Cars We Drive!

[double00]

🤔

Well the lighting up like a Christmas tree seems logical to me because the electrical system is still getting low voltage from the uncharged battery. I also believe that a lead acid battery can be discharged to the point that it’s dead forever

Did you ever get stranded out back of an Outback Steakhouse? 😄

But yeah, I think we’re making the same point. Id always suspect some additional issue beyond normal parasitic drain in those cases

I wonder if it's the alternator .

I sold both for several thousand dollars more than I paid for them. If I conveniently forget repairs, maintenance, gas, and insurance costs, I actually made money!

I was just curious about resale value post-pandemic . I do wonder how ice vs EV resale will develop

 

[brokencycle]

I had a problem on my motorcycle where if I didn't charge ride it for more than about 2 weeks it would be dead, and then after that happened it wouldn't hold a charge for more than a couple days. After replacing with another lead acid battery that did the same the following year, I switched to lithium ion and zero problems.

 

[otc]

I accidentally upsized the battery on my GTI…

I think the automatics use an H6 because of the stop-start but the manual only has a H5.

Oh well, I just have more power now and my dashcam will run longer before the voltage cutoff.

 

[VaderDave]

I wonder if it's the alternator .



I was just curious about resale value post-pandemic . I do wonder how ice vs EV resale will develop

It's a good question--I think I probably could have squeezed a few more bucks out of each one during the pandemic, as prices for these kinds of cars spiked during that time. But I was more interested in selling them quickly, so I priced them accordingly. Both were gone within just a couple of days after listing on FB marketplace and a couple of enthusiast FB pages.

 

[nootje]

get a volt meter, clamp it to your system and start pulling fuses one by one. You should be able to find the parasitic drain that way.

A shop can do that in say half an hour, and should have the tools to make the car think it’s on standby with a door open to ensure access to the fuse box.

Years ago I did this to figure out it was the Bluetooth car kit of my merc at the time that did that. Simple solution as I simply unplugged it when I left the car for more than a few days.

 

[UnFacconable]

get a volt meter, clamp it to your system and start pulling fuses one by one. You should be able to find the parasitic drain that way.

A shop can do that in say half an hour, and should have the tools to make the car think it’s on standby with a door open to ensure access to the fuse box.

Years ago I did this to figure out it was the Bluetooth car kit of my merc at the time that did that. Simple solution as I simply unplugged it when I left the car for more than a few days.

Have a voltmeter and used it to confirm that one of my batteries is all the way dead and the other is most of the way dead (~3v). But parasitic drain isn't a blocker for me getting this thing running and to my house so I can trickle charge it. From there, the dealer said to bring it in so they can swap out the batteries and resolve whatever is going on.

I did have an oil change recently where they took care of a recall and checked the infotainment system for some errors I complained about. Wouldn't surprise me if something they did there is causing the drain.

 

[gdl203]

My Wrangler's battery also died on me a couple months ago - but that was after waiting for the fam in the car with the radio on for 15 minutes (still not normal, tbh). Roadside guy managed to jump start it with his massive battery pack (my emergency booster did close to nothing), and the next day I took it to the shop to get a new battery in (it was 6 years old so time for a fresh one).

1) battery was so f expensive - I couldn't believe it
2) shop guy said the infotainment system and electronics are going to look like they're going nuts for a while (he said about 100 miles, a few cycles) but will all be back to normal - both were 100% true
3) I was hoping to get my NYS inspection done but it was not possible without those cycles (100+ miles) under the belt. His computer kept failing the car after the battery change
4) I hate all that tech in modern cars

 

[double00]

My Wrangler's battery also died on me a couple months ago - but that was after waiting for the fam in the car with the radio on for 15 minutes (still not normal, tbh). Roadside guy managed to jump start it with his massive battery pack (my emergency booster did close to nothing), and the next day I took it to the shop to get a new battery in (it was 6 years old so time for a fresh one).

1) battery was so f expensive - I couldn't believe it
2) shop guy said the infotainment system and electronics are going to look like they're going nuts for a while (he said about 100 miles, a few cycles) but will all be back to normal - both were 100% true
3) I was hoping to get my NYS inspection done but it was not possible without those cycles (100+ miles) under the belt. His computer kept failing the car after the battery change
4) I hate all that tech in modern cars

6 years is not bad for a battery tbh . I go with interstate batteries when it's time , pretty reliable .

my 2015 wrangler has old skool roll up windows , no factory a/c , etc , the plainest Jane . I've never had battery issues but it's had a couple electrical bugs

 

[UnFacconable]

My Wrangler's battery also died on me a couple months ago - but that was after waiting for the fam in the car with the radio on for 15 minutes (still not normal, tbh). Roadside guy managed to jump start it with his massive battery pack (my emergency booster did close to nothing), and the next day I took it to the shop to get a new battery in (it was 6 years old so time for a fresh one).

1) battery was so f expensive - I couldn't believe it
2) shop guy said the infotainment system and electronics are going to look like they're going nuts for a while (he said about 100 miles, a few cycles) but will all be back to normal - both were 100% true
3) I was hoping to get my NYS inspection done but it was not possible without those cycles (100+ miles) under the belt. His computer kept failing the car after the battery change
4) I hate all that tech in modern cars

Sounds about right. I ended up buying 2 portable jump boxes and 1 powerful trickle charger. I tried trickle charging for a bit (plugged into another car) for a few hours and that may have given some baseline juice but not nearly enough. I think if I had gotten the car plugged into a trickle charger for 24+ hours, maybe it would have made a difference.

I bought 1 big jump box and a small one. Using both, I was able to get the car up and running but as soon as the jump box short boost mode wore off, the car would be lacking juice and start to die.

Eventually I got another tow truck and when we used his large jump box and my large jump box, we were able to keep the truck running long enough to get it onto the flat bed.

It's at the dealer now but it was touch and go. The closest dealer said they were backed up for 4 weeks and that I couldn't even leave it there because they had no room. The second dealer said the same but because I had taken my car into them recently for my oil change and recall work, the guy did me a solid and said they will fix it Monday.

I guess you could say I FAFO'd by buying a car from a brand with reliability issues.

 

[otc]

Not in prime viewing location, but I couldn't not at least shoot the GTI with the northern lights at home.

 

[bdavro23]

How many Minnesotans do we have here???

 

[otc]

Is this the appropriate thread for more complaining about modern truck design?

I rode in the front seat of a recent GM 2500 series truck the other day and even though I KNOW this is an issue, I was blown away by my inability to see in front of me. It was significantly worse than the F250 (older gen) that I've ridden the same road in. The ******* hood just bulges and you can't see the road in front of you.

Honestly, it made it far shittier for doing "truck stuff". We were going up a crappy narrow dirt/logging access road with some active bike traffic, including kids, that's not open to public cars. The lack of frontal view means you can't actually see the road (or the *edge* of the road!) closest to the truck...which obviously makes it much harder to figure out where to put the wheels to avoid ruts, rocks, children, etc.

 

[UnFacconable]

Waiting for the dealer to confirm whether my batteries are shot, apparently they are running a 4 hour test. Should have car back tomorrow.

In other news, wanted to weigh in on EV ownership after about ~6 months with the EQB. All in all, it has exceeded expectations. The EQB has been what we expected it to be - size is great for our family, easy to park, range is more than fine, etc. I still think it's ugly but not so ugly that it matters. One complaint is that the high-speed charging isn't fast enough but honestly it matters so little. This is in large part because it charges at its maximum speed (100kw) pretty much the whole time I'm plugged into the charger. Some cars may say they charge at 250kw+, but that is a peak rate they barely hit, so overall we only spend a few extra minutes per fast charge plus we are perfectly happy at the 150kw chargers and don't have to seek out the 350s.

The rest of this rant is less about the EQB specifically and more about EVs as a whole.

First - I don't think EVs get enough credit for allowing you to avoid gas stations for daily driving. If we had an ICE as our daily, we would have filled up at least 10-12 times during that span, and each time would be an annoyance. This is exacerbated by where we live and the places we most commonly drive, but it's basically always annoying to have to go out of my way to fill up the car and I don't miss it one bit.

Second - the extra annoyance from charging batteries on road trips doesn't come anywhere close to neutralizing the first benefit. We have a cheat code here since we mostly take the Jeep on road trips, but we also have one of the more extreme usage cases - we probably drove had 20 trips to the mountains (200 miles each way) this winter. We did take the EV on 2 road trips, and I didn't find charging super annoying because it wasn't really out of the way (similar to gas stations). I'm not at the point where I would want to deal with the extra hassle of going EV only given how frequently we need to go to the mountains, but for most people I would guess the benefits of in home charging far outweighs the road trip penalty.

Third - Everyone talks about how EVs are appliances and not as fun as ICE vehicles, but I think they have it backward. Compared to 99%+ of the cars on the road, EV's are more fun. The powertrain benefits, even in a slow EV like mine, is obvious. The linear acceleration and the powertrain smoothness is phenomenal. Sure, it's not a Ferrari V-12, but neither was my clattery Subaru Flat 4 or the vast majority of "premium" cars these days which have direct injection 2L turbo 4s. And, the low center of gravity from the thousand pounds of batteries really does help with handling. Unless you are driving one of the best performing ICE powertrains in a sports car, almost any EV will be more enjoyable to drive. Our EQB is significantly "slower" than our GLC was but feels much faster and the handling is great (fwiw, we were quite happy with the GLC performance and handling).

Obviously EVs aren't for everyone. I'm not quite ready to replace my Jeep with a Rivian, but I'm pretty damn close at this point. I'm mostly here to say that I now think so much of the classic anti-EV arguments about them being clinical appliances is really only applicable if your alternative is a real performance car and even there, I think EVs are pretty competitive. All this talk about EVs being soulless compared to high end sports cars is ridiculous. Cars don't have souls, they have performance characteristics. The holy grail of an ICE engine would more or less be an EV that sounds better. A good friend of mine was firmly in the EVs are soulless appliance camps (he's got a 911 and a 430 in his garage) and recently got a Lucid. His wife was annoyed at him for getting the Lucid but after a week she's mad at him for not getting 2. He's not getting rid of his sports cars but he doesn't talk about his Lucid being soulless.

tl;dr 99%+ of motor vehicles on the road are soulless, and EVs are more fun than almost all of those soulless vehicles. People who are cross-shopping an EV against a Cayman or F8 have plenty of reasons to avoid an EV for now but for your run of the mill enthusiast car (5-series, etc.), the soulless argument is unlikely to be valid.

 

[Texasmade]

Waiting for the dealer to confirm whether my batteries are shot, apparently they are running a 4 hour test. Should have car back tomorrow.

In other news, wanted to weigh in on EV ownership after about ~6 months with the EQB. All in all, it has exceeded expectations. The EQB has been what we expected it to be - size is great for our family, easy to park, range is more than fine, etc. I still think it's ugly but not so ugly that it matters. One complaint is that the high-speed charging isn't fast enough but honestly it matters so little. This is in large part because it charges at its maximum speed (100kw) pretty much the whole time I'm plugged into the charger. Some cars may say they charge at 250kw+, but that is a peak rate they barely hit, so overall we only spend a few extra minutes per fast charge plus we are perfectly happy at the 150kw chargers and don't have to seek out the 350s.

The rest of this rant is less about the EQB specifically and more about EVs as a whole.

First - I don't think EVs get enough credit for allowing you to avoid gas stations for daily driving. If we had an ICE as our daily, we would have filled up at least 10-12 times during that span, and each time would be an annoyance. This is exacerbated by where we live and the places we most commonly drive, but it's basically always annoying to have to go out of my way to fill up the car and I don't miss it one bit.

Second - the extra annoyance from charging batteries on road trips doesn't come anywhere close to neutralizing the first benefit. We have a cheat code here since we mostly take the Jeep on road trips, but we also have one of the more extreme usage cases - we probably drove had 20 trips to the mountains (200 miles each way) this winter. We did take the EV on 2 road trips, and I didn't find charging super annoying because it wasn't really out of the way (similar to gas stations). I'm not at the point where I would want to deal with the extra hassle of going EV only given how frequently we need to go to the mountains, but for most people I would guess the benefits of in home charging far outweighs the road trip penalty.

Third - Everyone talks about how EVs are appliances and not as fun as ICE vehicles, but I think they have it backward. Compared to 99%+ of the cars on the road, EV's are more fun. The powertrain benefits, even in a slow EV like mine, is obvious. The linear acceleration and the powertrain smoothness is phenomenal. Sure, it's not a Ferrari V-12, but neither was my clattery Subaru Flat 4 or the vast majority of "premium" cars these days which have direct injection 2L turbo 4s. And, the low center of gravity from the thousand pounds of batteries really does help with handling. Unless you are driving one of the best performing ICE powertrains in a sports car, almost any EV will be more enjoyable to drive. Our EQB is significantly "slower" than our GLC was but feels much faster and the handling is great (fwiw, we were quite happy with the GLC performance and handling).

Obviously EVs aren't for everyone. I'm not quite ready to replace my Jeep with a Rivian, but I'm pretty damn close at this point. I'm mostly here to say that I now think so much of the classic anti-EV arguments about them being clinical appliances is really only applicable if your alternative is a real performance car and even there, I think EVs are pretty competitive. All this talk about EVs being soulless compared to high end sports cars is ridiculous. Cars don't have souls, they have performance characteristics. The holy grail of an ICE engine would more or less be an EV that sounds better. A good friend of mine was firmly in the EVs are soulless appliance camps (he's got a 911 and a 430 in his garage) and recently got a Lucid. His wife was annoyed at him for getting the Lucid but after a week she's mad at him for not getting 2. He's not getting rid of his sports cars but he doesn't talk about his Lucid being soulless.

tl;dr 99%+ of motor vehicles on the road are soulless, and EVs are more fun than almost all of those soulless vehicles. People who are cross-shopping an EV against a Cayman or F8 have plenty of reasons to avoid an EV for now but for your run of the mill enthusiast car (5-series, etc.), the soulless argument is unlikely to be valid.

The EQB SUV is probably Mercedes best looking SUV since it still sort of looks like a normal SUV. Their other offerings look terrible which is probably why Mercedes is getting smoked by BMW in the EV's.

 

[Omega Male]

Pity the poor (not literally, obviously) GT3 owners in Manhattan.

New York noise-bylaw pilot fines stock Porsche owner $800

Car's owner appealed, and lost, twice—"even in the city that doesn’t sleep, New Yorkers deserve some peace and quiet," says NYC councillor

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