive it – or truck it – home.

Being sold on consignment, the salesman liked my enthusiasm, took the offer to the owner and immediately came back jockeying for a bit more. The game had started…

I really wanted that car. I even looked at the charging network and mapped out a route to drive it home, knowing that, with a small jerry can of fuel in the front trunk as extra security, I could keep running on the REx engine and wouldn’t be stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Just as I was about to book the plane ticket to Adelaide that adventure nosedived when the dealer rang and told me it had been sold to someone else with a higher offer. Bummer!

A couple of weeks later, a white 2016 BMW i3 popped up on carsales.com.au in Brisbane for $46K.

Advertised as a 60Ah BEV (which almost made me dismiss it immediately), I noticed on the dash it had an indicated 190km of range when the battery was almost full, which didn’t add up. It wasn’t a REx because it didn’t have the extra fuel filler, so I figured it must be the mid-life upgrade with the larger 94Ah battery.

Again, it pays to know what you’re looking at.

Not surprisingly, considering it was being sold by one of those massive used-car wholesale agencies, the salesperson I initially spoke to knew absolutely nothing about the car. Clearly, he was more familiar with boring whitegoods on wheels than this “thingo”. That’s what he called it.

When looking at a second-hand electric car – particularly one such as the BMW i3 with many options – make sure there are plenty of images in the advertisement or ask for more when you enquire about it.

For me, it was obvious from the exterior photos that this one was fitted with the LED headlamps. But I asked the salesperson to send me some clearer images of the instrument cluster, which proved that it was a BEV, and the interior which, with additional tweeters on the A-pillars, a centre-mounted speaker on the dash and unique speaker grilles in the doors, confirmed it was fitted with the Harman Kardon audio system.

Looking at the buttons on the steering wheel, I also noticed it had the Driver Assistance package with adaptive cruise control. Perfect!

After being knocked down by the South Australian experience, I knew I had to stretch my initial $40K budget and started negotiating the deal.

Firstly, the car had a small scratch on the front left-side wheel-arch and a noticeable stain on the passenger’s seat head restraint. I thought these were good bargaining chips to start with.

Then, when I asked the salesperson to top-up the battery and check its health status, I found out the previous owner had kept the charging cable for some reason. This was a much bigger problem, obviously, but also another opportunity to knock a few dollars off the price as I could buy a replacement cable for between $500-$1000.

We danced around the deal for a couple of days and they promised to repair the scratch and remove as much of the stain as possible when detailing the car, as well as source a replacement cable. When we finished at just over $43K, I gave them a deposit and booked a flight to Brisbane to check it out.

Like the one in Adelaide, if I liked this i3 and bought it that day I was prepared to drive it home even though it was a fully electric model. The charging infrastructure is much more established along the east coast than it is across the desert and again I mapped out a route with charging stations within every 200km.

It wasn’t going to be a quick drive home, but I was excited to get on the electric highway – literally and metaphorically.

My journey started with a major red light when I found out that early-model BMW i3s (from 2014-17) were fitted with the wrong plug to suit Australia’s fast-charging network.

I only came across this when I asked the dealer the day before I arrived to have the car fully charged for me when I got there as the battery was almost depleted because they had driven it around Brisbane for the repairs and detailing.

The salesperson drove it around the corner to a public station and rang me saying that he couldn’t connect it. I asked for a photo of the charging port and realised that it had a CCS Type 1 plug rather than the CCS Type 2 that is now standardised for all EVs sold in Australia.

As a bit of background, the i3 was built with both options (as Type 1 is the standard for the US and Japan and Type 2 for Europe) and BMW Australia opted for the former as the only other EV sold here at the time was the Nissan LEAF.

It probably figured that we would adopt more Japanese and American EVs in the future, plus the first fast-charger installed in Australia in Wollongong was a Type 1. It is still the only one – and is no help to me with the car in Brisbane and heading for Newcastle.

Madly scrambling for an option, I found out that night the New Zealand government ordered BMW to replace the Type 1 plugs in all existing i3 models over there free of charge under its consumer laws, citing that it was incompatible to offer a vehicle that was unable to utilise the charging infrastructure.

If only the Australian government had the balls to do that here too, or that BMW Australia was proactive and service those early adopters that paid a huge chunk of change for an i3. They clearly recognised the mistake as they changed to a CCS2 plug from 2017 onwards.

Clearly knowing he had a willing buyer for his white (baby) elephant, the salesperson was super helpful at the start of the process, offering to collect me from the airport, giving me plenty of time alone to scour around the car and a brief test drive around the car park (because it couldn’t go any further).

Then, when I agreed to purchase it, he gave me another vehicle to drive and arrange a bank cheque.

I had just bought a car and I couldn’t drive it home… I was stranded on the side of my electric highway before it even started.

So, I booked a plane trip to return home that afternoon and waited. And waited.

Luckily, I had connected my phone to the BMW smartphone app, which let me monitor its location and state of charge from a distance. But seeing the car sitting stationary with zero charge was not good for the battery, or my anxiety.

I felt that now they had my money the dealership wasn’t being as proactive in answering my concerns and the whole experience was starting to sour.

Eventually, they found a replacement cable three weeks later, charged the battery and I arranged for the car to be trucked home to Newcastle.

What have I learned and what do I like about the BMW i3 now that I’ve owned a second-hand EV for a few months? I’ll elaborate next time...