My decades of working from home ended when I accepted a position with a new employer, and therefore I needed to replace my car (a 25 year old Ford Taurus). As an Electronics Engineer and a mechanic I was excited to move to an all electric vehicle. No more oil changes and oil and air filters, oil leaks, serpentine belts, vacuum hoses and vacuum leaks, etc. Only tires, brakes and rotors, a 12 volt battery for the computers, and a cabin air filter.
Reviewing options and shopping
I first checked Ford and Subaru but they didn’t have anything. I test drove a Chevy Bolt and I really liked it but they were not for sale due to a recall with an unknown repair date. I looked at Toyota and a few others but didn’t find anything like the Bolt until I stumbled upon the Kia Niro EV and it was in my budget range. I test drove one and really liked it and then spent the next few weeks shopping Carvana, Vroom and local used dealer lots.
How we ended up buying the car and receiving it is a whole other story but sharing that isn’t helping anybody.
Changes and maintenance
One thing I had to add to the car was a roof rack for my 2m/70cm and 1.25cm radio antennas. I mounted the radio in the trunk and the remote head up front.
April: Tire rotation: Being the first rotate I moved front to back and a couple observations: 1: the wheels on this car seem crazy heavy to me. 2: the car has a space for a jack but not a jack and an adjacent jack stand. My wife Subaru Outback is like this also…
May: I couldn’t get over how heavy the wheels were so I did a lot of research (looked at aftermarket wheels, their weights, etc) and followed the advice here and bought a set of Fast EV01+ wheels. See that story in my menu..