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comment by zebra2
zebra2  ·  1673 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: September 25, 2019

I'm mulling over the idea of what my next car will be. The Saab still runs, but its days are clearly numbered. It leaks a bit of oil, coolant, power steering fluid, wiper fluid... count my blessings it doesn't leak gas.

Various sensors are starting to fail (like those really important ones that let you know the side door dingy light has gone out).

The suspension bushings are worn and it makes some god-awful noises if the street needs repaving (and you can bet CalTrans it does).

The passenger-side airbag has persistent sensor malfunctions where I need to keep the passenger-side seatbelt plugged-in to shut it up. This persisted even after I had a dealer replace the Takata anti-personnel airbags.

One of the spark plugs got burped up in oil a while back. One set of gaskets and plugs later, it had a moment where it did it again, but not since? It's been months and I don't know if that problem is gone or sleeping.

It's a good chunk into the 200k mileage club, and I put a lot of miles on it for my daily commute. Part of me wants a more eco-friendly car, something with good mileage that doesn't leave a Deepwater Horizon-esque wake of fluids behind it. At the same time, I don't want to downgrade the fun-ness of my car, so Prius et al are off the table. There's a Volt or a Model 3, but I'm not super into having a car payment. And even though I'm doing pretty alright financially right now, both those are on the far side of feasible. I'm still not convinced that I shouldn't just get another Craigslist buy for a few grand and drive it into the ground over the next few years.





goobster  ·  1672 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You can get Gen1 Volts (like my 2015) for around $5k.

Is that car-payment-land for you? Out out-of-pocket land?

zebra2  ·  1672 days ago  ·  link  ·  

A used Volt is that cheap? I could handle that out of pocket. I may have to look into that. One thing about used electrics and hybrids that gives me pause is I don't know how well the batteries age. I've heard some stories of faster-than-normal depreciation due to battery death.

goobster  ·  1671 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah. Battery-age is a common concern... and yet people buy gas-powered cars without oil change records or service records at all. And that is seen as fine and normal.

The fact is, you few colossal battery failures/expenses you hear about are the ones that are exciting and colossal... you don't hear about the batteries doing fine at 300k-miles because they don't fit the narrative that hybrids/electrics are "risky".

And the Volt has a gas generator anyway. I drove mine for 2 months without plugging it in once - only on gas - before I got the outlet installed at my house for the high-powered charging. (I weirdly didn't have any outlets on the front side of my house!) So even if your battery dies completely, you just have a really fucking heavy gas-powered car. :-)