Ongoing General Automotive Thread 2.0

[woob]

I think you pay a premium to buy most vehicles on BaT. I haven't looked at the prices on Cars and Bids very closely but it seems like prices are a bit less affected by the brand there?

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by woob

I think you pay a premium to buy most vehicles on BaT. I haven't looked at the prices on Cars and Bids very closely but it seems like prices are a bit less affected by the brand there?

There's definitely a BAT premium, but they also tend to get the cream of the crop in terms of cars. What doesn't make the cut on BAT tends to trickle down to Cars and Bids, Hagerty, etc...

[woob]

Yeah, definitely the cream of the crop. I was just browsing Alfa GTV6s on there and man some nice ones have gone through BaT.

[calgarygeologist]

I'm also watching the 2000 F150 Harley edition in Ontario which only has 10,000km. That is a sweet truck and I won't be surprised if that goes for around $20k. It is a flareside truck which I love.

[Doctorfever]

Looking for rims and all season tires for a truck.

Any tips on a good place to start looking? Anyone have good / bead experiences purchasing from anywhere?

Thanks in advance.

[chedder]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

Looking for rims and all season tires for a truck.

Any tips on a good place to start looking? Anyone have good / bead experiences purchasing from anywhere?

Thanks in advance.

I just bought a set of wheels from
canadawheels.ca (already had tires).

Price was great. Free delivery in 2 days. 2nd set I've bought from them.

Since you need tires you could try Costco for the tires and mounting.

[Table 5]

Whenever I need tires/wheels, I always start at UrbanX. I haven't had a bad experience yet.

[Ironhorse]

I was going to try UrbanX but their location was inconvenient for me. I ended up at Harper’s Tire for some new Michelin Pilot Sports, and got good pricing and great service.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Whenever I need tires/wheels, I always start at UrbanX. I haven't had a bad experience yet.

Looks wise, all the wheels I've gotten from UrbanX (non-OEM wheels) looked great. Heck, even my steelies from them looked surprisingly bad ass. I don't know if they always try to carefully select/stock wheels that match the profile of the vehicles or they like stocking/recommending specific looks that jive with what I'm usually looking for/am willing to pay a slight bit extra for, but they often look better than expected.

I value their expertise when they say a wheel option might not match the looks profile of the vehicle and they've never steered me wrong. I don't even mind that their prices aren't as cheap as they used to be. The value they offer to me is still unmatched. I tried a few other places for my parent's vehicles and was disappointed or indifferent.

Many non-OEM looking wheels I or my friends have been recommended through other shops in town (ie: dealerships) seem good on paper, and then (IMO) they looked bleh in person. I don't include those that self research and self select from a catalogue or order/deliver direct to themselves in this. Just pure recommendations from Bob and his team at UrbanX (ie: "Which do you think will look better out of these ones?").

My buddy has a similar shaped alloy on his van to mine which he selected at a dealership after seeing mine. But mine has a slight variation in design shape and protrusion wise that looks more aggressive and bigger and his looks quite a bit smaller and cheaper. Side by side, the wheels would look 80-90% similar. But on the vans, it's somehow a huge difference in how good they match the vehicle. My buddy's somehow almost looks like he's on 16-17" wheels even though both our vehicles are 18". It might be something conceptually like a concave/convex/flat design of a wheel that gives a specific look that Sliver kinda brought up a few pages back.

Tires are tires though regardless of profile. It doesn't really affect look too much to me. I've never really seen someone buy a tire for a vehicle that I thought looked ugly.

[DoubleF]

Tire related question. I have some non-studded winters (TBH feels like all weathers at best) on my van that have another season or two. But I'm not impressed by their current performance and I honestly am planning on replacing them with studded winter tires.

I shouldn't have an issue if I just leave them on all summer for road trips and stuff, right? They're not flat or bald that would have siping issues in the rain or anything like that. Just slightly below performance of what I'd prefer to have when we get a snow dump.

I was thinking of just burning through them all summer for drives to Kelowna etc. to save the tread on my new all weathers and then getting brand new winters. Someone tried telling me that I might get a ticket for having winter tires on in the summer in BC, but I don't see anything like that and I think they're confused.

[Ironhorse]

You should be fine burning through your winter tires as long as you have enough tread left. I’ve done it. They’ll just wear faster than an all season / summer tire, and feel a bit more squishy when gets hot out.

[GoinAllTheWay]

You ever get that, when buying something new and get the "huh, wish I knew that beforehand" situation? Something you didn't think about makes it a bit of a bummer or wish you had thought about beforehand?


I'm kinda wondering about that when looking at a hybrid vehicle. Wife and I are considering bucking the trend and moving to BC. Figured looking at a hybrid SUV or sedan may be a good idea considering the price of fuel in BC.


Anything I should know about Hybrids ahead of time? Looking at used, maybe around 2016 onwards.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

You ever get that, when buying something new and get the "huh, wish I knew that beforehand" situation? Something you didn't think about makes it a bit of a bummer or wish you had thought about beforehand?


I'm kinda wondering about that when looking at a hybrid vehicle. Wife and I are considering bucking the trend and moving to BC. Figured looking at a hybrid SUV or sedan may be a good idea considering the price of fuel in BC.


Anything I should know about Hybrids ahead of time? Looking at used, maybe around 2016 onwards.

I have a plug-in hybrid and it's just so awesome. I get around 60-65km on the battery and for me that is enough for almost every day. Of course you have the gas engine for anything over that, so you eliminate the range anxiety. I think I probably use less than half of the amount of gas as I was with a regular ICE vehicle. I can't recommend this enough.

I can't speak to the savings and efficiency of a regular hybrid, but I think it would be decent. I know that driving in hybrid mode for me is better than the pure ICE because you get some benefit of the EV engine, but I couldn't really quantify that for you.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

You ever get that, when buying something new and get the "huh, wish I knew that beforehand" situation? Something you didn't think about makes it a bit of a bummer or wish you had thought about beforehand?


I'm kinda wondering about that when looking at a hybrid vehicle. Wife and I are considering bucking the trend and moving to BC. Figured looking at a hybrid SUV or sedan may be a good idea considering the price of fuel in BC.


Anything I should know about Hybrids ahead of time? Looking at used, maybe around 2016 onwards.

We have a 2019 Ford Fusion Hybrid and it is great. We use it as our daily driver around the city and based on the situation we do anywhere from 50% to 90% of our driving in EV mode. The regular 10km commute to the office is 66% to 75% electric. Short trips to the grocery store can be around 90% electric. Driving to the other end of the city or on Deerfoot/Stoney will kick on the ICE more. Highway driving utilizes the ICE more as well but a trip to Banff or Edmonton will still do about 20% to 25% in electric. Overall fuel economy is seasonal with about 5L/100km in the summer and 6L/100km in the winter.

If you learn to adjust your driving habits a bit it really helps to keep the hybrid in EV mode. Things like more cruising to stop lights in order to maximize Regen braking or accelerating a bit slower to keep it in EV mode.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by Slava

I have a plug-in hybrid and it's just so awesome. I get around 60-65km on the battery and for me that is enough for almost every day. Of course you have the gas engine for anything over that, so you eliminate the range anxiety. I think I probably use less than half of the amount of gas as I was with a regular ICE vehicle. I can't recommend this enough.

I can't speak to the savings and efficiency of a regular hybrid, but I think it would be decent. I know that driving in hybrid mode for me is better than the pure ICE because you get some benefit of the EV engine, but I couldn't really quantify that for you.

Bolded part is exactly the part the intrigues me. Our use would be very similar. Overwhelming majority of the time, our driving would be in that rage.


So plug-in hybrid....I assume that means there are versions you can plug in to your home to charge the battery and other versions where plug-in is not available and the charging of the battery is done solely by the engine?


What's power/acceleration like? Is the engine able to deliver decent power when battery not available?

What's the capacity of your fuel tank?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Bolded part is exactly the part the intrigues me. Our use would be very similar. Overwhelming majority of the time, our driving would be in that rage.


So plug-in hybrid....I assume that means there are versions you can plug in to your home to charge the battery and other versions where plug-in is not available and the charging of the battery is done solely by the engine?


What's power/acceleration like? Is the engine able to deliver decent power when battery not available?

What's the capacity of your fuel tank?

Yeah the plug-in works with a normal electric socket and you could use faster chargers also. You can intall a 220v socket in your garage also and it charges the battery faster. I just drive with pure electric all the time, and the acceleration is fine. You can switch to gas, and you can use the combined if you really want to mess around. The combined EV and ICE is pretty fun, but also unneeded. And if you run the battery to zero, it's just a hybrid and drives the same as any other ICE I'd say. And if you run to zero charge, it just switches to hybrid automatically; you don't even notice and you don't have to do anything.

I don't really know the fuel capacity. I feel like it might be a 70L tank. Basically though, if you drive on pure electric all the time, and rarely use the gas I feel like I want to switch it to hybrid and burn through the tank every few weeks just to make sure that the gas isn't just sitting there going bad. You can rather easily just run full electric for if you drive less than 50-60kms a day, obviously depending on how often you drive and those habits.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Ah ok, I assumed fuel tanks would be smaller in hybrids.


Naturally I think of another question after posting the last one....any concerns with the cost to replace the battery? I would imagine that's something that would need to be done at some point? I'm a buy and keep for a long time kinda car buyer so should probably consider that too.


Thanks a ton BTW, appreciate your input.

[Fuzz]

Keep in mind Slava's vehicle may be different from what you look at. There are many different ways a hybrid system can work, so if there any specific features (like battery only) make sure your model has that ability. If if is a PHEV (plug in hybrid electric vehicle) you can plug it in at home. If it isn't(most hybrid or mild hybrid), it only gets power from re-generation. These typically have small batteries, and the EV is more of a boost in efficiency vs pure EV mode. But I think even some PHEV's don't have a full EV mode.

[chedder]

Saw the ad for the new Dodge Hornet phev last night watching the game. Thought, that's interesting and it ought to be cheap since it's a Dodge. Wrong. It starts at $58,000. Hard pass.

[photon]

We thought the same thing when looking for a replacement for my wife's Civic, a PHEV with enough range to get to work and back on battery only would be perfect.

PHEVs with a range of I think 50km or more counts for the $5000 cash from Canada for electric cars.. was enough to bring the Kia Niro PHEV close to the price for the ICE one.. well in theory anyway, the Kia dealership I went to outright told me that they have $5k or more premium over MSRP to even start talking about the Niro so I walked out.

The small battery of a plugin hybrid is nice in a way because you can reasonably expect to charge it on 110V overnight enough to get to work and back on battery the next day for a lot of ppl.

As far as replacing the battery I don't think that'll be a thing you'll have to worry about owning the car any reasonable amount of time unless you're constantly draining it out of that 30%-70% range. Needing a battery replacement is pretty rare. And a 10kWh battery is going to be a lot cheaper than a 80+kWh one in a full EV.

That said it does happen.