The poor seller thought his i3 would be purchased as a parts-car, only to watch the buyer fix and drive it away with all error messages vanquished! I had to scroll and scroll to get to the meat of this story about a near-perfect i3 that sold for $5K because the owner feared the dealer would charge more than the car was worth to make it driveable again: 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. I had a similar regrettable experience: Back in 1970 I sold my 1959 Chevy beater for $25 after the local Chevy dealer told me it needed a new engine. The buyer replaced a single rocker arm and drove it for years afterwards. Thankfully, he didn't fix it in 3 minutes and in front of me. For decades after that experience, I bad-mouthed the Chevy dealer to any who would listen. I discovered I wasn't the only one they had wronged.
