Killing OnStar:
Pulled the onstar fuse because fuk that noise, and shockingly the car doesn’t complain about it at all, the only way I can tell is the missing LTE bars on the screen & no light above the onstar button.
First real test drive:
I took it all the way to town & ran a bunch of errands. Put 82 miles on it that day and didn’t even use half the battery, this range is crazy compared to my prier EVs.
This was the gauges when I got back home “since last full charge” as the correct info for that trip, but gauge cluster has good range est & can kinda see the %.
I’ve been driving it like this for a couple weeks now. Unfortunately due to the car being newer I’m struggling to find a white bumper for it, I did find 2 option for the fender, but they’re both asking too much IMO and at this point I can take my time.
Cost so far with taxes:
$6,381 Purchase
$57.23 Coolant reservoir
$205.64 Radiator
$376.15 Passenger headlight assembly
$26.49 Screen protector
$7,046.51 Total
I’m currently playing with charging it via solar. I have a power station capable of 7kw of solar input & I have the solar to do it, but for now I’ll start with 2kw of solar & see how that goes.
Yup, slowly but surely.
Thanks! With a little work I think most people can do what I’ve done so far, it looks more daunting than it really is once you dig in.
I don’t know, the only father figure I had taught me about computers before he could teach me about cars before he passed. I can check/replace air in my tires, put water in the windshield wiper “canister?” And check the dipstick and read the damn level on it.
Just remember: most mechanics were the guys who quit high school early.
It’s literally not rocket science, and most of the time if you take your car to someone else for basic repair you’re getting it looked at by the 16-18 year old apprentice.
certainly want to hear some updates as time goes on. I love my civic Si and thankfully it does good on fuel, but premium fuel is costly… granted not as bad as diesel has gotten!
Plenty of cheap bolts in the states, and i’ve considered it once or twice.
Repairing a car is not that hard as long as you are not touching the drivetrain. And thats locked out on evs, you cant really fix battery or motors in any meaningful way
It depends on the EV. You can swap them out on Leafs, Sparks, Volts, & bolts that I know of.
On another kinda fun note, inside these batteries packs are littreally just giant phone cells or 18650 cells (3.7ish nominal voltage), and those don’t have much for brains so even if the pack is locked to the car you could just replace the cells.
With all this said, I certainly CAN NOT recommend anyone crack one of these batteries packs open. Most are 400v & that’s spells death if you make a mistake.
There are SOP for working with these batteries safely though.
Im surprised the car hasnt yelled at you for removing the radiator. I owned a volt years ago and that car refused to charge because the coolant level sensor went bad and had to be reprogrammed by the dealership(simply swapping a $15 sensor did not clear the code)
Love the project. I hadnt realized salvage value had come that low on EV’s
