“That’s a nice car. That’s pretty impressive.”
A woman says she walked into a BMW dealership dressed casually to replace two tires—and got a reaction she wasn’t expecting when employees learned what she drove.
Ray Symone (@raysymone1) says she went to BMW for two new front tires while “looking ratchet,” as she puts it, wearing a bonnet.
Symone says someone at the dealership asked what kind of car she drove.
She says she told them she had a BMW i8. According to Symone, though, they initially thought she meant an i4.
“Oh, that’s a nice car,” she says the salesperson told her after realizing she drove an i8. Symone says the person also called it “impressive.”
The brief interaction struck a nerve online, with her clip drawing more than 1.3 million views.
Symone is right to suggest that the mix-up Symone describes isn’t just about two similar model names. BMW introduced the i8 in the U.S. for the 2014 model year as a plug-in hybrid 2+2 sports car with a base price of $135,700 before destination charges.
It paired a turbocharged 1.5-liter 3-cylinder engine with an electric motor and used a carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) passenger cell. According to Winding Road Magazine, the car can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in about 4.4 seconds.
That said, BMW ended i8 production in 2020; the i4 came later—with a different purpose and a much different price tag, with i4s being much cheaper overall.
BMW’s current i4 is an all-electric four-door Gran Coupe. For the 2026 model year, the i4 eDrive40 offers between 307 and 333 miles of range, while the xDrive40 offers up to 287 miles. The lineup also includes the higher-performance i4 M60.
So while both BMWs carry the “i” branding, the i8 and i4 are hard to confuse once you see them. That could also help explain why someone might react differently after hearing i8 versus i4. The i8 arrived with a six-figure starting price and was never a high-volume mainstream BMW; today, it’s no longer available because production ended six years ago.
Of course, none of that explains what the dealership employee thought when Symone walked in. But it does make clear that correcting “i4” to “i8” substantially changed which BMW she was talking about.
Many viewers focused less on the i8 and more on what Symone wore into the dealership.
“You went into BMW with a bonnet on. I mean sometimes it’s us,” one person wrote.
“Why are we wearing bonnets in public!?” another asked.
One commenter framed it as a question of presentation.
“Nothing about race, present yourself, how you want to be seen,” they said.
But plenty of viewers pushed back on that idea.
“Everybody talking about the bonnet, but my question is: where did this perception of the bonnet come from? Another question: why isn’t the bonnet affiliated with just ‘hair coverage’ such as a hat? I’m curious. Someone pls answer me,” they said.
Another commenter argued that what Symone wore may not have changed how people viewed her anyway.
“Honestly, at this point it don’t matter how we show up; they already have their minds made up,” the person said.
Some viewers weren’t convinced there was an issue to begin with.
“I’m lost what was the problem,” they questioned.
Others just had fun with the i4-versus-i8 misunderstanding.
“Why you go in there with I4 energy, sis,” one viewer quipped.
And one i8 owner offered a completely different warning about the car itself, writing, “I had to replace so many run-flat tires on my I8 BMW, I had to get rid of it. Good luck.”
Motor1 contacted Ray Symone via TikTok direct message. We’ll be sure to update this if she responds.
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