2018 hyundai sonata hybrid mods
 

Got a 2018 hyundai sonata hybrid (not a plug in I will explain at the end of the post) with pretty much all the options except for a sun roof, leather and wheels, it has the standard 16 inch wheels.
Glad it didn't have a whole in the roof, glad it didn't have leather and I already have the wheels I want for it.

The first mod is already completed, I think.
I took the 17 inch wheels off her old 2008 and put them on the 2018. Put the 16 inch wheels on the 2008. Those wheels on the 2008 are not original. I think they were all replaced as of 2014 or 2015.
I just swapped them over, no TPMS light yet.

Second mod, throw the spare tire kit in the trunk.
The hybrid does not come with a spare. You get a BS emergency tire inflation kit.

Brighter high beams. Probably install some double brightness LED 9005 highbeams.
I did 100w halogen high beams using a relay and slave relay on the old car and they work pretty good but I put double brightness LEDs in my leaf and liked it better.
The double brightness LEDs use about the same power as a standard halogen.

That's kind of it for now.

It gets 48 to 55mpg when I drive it. It scores me 7 out of 8 economy driving marks, just kind of driving it the same way I do with my leaf. Good enough for me.

I had a plug in hybrid 2016 lease turn in lined up but the stupid dealer can't tell the difference between a plug in and a regular hybrid.

I would like to double or triple battery capacity at some point and make it plug in chargeable.
But used Li-poly batteries for these cars run about $2,000 each and only hold 2kwh.
So far the only person I can find that has charged one of these batteries with external power is a guy that took it apart and charged each cell individually.

Could you install the battery from the plug-in model?

Not likley.
The plug in hybrid uses a big 370 volt 10kwh battery that takes up gas tank and spare tire space.
The regular hybrid uses a 260 or 270v 2kwh battery that pretty much only takes up the spare tire hole.

Well this thing is going to be hard to improve upon aside from charging with grid power and bigger battery.

I knew it had a 6 speed auto (not a cvt) but what I didn't know is hyundai used the electric motor to eliminate the torque converter.
https://www.electricvehiclesresearch...-sonata-hybrid

Some guys took apart a hyundai battery to find it uses an off the shelf bms.
Isopack: Hyundai Sonata Hybrid battery pack teardown

Much better than nissan and their proprietary battery everything. Maybe the hyundai kona runs an off the shelf BMS and active thermal management, by by leaf.

Drove it 340 miles at 80mph most of the way it got 40mpg.
It was getting 44mpg but the calm to no wind condition turned into a head wind.

Car salesmen seem like real estate agents to me; only good at pointing out the obvious like "this is the kitchen" or "this car is blue". Ask any questions that go deeper than the paint and you'll quickly derail.

I'll second that. They can't even answer questions that are in the sales brochure.

These salesmen seemed pretty bad: https://www.zdnet.com/article/at-t-l...g-galaxy-fold/

I had a briefing at Fort Leonard Wood. They showed a picture of a guy in his 50s and asked "Would you buy a car from a man like this?"

I called out "I already did! That looks like my dad!"

Had this car go into ev mode at 92mph today.