My friend’s mom passed away recently and she had a 2000 Toyota Camry with about 70K miles on it. It ain’t pretty but seems like a good car for an 18 year old new driver, and I happen to have one of those.
This is becoming more common lately. My brother-in-law bought a RAM 3500 tradesman for $34K new in 2014. Sold it in 2021 at the height of used car prices with 100k miles on it for $30K.
i was just thinking reading about ev vehicles, i’ve never thought about what happens if you run out of charge on like, the highway somewhere.
regular cars somebody can bring you a gallon of gas and off you go, i don’t think there are portable car chargers, would you have to get towed to a charging port? sounds inconvenient.
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How many times have you run out of gas in your life? For me it’s twice in 35 years of driving. Both times I knew I was pushing my luck. If I was in an EV, I would choose to not take that same chance. I don’t think “getting stranded without a charge” is much of a concern if you employ minimal planning. Worst case is you need to get towed 2x in your lifetime. Oh no.
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Yeah, it’s pretty rare because like others have said you can start every day with a full charge so unless you make an unplanned 200-300+ mile trip you’re not going to be able to run out of charge. This guy made a video testing how far he could go on a single charge and ended up needing to get towed because he pushed
Ford F-150 Lightnings can charge other EVs so there’s a gallon of gas, it’s just going to take a while to pour.
I’ve heard from people who say that Ford’s EVs peform the worst in cold weather. All EVs lose a lot of range, but Ford apparently loses more than half its range in the Winter months in Northern Ontario (areas around lake Superior).
Source was a guy who runs a sales team for all of Ontario.
As otatop said, if you leave your house with a full “tank” every morning it is incredibly unlikely you’ll ever have an issue. But worst case, AAA does offer roadside charging now I believe.
Tesla, and I’m assuming some other EVs now too, is very very good at knowing where you are and if you are getting out of range of the nearest known charger. If you use the navigation system it will automatically plan charges for long trips and will alert you if your battery gets near low enough to not be able to make it to a known charger. You basically have to actively try to run out of power on the road.
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I posted a follow-up in the LC rant thread, but I have another, so I guess I’ll post it here.
The previous follow-up was that a week after taking the car to the dealership, it died again. My daughter was again the one driving and it was on a busy street. Just absolutely shut down. Fortunately, she was able to steer it enough to get it into a parking lot.
That was a Thursday night. Friday morning, I had the car towed to the dealership (my rant was about AAA never coming Thursday night, so I called my own tow truck). I talked to the same lady I dealt with before, who told me she suspects she knows what the problem is, though she’s not a mechanic. Apparently, there is a known issue with Kia engines to the point that they extended people’s warranties. She pulled up mine and she said it would be covered if it’s a certain problem(s). I think connecting rods or something?
At any rate, she said it would be about three weeks because they had 400 cars in the queue. IF it’s covered under warranty, then my rental will also be covered. So I’m either paying a ton of money or nothing.
Yesterday was the three-week mark and I hadn’t heard anything, so I contacted the service rep. She told me that a new motor has been ordered and that everything will be covered. She didn’t have an exact answer on what the specific problem was (she sounded really busy, so I didn’t want to keep her), but explained that the mechanics did a ground-up inspection, etc. I made her assure me that this would 100% solve the problem, because as much mental stress as the potential cost is, that’s less important than the car not shutting down while going 70 on I-75.
She assured me again that this is definitely fixing the problem and that it will be covered under warranty, which means the rental will also be reimbursed. No timeline on when, but that’s fine.
My fingers will remain crossed until I get the car back, it has no problems for weeks, and I pay no money for it.
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This might be the issue/recall/extended warranty related to my car:
Whether that’s the problem or not, Hyundai engines are notorious for burning oil. I got in the habit of checking oil levels every few weeks and topping off liberally.
I also gave up on the dealer servicing—every single time I ended up spending $300-600 for their dumb maintenance schedule. Eventually I found a good mechanic who would just inspect the things you were supposed to change maintenance period rather than actually change them (for instance belts—he said the original belt is usually better than the replacement and it’s easy to mess something up while replacing a belt, so you’re better off making sure the original one looks good and moving on). I think I spent <$300/year servicing my 2011 Sonata after that.
Now I drive an EV and I’m not looking back. This is true of just about everyone I’ve talked to who has an EV, and it will be true of just about everyone here soon too.
Yeah, that’s what the guy who originally looked at it at the NTB said.
Woah. Just had something similar happen to my 2013 Hyundai Sonata. Pushed a bunch of white/or blueish smoke out of the exhaust (not sure because I was in traffic and it happened so fast, but as I understand blue would represent oil) and the car went into “limp” mode and the check engine light came on.
Car is in excellent shape and all recalls current and maintenance has been on schedule. Had it towed to my mechanic and he said it didn’t have a drop of oil in it. Flushed it and did an oil change and it’s been running fine for weeks now. He also cleared the check engine code. I believe I had the same issue and even my mechanic was like “take it to hyundai, they’re probably gonna have to replace your engine, they’ve had a lot of problems with these”
So I scheduled an appt with Hyundai and basically got told come back when it happens again and don’t clear the code next time. I was kind of expecting that since in my research I saw a bunch of comments from other Hyundai owners and mechanics saying the same thing - if the code was cleared you’re SOL until next time.
Too many scammers on CL/FB if you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s not 1955 anymore. I know someone (an idiot tbh) who was recently burned badly on a truck purchase off FB Marketplace. “It looked great cosmetically!” and turns out the frame was completely rusted. The used market is awful right now and the horrible cars / scammers seem to be overrepresented.
Run, don’t walk. Run as fast as you can. Did you see the post a bit upthread about a Cadillac needing $6400 of work? That’s what those are.
You’re paying it? Can you have someone who’s not the dealership look at it? I’d be worried about the next $6400 repair that’s gonna pop up and the next and the next.
I saw a thing recently about a truck service with a portable charger, so they can drive to you and top you off to get you to the next station. Dunno how widespread it is and which range of EV vehicles it covers.
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How much are you spending? Toyotas (and Lexus) hold value especially well depending on the model, but you also pay a premium for it. Honda isn’t bad but really everything is a distant second to Toyota/Lexus. However, that reputation for stellar reliability and hyper mileage before failure goes out the window if the car was poorly maintained. Scammers know and this will charge the Toyota premium for disaster cars to people who falsely believe that every Toyota is bulletproof and guaranteed to run 250k miles with no issues.
My theory and method on car buying though is that you need to know exactly what you’re buying (make / model / year / trim level) ahead of time. Even good cars have bad years that you want to avoid, and you’ll never know that until you get really interested in that model and start doing the research. Once I narrow it down to a particular model and range of years, I start checking the forums where the owners of those cars post. Check the TSBs and recalls. Toyota (Lexus) has a site called My Toyota (My Lexus) where you can add specific cars to your virtual garage and pull the service history for that VIN number, and you should learn how to read those. It’s often quite different and more detailed than what’s provided by Carfax for any service provided by a Toyota (Lexus) dealer. Honda/Acura have a similar tool. I prefer to use JD Power (formerly NADA guides) for market pricing over KBB and other stuff.
If you want to hear a qualified person talk more about the nuts and bolts, I love this guy’s channel. He’s a Toyota Master Diagnostic Technician (highest level) and seems to have a level head. There are other Youtube “mechanics” out there who are absolutely batshit insane.
Nice. Just come back when your car dies in the middle lane on the highway.
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independent repair shop, but rear differential has to be purchased through a GM dealership as part stores don’t carry those.
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Thanks for videos, I’m looking to spend like 10k on a Toyota Camry probably, and buying off Craigslist from the wealthier suburbs because people tend to maintain their cars much better, and have actual maintenance histories vs a random car in the city
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Carmax said they’d pay $2800 for this car (subject to inspection). That’s a snap call for me to get simple reliable transportation for my kid right? Has been driven semi regularly, smog and registration etc current.
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