Unconventional Potential Owner

Chevy Spark EV Forum

Help Support Chevy Spark EV Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
mRahmani said:
Oh there's plenty of nickel and dime stuff I left out.... But taking the oil change as an example, ... Over the projected 5 year period, that still only bumps the difference up $750.
Yeah, but your time...... How many hours of your time is spent, start to finish, door to door, on that nasty "Oil Change" process.
Air filters, brake pads that actually wear and get used up, etc....

I love the example above:
"In my 3 in a half years and 42,000 miles of owning my Spark EV, I've opened my hood 3 times to refill my windshield washer fluid and bought 2 new tires for the front."

I'm going start saying that !! :p
Only I have opened the hood more often, just to gaze and top up the washer fluid needlessly.
 
I'm not trying to convince anybody here that the Spark isn't a worthwhile car! I think it's pretty great, or I wouldn' t be here learning about it. It's just a little outside the realm of where I can justify it at the moment, and I thought it might be interesting to document why.

Maintenance items are a big hassle to most people, but they're not really negatives for me. I swap brake pads several times a year for track duty, so that's kind of irrelevant to me. Same goes for oil changes. I have a heated garage and access to a lift, my last oil change took about 15 minutes while chatting with friends.

I freely admit that my situation is different from most people's - all of the notes about these maintenance items would normally be totally valid, and should be taken into account.
 
^ and when we purchased our Spark EV, we talked about how after 5 years ownership, even if the resale value is $1000 at that point (unlikely but for sake of of this conversation), we still wouldnt' be at the loss we were at on our ICE car we sold after 5.5 years of ownership (a 2012 Jetta GLI that cost us $25k to buy, we sold for $12k)... and considering we only paid $8550 for this spark EV, it's impossible to have as much of a resale loss or depreciation as we did on our former VW.


EDIT: We also have 2 race cars that we track between March and October. Our view was we wanted 1 less car to have to worry about maintenance. Obviously the Spark EV is not a track car and never will be. Our former Jetta GLI never saw the track either.
 
NORTON said:
mRahmani said:
Oh there's plenty of nickel and dime stuff I left out.... But taking the oil change as an example, ... Over the projected 5 year period, that still only bumps the difference up $750.
Yeah, but your time...... How many hours of your time is spent, start to finish, door to door, on that nasty "Oil Change" process.
Air filters, brake pads that actually wear and get used up, etc....

I love the example above:
"In my 3 in a half years and 42,000 miles of owning my Spark EV, I've opened my hood 3 times to refill my windshield washer fluid and bought 2 new tires for the front."

I'm going start saying that !! :p
Only I have opened the hood more often, just to gaze and top up the washer fluid needlessly.

You mean there is actually something under the hood? Now, I will have to go and have a look! :lol:
 
mRahmani said:
.... so that's kind of irrelevant to me. Same goes for oil changes. I have a heated garage and access to a lift, my last oil change took about 15 minutes while chatting with friends.

I freely admit that my situation is different from most people's .....
Yes, doing the nasty deed took 'about 15 minutes'. :roll:
But does that count opening doors, driving up onto the lift, putting on the nitrile gloves (unless your a tough-guy-manly-man), buying the gloves and the filter and the oil at the auto parts store, the drive to and from the store,
AND last, but not least,,, Properly disposing of the old oil and chit canning the oil filter and all the bottles.

15 minutes might be a stretch, but I do understand not hating the whole process.
I used to be there with you. In fact I still do it for my kids and GF. But I hate it now. :x Especially when that black stuff gets past the gloves. :oops: I have better things to do with my time. :p

You will really like living in the FUTURE, where you don't have to look under the hood.
And you don't even have to check tire pressure ! It has the high end GM TPMS, not just an old school warning light.

In fact,, is there a 'Low Washer Fluid' warning in this little S-box? I may go for a record of not opening the hood!
 
You guys open the hood... WTF. I just let my wife commute in this thing(since I'm a car dealer and drive dealer cars) every day and only look at it when she tells me to wash it, NOTHING else, don't really use the washer fluid in Florida.
 
This seems like a silly hill to die on, but come on, oil changes aren't that bad.

No, I've never bothered with nitrile gloves, though I do have a half dozen pairs of Mechanix ones and several rolls of shop towels lying around the garage.

My oil pan holds 5 gallons, so I only deal with it every 3-4 oil changes.

Amazon lets me reorder my filter in the space of 60 seconds while I'm sitting on the pot. :lol:

I don't make separate trips to buy oil, I just stock up on Mobil 1 whenever Costco is running a sale. Typically have 6-12 quarts lying around at any given time.
 
mRahmani said:
.., but come on, oil changes aren't that bad....
True, especially when you are tooled up and streamlined!
But imagine a future without that dirty chore! That's where I'm coming from.

Only that's not true for me. :roll:
I'm looking forward to doing the drive unit fluid change at 50-60k miles instead of the scheduled 97.5k.
I'll be using the GM recommended ATF and I will spend another ~$20 for an oil analysis. I'll post the results here.

Side Note: Gen3 Prius does not have a recommended transaxle oil change schedule. Nada, Lifetime fluid... :?:
I changed it on a used one that I bought with 114k miles.
The oil analysis results were horrible. I started what became a big thread at that forum.
 
Its not JUST the oil changes keep in mind.

Within the last 2 months alone, my husband had to do the following on my friends ICE car to help her out (she's not yet convinced to go electric and is car shopping now):

- replace rusted out exhaust
- replace front brake pads and rotors (no regen so yes I consider this an ICE thing)
- replace 02 sensor
- replace starter
- replace alternator and battery
- replace faulty injector and fuel filter
- replace automatic transmission fluid and transmission filter


^ with the exception of the 12volt battery, none of those things are ever even on the radar for an EV.

EDIT: Now we told her she also has some seepage and will soon need to replace the VC gasket and her power steering pump has started leaking too. Her front main seal and oil pan started leaking AND her distributor started leaking oil as well. Rather than address all the 'should really fix this soon', she decided to just shop for another car instead and said, 'its time, I've had this car 3.5 years now already'

Granted many newer cars now have electric steering control without a steering pump, oil seals and leaks are still a real thing as ICE cars age and mileage goes up even if you do all the required preventative maintenance along the way, its just part of life. Plus since we live in the mighty rust belt, rusty exhaust is just a fact of life that's one less thing to ever have to worry about on an EV.

mRahmani said:
This seems like a silly hill to die on, but come on, oil changes aren't that bad.

No, I've never bothered with nitrile gloves, though I do have a half dozen pairs of Mechanix ones and several rolls of shop towels lying around the garage.

My oil pan holds 5 gallons, so I only deal with it every 3-4 oil changes.

Amazon lets me reorder my filter in the space of 60 seconds while I'm sitting on the pot. :lol:

I don't make separate trips to buy oil, I just stock up on Mobil 1 whenever Costco is running a sale. Typically have 6-12 quarts lying around at any given time.
 
Chris101 said:
Its not JUST the oil changes keep in mind.

Within the last 2 months alone, my husband had to do the following on my friends ICE car to help her out (she's not yet convinced to go electric and is car shopping now):

- replace rusted out exhaust
- replace front brake pads and rotors (no regen so yes I consider this an ICE thing)
- replace 02 sensor
- replace starter
- replace alternator and battery
- replace faulty injector and fuel filter
- replace automatic transmission fluid and transmission filter
GOOD TIMES !!!!

I remember them fondly.. :oops:

Cors,,, we have bills to pay,,, eventually.... (battery degradation) ...only time will tell....

In the mean time,,, drive on,,,, Silently !!!
 
I'm astounded that no one brought up, not the cost of fueling an ICE vehicle, but the necessity of the effort of fueling an ICE. The vast majority of people with EV's charge only at home, at work or both and so never have to even visit a service station.

I don't know the gentleman's distance from his chosen service station but I am about a 7 mile round trip from my preferred fueling location. As the gas station is not on my typical commute, this is a separate trip combined only with a grocery run. Over the course of a year that is somewhere between 150-300 miles of travel depending on how many times one has fill up just to maintain the ability to keep going.

Also ignored is the time spent fueling, which while minimal adds up over the course of a year, and the concurrent exposure to the cancer-causing benzene component of gasoline. While that risk is small, there being an infinite number of points between any two points, it is infinitely larger than the risk of contracting cancer from the act of plugging in ones EV at home.

Speaking of risk, there would no doubt be a small risk of electrocution from handling the EVSE but I suspect the risk that a garaged ICE powered car might somehow ignite and burn the house down causing the drivers death would be pretty much a wash.

I realize these 'justifications' are a little pretentious. Dollar wise, they're no more convincing than the earlier arguments so I'll tell you what sold me on this car.

I think what sold me on the 2014 Spark EVwas that it reminded me, not of well appointed 1969 Mercury Cougar or the somewhat exotic 66 Oldsmoble Toronado or even a hot, musclebound 69 Olds 4-4-2 or 69 Dodge Charger 440 but rather the '68 bare-bones Plymouth two-door coupe with its base cloth bench seat, no frills radio, small hub caps on steel wheels and black walls - This modest, even basic car all wrapped a muscular 383 4bbl with four on the floor and was adorned by the appearance of a small bird insignia. Yes, it reminds me so much of the plain jane 68 Road Runner because that famous 'sleeper' offered just 25 ft/lb more torque (425 ft-lb vs. 400 ft-lb) than the 2014 'plain Jane' LT1 Spark.

From a write up of the 68 Road Runner ...
By 1968, muscle cars had evolved from mainstream models with expensive special engines to expensive special models with expensive special engines. What the youth of America needed was an inexpensive mainstream model with an inexpensive special engine. The 1968 Plymouth Road Runner was just such a muscle car.

It started with a pillared coupe, the lightest and least-costly iteration of the handsome new Belvedere body. The engine was Mopar's proven 383-cid V-8, but with heads, manifolds, camshaft, valve springs, and crankcase windage tray from the big, bad 440 Magnum. With its four-barrel carb and unsilenced air cleaner, the new mill made 335 bhp with 425 ft-lb of torque.

Serious-minded standard features included a strengthened four-speed manual, 3.23:1 gears, beefed suspension with high-rate rear leaf springs, 11-inch heavy-duty drum brakes, and Polyglas F70X14s. TorqueFlite was optional. The interior was bench-seat austere, and the base price was a stingy $2,896.
The Spark is no 'muscle car,' it is far more refined with four-wheel disc brakes, stabilitrack and ABS. Its near 50-50 weight distribution is a lot better than the base Spark. Where the 383 Plymouth was known for lumpy performance idle, unsilenced aircleaners and growling exhaust, the whisper quiet electric Spark EV is as different from its ICE counterpart as the Road Runner was from a 225cid 6 cyl Belvedere with which it shared its sheet metal, base seats and dash. And it is different in the same way.

Every car is molded by its time and the Spark EV, as as pioneering EV was built to dispel the notion that mainstream electric powered cars - green cars - can be fun and don't have to be slugs like the Prius, Leaf or Smart EV. So while the Ferrari's, Porsche's and Jaguars of the 1960s were in a different class altogether from the basic American sedan, it was cars like the Roadrunner that proved American iron could be tons of fun.

neomaxcom
 
Back
Top