Bling

The ugly one... oh wait.

18 hours ago, flyingbrick said:

OMG, The other day I realized how much it costs me to fill the lawn mower. Bloody heaps.

I think my battery mower costs around 1c to mow my 100sqm lawn.*

*my maths might be off, but 48wh battery gets two mows and 26c a killawasp = fuck all.

Pretty keen to ditch everything on my property that runs on petrol, excluding my old cars as that's not practical without $$$.

No one cares.

As for the actual topic of springs, just give Chamberlains a call, was a year ago I popped in so I don't recall the price for some custom springs. Wasn't cheap, but also wasn't more than one would expect to pay for someone to calculate the exact spring needed to meet the requirements you provide when ordering.

Man I should dig out my C64 games and try flog them. Has been on my to do list for a year easily. Did you test them or sell as is sort of thing? Were they PC games?

Thinking out loud you could also get some progressive springs made, best of both worlds. Long enough to remain captive and secure between top hat and base. Without needing to be a soft spring to be the right length / spring rate. My rear springs are progressive. They are stupidly short, but they are progressive. I'm guessing budget is the reason to run straps or the likes vs new springs that fit the bill? I was pretty close to getting Chamberlains to make me a pair of springs but due to time constraints, I made what I had work. But it would have been easier than the extra effort needed to make my stuff work. Also keep in mind you need 40mm droop or 1/3 of suspension travel as droop. Could be worth having a measure.

Another option would be cobra springs made to suit. That was a path I looked at for the rear of mine. They would do the maths on a spring needed to fit the specs you provide. 20mm longer for example with slightly lighter spring rate to keep final ride height the same? With the keeper springs you may need to make a custom adaptor to your your springs. There were only two sizes of spring that I recall, both  within a few mm of each other to suit different coilover brands. I went keepers in front as needed 10mm more travel for cert, otherwise would have avoided as it means springs aren't tight in coilover, but does the job fine.

Those came up mint!

Not going to lie, I don't know what imp suspension looks like. I have similar keeper springs in my Rolla certed though. Is imp coilover or divorced up front?

Multimeter time to check where there is electrons and where there isn't at the charger port?

Solar panels / frames?

Leaf owning family member has been towing their tandem trailer with ride on mower / garden waste for years. 

Hey Ned, what were those spare wheel kits worth / are they coming back?

No issues with all the Dorman parts I've used so I wouldn't be concerned. No hoses but the likes of ball joints, suspension bits.

5 hours ago, locost_bryan said:

340l, bigger than most small cars (Swift, Polo) and about the same as a Golf, MG4 or small SUV.  Big enough for the two suitcases and other stuff we take on holiday, or a decent supermarket shop.

Less boot space than a leaf but a leaf is longer than 4m.

Yeah I can certainly see the merits of slower driving, after driving the motorway at my normal cruise speed with headwind. The best guess range certainly takes a beating. 

Yeah I found quite a mix (dealer quality wise) while shopping, but it was my preference to go with a yard for the above reasons. CGA is pretty powerful, but painful if dealing with someone less interested in after sales service.

EV has landed here, i'm going to struggle to not be one of those EV fans, I know it. Mrs hasn't even seen it other than some low res photo, hope she likes it.

Soo... anyone want to buy a Toyota Blade? Goes hard for what it is etc

I'd say most people plug in to a standard 10A plug and away they go. Boot looks small still though? Fuel economy looks good.

10 hours ago, kws said:

My issue buying second-hand EVs at this point in time is the risk of buying one with a bad battery, and ended up with significant range degradation, especially on imports. I wouldn't buy a secondhand cellphone, so I'm not really keen on a second-hand EV.

This can happen just as easily with an ICE car. Depends what you're looking at too. Nissan Leaf for example you can get a bunch of battery data off the car via a scan. It's not a fool proof thing, but you can spot bad ones easily when you know what to look for. Can actually analyse the data quite a lot to determine how it has been treated over its life.

Any import / NZ new car on second hand market is a gamble. Wouldn't put me off either option though.

I think Ned covers which cars to avoid outside of warranty earlier in this thread.

Mayte no car is going to fit 300m3 worth of luggage in it. Yeah Leaf boot isn't massive, but Zoe doesn't look big either. Unless you don't need the back seat, then fold them forward and large boot is sorted. Applies to most cars.

If you want cheap, buy second hand, just like we do with ICE cars. All going well i'll have an EV at home tomorrow. 

Ah that's annoying! After a fuel pump for WOF and they have a few options, so figured if the $7 on clearance pump from Repco doesn't fit i'll grab from there. Have checked most local to me places and one place has one for ~$150. Another $300+, madness. I don't have all day to check every shop, when rockauto has like five options at the click of a button.

Thanks for all the feedback, good to know things still get processed quick.

Thanks, just thought i'd check they are still pretty quick.

How long are orders taking to arrive at the moment? Haven't order in a couple of years but need parts soonish.

Yeah not about looks either. Imagine the kind of accident you'd have to be in to break those welds. Just isn't going to happen. I was going to say i'm sure if you paid supercar money you'd get nicer welds. But as above, you really don't as i've seen plenty of content covering rebuilds / projects. But as I say, it's about doing the job, not stacking dimes for Instagram fandom. Tesla is mosly robots at this point I would assume too. So repeatable welds that will have passed all required tests.

No more concerning than your wheel falling off due to not being maintained.

Braked trailer and EV would be pretty short range unless Tesla. Unbraked trailer would at least be nice and simple as car would do it nicely.

Surely there will be a few places around that will do refills. How much longer left on test for your cylinder? Depends how much gas you use I guess too, i'm a very infrequent user so my owner cylinder made sense. Last fill and test was 90 odd bucks and will last me a few years.