Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle? | Page 226 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle?

Best car they “made” was the Lotus they stuffed their drivetrain into
 
Tesla should have contracted Magna to do the body and interior and assembly (Magna does that for other auto manufacturers), but Musk is a proper nuisance to do business with. Wants things done "his way", won't listen when "his way" doesn't make sense ... has to learn that the hard way.
 
I was talking to a friend of a friend online on FB a few days ago. He'd just bought a Model S. We got talking about reliability (my experience with the Volt) and my concerns about the long term longevity of the Tesla and how I'd be terrified to own one that was outside warranty. He just couldn't wrap his head around how I could be even the slightest bit concerned about that as Tesla is "so far ahead of the other guys" blah blah blah.

It's increasingly evident that the old Steve Jobs reality distortion field has infected the Musk crowd as well.
 
Anyhow, while on the long term ownership topic, I'm thinking of selling my Volt. Despite still meeting or exceeding it's rated range in normal conditions and running like a Timex, well, I'm also aware of the fact that next spring it's 10 years old.

It only has 165,000km on it with a lifetime L/100KM of 2.1 or something. Almost certainly a lot of life left in her.

But it may be time to move on. A part of the decision right now is several realities:

- My wife's Ioniq rarely leaves the driveway anymore as she's WFH for the foreseeable future.
- The only place the Volt goes is back and forth to my work.
- We barely need 2 vehicles anymore.
- When we go anywhere together we almost always take her Ioniq with it's much bigger range vs ending up on gas in the Volt.
- I want something that can tow a trailer as after our little RV adventure to Gaspe (I posted pics in a thread here somewhere or other) I think a small trailer is in our future again perhaps next spring.

I'm thinking a Bolt or a Niro may be in the future, but right now, given some of the above realities (mainly the fact we barely even need 2 vehicles anymore, much less 2 EV's) it's hard to justify having a 35-40K vehicle sitting in the driveway to take me 11km to and from work every day.

Hate to say it, but I will say after taking my daughters Kia Soul to and from the east coast in the fall I am somewhat enamoured by it. And it can tow. Surprisingly well.

I may sell the Volt and buy a cheap same-ish year (2011-2013) Soul and drive that for a year or two and then look for a Bolt. By then my wife will probably be back to work and actually needing the Ioniq again, and Bolts may be down some more $$ into more reasonable territory, and will tow the size of trailer we're considering. And with a 350-ish km range, I'm willing to deal with the charging realities for the types of travelling we'll be doing. Or keep the Soul AND a Bolt, just putting the Soul on the road for towing season and parking it in the winter.
 

TLDW: 2 years of ownership, 5 issues (mostly related to wheels/brakes) and it's pretty much a **** show for parts supply and customer service.

My boss just bought a new Model S, he had it for less than a week and then went back to Tesla to complain about fitment and poor paint. He says dealing with Tesla has been a nightmare.
 
Last edited:
PrivatePilot said:
Anyhow, while on the long term ownership topic, I'm thinking of selling my Volt. Despite still meeting or exceeding it's rated range in normal conditions and running like a Timex, well, I'm also aware of the fact that next spring it's 10 years old.

It only has 165,000km on it with a lifetime L/100KM of 2.1 or something. Almost certainly a lot of life left in her.

But it may be time to move on. A part of the decision right now is several realities:

- My wife's Ioniq rarely leaves the driveway anymore as she's WFH for the foreseeable future.
- The only place the Volt goes is back and forth to my work.
- We barely need 2 vehicles anymore.
- When we go anywhere together we almost always take her Ioniq with it's much bigger range vs ending up on gas in the Volt.
- I want something that can tow a trailer as after our little RV adventure to Gaspe (I posted pics in a thread here somewhere or other) I think a small trailer is in our future again perhaps next spring.

I'm thinking a Bolt or a Niro may be in the future, but right now, given some of the above realities (mainly the fact we barely even need 2 vehicles anymore, much less 2 EV's) it's hard to justify having a 35-40K vehicle sitting in the driveway to take me 11km to and from work every day.

Hate to say it, but I will say after taking my daughters Kia Soul to and from the east coast in the fall I am somewhat enamoured by it. And it can tow. Surprisingly well.

I may sell the Volt and buy a cheap same-ish year (2011-2013) Soul and drive that for a year or two and then look for a Bolt. By then my wife will probably be back to work and actually needing the Ioniq again, and Bolts may be down some more $$ into more reasonable territory, and will tow the size of trailer we're considering. And with a 350-ish km range, I'm willing to deal with the charging realities for the types of travelling we'll be doing. Or keep the Soul AND a Bolt, just putting the Soul on the road for towing season and parking it in the winter.
Click to expand...
As a previous Kia owner ('13 Optima for 6 years- 100k+) i think you'll be happy with one.

A few niggles happened in final year of ownership.
  • A small portion of the rear window defroster died
  • cruise control resume button apparently gave up
Other then that, oil changes and front brakes/rotors at 80k. Insurance wasn't amazing but it sipped gas, my X5 is cheaper on insurance but a pig on gas. :(
 
Yeah, I've always heard good things about the Soul's as well. They're simple but well built it seems. Sheet metal always seems so thin on them (doors and hatches seem to insanely light compared to a domestic vehicle) yet the 2011 my daughter bought, despite having absolutely no aftermarket rust treatment from the original (only 1 owner) owner before us still looked like it hadn't rolled off the line that long ago, including the door sills and rockers. 220,000km on it when she bought it, 95% all original except for what I did: pads, rotors, a set of cheap Kijiji snow tires, and replacement of a leaky tranny cooler line at the rad. Cost on my end to do the brakes and tires for her including the mount and balance was $300 or so. She paid $400 all in for the cert including the tranny line and the labour to replace it.

I think what impressed me most was this.

IMG_5004.jpeg

The trailer only weighted about 1900 pounds despite how big it looks in the pic, but it towed it great. The Soul is actually rated for 2700 pounds in Europe. It towed that little trailer around like nobodys business even on some of the insane 17% grades we experienced. I did wire in a trailer brake controller.

Empty, at normal/sane driving speeds it gets around 8L/100KM, and even with the trailer it ranged from 11l/100km with the trailer with a tail wind to 14 with a massive headwind.

Yeah, sure, I could buy something bigger more suited to towing, but if I'm going to use it as a stepping stone between the Volt and something like a Bolt, I'd rather have something that's not exactly a gas pig in the meantime.
 
Scuba Steve said:
Would the volt not tow it if the Kia can?

Sent from my KFONWI using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

My sister and BIL have towed about 2000# with their Gen2 and said it worked great. There's a few people pulling in the 2K range with a Gen1, but the problem is the hitch - there's only 2 hitch options for the Gen1 - one not even technically a proper class 1 - more like a class 0.5 - it attaches to the subframe properly on one half, but relies on a hole punched in the rear pan and big washers for the other half. Fine for using it for a bicycle rack carrier thing, but not even remotely safe for pulling something up into the maximum 2000# class 1 range. They make it very clear maximum trailer weight is 1000# with 100# tongue weight for actual towing.

The other hitch option is a ~$1000 (after exchange and shipping from Washington State) Class 2 from the USA, and there's no other option as only one company makes them...and they only seem to make them in batches and they often show sold out.

There was also a story online from someone who was towing fairly heavy with a Gen1 and actually had the unibody welds come apart in the trunk pan area...after reportedly 13,000 miles, however. I guess that goes to show you that it's a capable tower to begin with in the end however and that could have just been a fluke by them overloading the tongue or something and then beating on it on rough roads - many RV'ers have no idea how to properly load a trailer.

I don't know. Now that you mention it, I may consider it again if I sleep on things and decide to keep the Volt. The reason we didn't do it the first time around was mainly because there was absolutely no way to get the proper class 2 hitch (and get it installed) in the timeline we had - we booked that trip on a whim and literally had about 10 days from the time we booked the trailer until the day we picked it up. I called TorkLift and they said they couldn't even ship me one for 3-5 days and it would take likely 2 weeks to arrive with Covid. At this point...we've got from now till May I guess.
 
I found out my WRX was rated for 0lbs in the manual, and 500lbs is what I found online.....I’m quite disappointed in this news as I just assumed it would have at least 1500lbs towing capacity. Frak.

at least the odyssey is rated for 3500lbs or so and we already have a hitch on that.
 
mimico_polak said:
I found out my WRX was rated for 0lbs in the manual, and 500lbs is what I found online.....I’m quite disappointed in this news as I just assumed it would have at least 1500lbs towing capacity. Frak.

at least the odyssey is rated for 3500lbs or so and we already have a hitch on that.
Click to expand...
Almost every north american car is rated for zero. Subie wants you to buy an ascent with a much higher profit margin if you want to tow anything. They can't get away with that crap in europe.
 
What a car is legally rated to tow and what it realistically can (and is often rated to elsewhere in the world where people don't sue at the drop of a hat) are usually 2 different things.

The Kia Soul is rated for 0 as well in north america, but 2700# in europe.

edit: GG beat me to it.
 
PrivatePilot said:
What a car is legally rated to tow and what it realistically can (and is often rated to elsewhere in the world where people don't sue at the drop of a hat) are usually 2 different things.

The Kia Soul is rated for 0 as well in north america, but 2700# in europe.

edit: GG beat me to it.
Click to expand...
That seems to be the standard for cars. Zero in NA, ~3000 lbs with trailer brakes in Europe for the vast majority of cars. Different markets demand different specs (even though the vehicles are identical).
 
Guess I got researching to do. Will log into Subaru Poland tomorrow to check their EU ratings LoL.
 
mimico_polak said:
I found out my WRX was rated for 0lbs in the manual, and 500lbs is what I found online.....I’m quite disappointed in this news as I just assumed it would have at least 1500lbs towing capacity. Frak.

at least the odyssey is rated for 3500lbs or so and we already have a hitch on that.
Click to expand...
With the Odyssey I've towed two bikes, two atvs, a 22' sport cuddy, and numerous other small items. The boat I towed regularly including launching, it did well as long as it was a paved ramp.
Mine was an older generation with the 4 speed transmission. The rear needs airbags if you plan to tow often, especially with passengers and a trailer.
I also found the brakes to be just "adequate" and the van benefits from a brake controller.

Sent from my SM-A530W using Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom