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wwcrd, beater daily.


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The electric car idea seems like a good idea to me. The Leaf seems to have a couple cool features, one of which is that it can power your house for a while if the power goes out. Also it seems to have a pretty decent range, more than 100 miles on a full charge iirc (guy at work daily drives one from marysville to worthington and back everyday, he says he enjoys driving it almost as much as his 2010 corvette grand sport).

 

Really?

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My beater is a lease. For $250 a month it's worth not having to worry about fixing something.

 

this, if you don't live too far from work

 

Toyota direct is having some good deals on sign/drive lease for corollas and camrys. $139/$159. I have a lease new camry, its a good little boring car

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The electric car idea seems like a good idea to me. The Leaf seems to have a couple cool features, one of which is that it can power your house for a while if the power goes out. Also it seems to have a pretty decent range, more than 100 miles on a full charge iirc (guy at work daily drives one from marysville to worthington and back everyday, he says he enjoys driving it almost as much as his 2010 corvette grand sport).

 

Leafs are large piles of shit. Scott would blow his brains out after a week of owning one.

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I agree time for a new dd or beater, the rust wouldn't scare me, you could weld parts for the frame, but all of the little stuff would tick me off too, brake lines, gas tank. Sell the truck for the value of the engine and transmission, it runs....
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My experience working at Nissan.

 

that will do it. Was it just cheap components? half baked electicals? user error? or all of the above?

 

not calling into question your credibility, just asking for specifics that would make it a big steamy pile. I now know three people who have one, one of them on his second one and none of them have had any problems.....but they are all IT people so...

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I like the Volt, but I'm not willing to pay for one. It gets a little more affordable and I'll have one. I hope they ard our future, save the gas for the toys.

 

If you have the specific set of circumstances that maximizes their usefulness they really are great. My father is on his second one and hasn't had a single issue with each, except for where my mother hit a curb at 50mph recently and they may total his new one for suspension damage. He can plug in at work and home, and his commute never exceeds the battery range. He went almost 6 months without ever having to put actual fuel in the thing which worked great.

 

I borrowed it a couple of times and it didn't work for me when I was living in brooklyn because I had no place to plug in at home or work and when you aren't using the electric charge it's just a very heavy compact car that gets only average gas mileage. I will say that the low centrally mounted battery pack makes the thing really tossable and fun to drive but a wrx or gti it is not.

 

I will say that trunk swallowed my giant scale Ryan STA R/C plane (wings off obviously) with 3 people so it has some cargo loading. I mean I wouldn't put a transmission or engine block into it for fear of ruining the carpet but it could probably hold it.

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They gave away a lot of cheap lease vehicles that are flooding back in, as best as I can tell. We gave ours back in April and buyout was something like $24k. The dealer said he could buy it from Ally for around 16k and thought he could sell for 18k. Looking at AutoTrader and rumored auction prices the 12-14k price is do-able.
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The thing about the Volt is that they just don't sell. We have them sitting around forever, they have always sold under MSRP. I hadn't looked at used ones until today, but there are still a handfull of 2014 new ones sitting around. I guess making so easy to buy new the used value must really suffer. It's a shame because they are a decent car without many major issues that I'm aware of. Being trained on the Volt I still don't work on many at all.

 

I'm not going to get another car for at least a few months, but this has jumped way up my list of considerations.

 

When I have driven them they seem to be 30+ miles on a charge, which isn't a lot, but it would get me to work and almost back home. The newer ones have a hold feature to run the engine so it is flexible. I wouldn't want one to run in electric all the time anyway, I would want to cycle the engine some anyway to keep the gas freash, and things moving.

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They gave away a lot of cheap lease vehicles that are flooding back in, as best as I can tell. We gave ours back in April and buyout was something like $24k. The dealer said he could buy it from Ally for around 16k and thought he could sell for 18k. Looking at AutoTrader and rumored auction prices the 12-14k price is do-able.

 

On Autotrader there are about 1300 used Volts.

69 of those are under 45kmi and under $15k.

So about 5% of the used ones are in that range. Definitely seems do-able.

 

One of the closest ones is 110 miles from here for $14.5k with only 25kmi.

 

Cheap leases was a reflection of the up front tax rebate the finance company got right? I think part of the root of them being cheap now is lack of demand coupled with the rebate. It might have stickered at $35k, but if they are going out of the door for $32k and someone got a $7.5k rebate the car really 'cost' $25k. Assuming an asking price of $15k now that looks more like a 3 year old car that depreciated 40%. That seems high but not as crazy as a $35k car that's 3 years old that's now worst $15k.

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Considering that up to a few months ago there was a Cadillac ELR at an Akron/Canton dealership for $30k off invoice (!!!), looks like moving new Volt/ELR's off the lot will continue to be a loss-leader for GM...

 

EDIT #1: Here's a "NEW" 2014 ELR still for sale at a dealership in SC...

http://www.kingflorencegm.com/VehicleDetails/new-2014-Cadillac-ELR-2dr_Cpe-Florence-SC/2221015883

 

EDIT #2: GEEBUS...here's THREE with $30k off in IL!!!

http://www.grossingerautoplex.net/VehicleSearchResults?offer=44505970&search=new&year=2014&make=Cadillac&model=ELR&trim=all&cs:o=44505970

 

Poor GM...ELR's are like the hybrid version of a Buick Reatta or Cadillac Allante. :lol:

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There is no value in purchasing a new EV or hybrid. The technology moves too fast and you have to claim the tax incentives on your taxes at the end of the year. There is plenty of incentive to lease one because a) the tech moves too fast, b) you can claim the incentives immediately at signing and it lowers the monthly price, c) the cost savings in operating cost can offset the monthly payment by a significant amount, d) the cost of any out of pocket past warranty repair to the battery or drive system is huge so there is no value to have one out of warranty. The volt battery alone is now at $2300, it used to be $5K.

 

my father was seeing between 40 and 60 miles out of a charge between his two cars. Actually with each software update his range drops a little. Then again he is almost hypermiling now in the way he drives. He isn't over-inflating his tires with nitrogen or anything but it has become a video game of keeping the green efficiency ball in the green at all times.

 

The volt will automatically start the engine occasionally to keep things running even if you are only using battery charge to move the car, it is part of the programming. However, it uses very little fuel to do this. Dad puts fuel stabilizer in his. he fills it anytime it hits half a tank and that's still at least a month or two between fill-ups.

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There is no value in purchasing a new EV or hybrid. The technology moves too fast and you have to claim the tax incentives on your taxes at the end of the year. There is plenty of incentive to lease one because a) the tech moves too fast, b) you can claim the incentives immediately at signing and it lowers the monthly price, c) the cost savings in operating cost can offset the monthly payment by a significant amount, d) the cost of any out of pocket past warranty repair to the battery or drive system is huge so there is no value to have one out of warranty. The volt battery alone is now at $2300, it used to be $5K.

 

my father was seeing between 40 and 60 miles out of a charge between his two cars. Actually with each software update his range drops a little. Then again he is almost hypermiling now in the way he drives. He isn't over-inflating his tires with nitrogen or anything but it has become a video game of keeping the green efficiency ball in the green at all times.

 

The volt will automatically start the engine occasionally to keep things running even if you are only using battery charge to move the car, it is part of the programming. However, it uses very little fuel to do this. Dad puts fuel stabilizer in his. he fills it anytime it hits half a tank and that's still at least a month or two between fill-ups.

The gas tank is sealed so that helps, plus if you manage to not have the engine turn on for 6 weeks the Maintenance Mode will turn the engine on to burn off some gas and keep things lubricated. If you manage an entire year without filling up it will run longer. I think I may have filled up 10 times in 3 years, never used fuel stabilizer, and it ran fine. It was a lease though...

 

It might have stickered at $35k, but if they are going out of the door for $32k and someone got a $7.5k rebate the car really 'cost' $25k. Assuming an asking price of $15k now that looks more like a 3 year old car that depreciated 40%. That seems high but not as crazy as a $35k car that's 3 years old that's now worst $15k.

 

Our Volt had a sticker of about $42k and it had no back up camera. Leather was pretty much the only option we had.

 

The EV hold is a nice feature in the newer ones. It's intended to be used in case you enter the freeway and want to save the battery for the city streets. I would sort of do this by switching to mountain mode on the freeway and normal when I exited.

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The only thing that makes me think you should get rid of you truck and the structual frame rust.

 

I was having an issue with rust on my truck, but stopped it surface level it appears and will probably get another few years before I get to that issue.

 

I will also be sure to buy the same model dodge ram so all my lifetime warranty parts will transfer over!

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