ME_Andy's fleet

[iikhod]

Bungee cord for your battery?
Could you use the old brackets and maybe put something harder under the new battery?

[ME_Andy]

Changed the Cruze's brake pads today. At 72k miles they still had plenty of life left. Should have left them longer.

All of our future cars will be ev's, so it's weird to think I might never change brake pads again.

[ME_Andy]

This is a semi towing a Chevy Spark... And nothing else.

[ME_Andy]

My goal is complete, I have the least valuable vehicle on my street. I thought the old man across the way would be stiffer competition, but he traded his old F150 for a new Explorer.

[ME_Andy]

Whew, used Volts are getting cheap! Here's a 2014 with 60k for $8000. I might be interested in selling our Leaf for $10k and buying this instead.

https://austin.craigslist.org/ctd/d/...124983523.html

I've been driving the Leaf a lot more since the pandemic started. One thing I've really come to appreciate is the alien shift knob. It's really a lot nicer than the gear shift levers on other cars, probably because it doesn't require a mechanical connection to anything.

The Cruze has gone so unused that wasps started building a nest on the engine cover.

[ME_Andy]

I would rather sell the Cruze, but I think it's not even worth $4k now.

[ME_Andy]

The LiFePO4 starter battery experiment is over. There was dead silence when I tried to start it this morning and lots of dash warnings. Voltage was down to 3.5V. :/ So I'm back to lead acid.

Some reasons why the LiFePO4 might have died early are it was a little undersized and there were a couple mornings when I ran it near freezing temp. LiFePO4 doesn't like that.

The LiFePO4 was 20-30 Ah, OEM was 50-ish. Perhaps I was a little too cheap, I'm not sure. Then again, if it was the cold that killed it, I'm glad I didn't spend more.

[ME_Andy]

Some excitement in the Leaf-- we got back from a week-long trip and hopped in the car. It was parked facing uphill slightly. Wife puts it in reverse. When she hit the brakes to slow down, nothing happened. After rolling backwards uncontrolled for 8 feet or so, she panic-slammed the pedal to the floor and finally the brakes engaged and we stopped.

Apparently the 12V accessory battery dies if you leave it without charging for a week or so. And it runs the brakes. That's .. kind of a big design flaw.

It's all charged up and good to go again now, I think.

The funny part was taking it to O'Reilly's to get the battery checked.

"Ok, it's time to check your starter."
"It doesn't have a starter."
"Oh. Then let's check the alternator."
"It doesn't have an alternator."
"Oh. I have no idea how electric cars work."

[freebeard]

That's like giving you droid army a single point of failure.

But it sounds like it was worth it for the conversation at the parts counter.

[hayden55]

Originally Posted by ME_Andy

The LiFePO4 starter battery experiment is over. There was dead silence when I tried to start it this morning and lots of dash warnings. Voltage was down to 3.5V. :/ So I'm back to lead acid.

Some reasons why the LiFePO4 might have died early are it was a little undersized and there were a couple mornings when I ran it near freezing temp. LiFePO4 doesn't like that.

The LiFePO4 was 20-30 Ah, OEM was 50-ish. Perhaps I was a little too cheap, I'm not sure. Then again, if it was the cold that killed it, I'm glad I didn't spend more.

Best mod I've ever done was Odyssey Extreme sealed AGM batteries. After killing walmart batteries every year I've yet to kill an odyssey (going about 8 years now on my first). In my head I think it saves you the most money over time. Toyota oem/oem replacement batteries are very good too but usually more expensive. The battery in the 2010 Prius is the original and it still reads 12.5V resting. 12 years is not bad.