LegoZ
Active Member
A quick recap of "My Electrified Garage":
Back in February 2018 we were a 2 hybrid household with a 2013 Optima Hybrid and a 2017 Kia Niro EX. This was also the month I signed the contract for my 10.1KWDC Solar PV system. Within a week of signing the contract we went out and traded my wife's Optima Hybrid for my '18 Base Clarity PHEV. The Clarity immediately took over for our 2017 Kia Niro EX as the road trip car, and was the go to car for trips locally. By the time 2019 rolled around we noticed was that my wife was still needing to use her Niro to drop my son off at school that was about a 1.5 mile round trip so I started looking for a full EV to replace the Niro with. We looked at new Nissan Leaf's, and used BMW i3's, both of these cars had mirrors that were too low and blocked my view of the road ahead. We managed to find a used Leaf at CarMax and I went to look at it so see if it also had the same issue, which it did, and on the way out we saw a Kia Soul, Blue with a White top that I talked my wife into test driving. She quickly fell in love with it's quirky cuteness, so we went home and I started looking. One thing she missed from her Optima and did not like in my Clarity was lack of panoramic roof, with that in mind I started searching, on MyEV.com of all places and found out that the Soul EV, did in fact, come with an optional panoramic roof. Unfortunately the cars we found were far and not the color we really wanted. After about a month we stumbled onto the Soul we purchased at a dealer in Houston, TX. We obtained all of the information over phone and email confirmed interest and planned out all aspects of the purchase contingent on test drive and my inspection of the car. We drove down the Niro and traded it on the Soul the next morning. We did decide to still ship the car home so we drove back in a rental. Early that next week the car arrived at home. Since delivery last year we have had a few snags, about a week in the panoramic roof had a tilt lever fail, when we took it to the dealer we confirmed that could work on it they told us they couldn't touch an EV model when we went to drop it off. Believe me my wife was given a hard time over the now broken must have feature
. We ended up getting it fixed down at Southwest Kia in Dallas. Fast forward to 4/29/2020, I was having a rough day and took the Kia out to get away and had low charge to start ~28mi. After some spirited driving I managed to drop the battery below 20% and received the Low Battery light (low fuel equiv) I started to head back to my house but when I got down to 14miles of range left and 16% the car Illuminated the Power down light (turtle light) and the Ready light started flashing. The car then refused to respond to the accelerator at all and rolled to a stop. after thinking a while I shut off the car and turned it back on and was able to do this about 4 time and limp it to a blink charger that was less than a mile away. I then was able to get it home. It went to the dealer this week and they found that cell 87 had failed (SOH was still 98.5%) and the battery will be getting replaced. This will be the second HV battery the car will had had and it's less than 40k life, it has also had a new steering rack, On-Board Charger, AC compressor and i think something else. There are also a few electrical ghosts I need to have them look at when they have it, the fun part of the Sun and Fun package (that gave the pano roof) had LED speaker lights and the switch has a short in it so they will turn on when the switch is in the off position. We still love it though but likely won't keep it after the EV warranty expires.
2018 Honda Clarity PHEV
2016 Kia Soul EV+
10.1kw dc SunPower Solar
Back in February 2018 we were a 2 hybrid household with a 2013 Optima Hybrid and a 2017 Kia Niro EX. This was also the month I signed the contract for my 10.1KWDC Solar PV system. Within a week of signing the contract we went out and traded my wife's Optima Hybrid for my '18 Base Clarity PHEV. The Clarity immediately took over for our 2017 Kia Niro EX as the road trip car, and was the go to car for trips locally. By the time 2019 rolled around we noticed was that my wife was still needing to use her Niro to drop my son off at school that was about a 1.5 mile round trip so I started looking for a full EV to replace the Niro with. We looked at new Nissan Leaf's, and used BMW i3's, both of these cars had mirrors that were too low and blocked my view of the road ahead. We managed to find a used Leaf at CarMax and I went to look at it so see if it also had the same issue, which it did, and on the way out we saw a Kia Soul, Blue with a White top that I talked my wife into test driving. She quickly fell in love with it's quirky cuteness, so we went home and I started looking. One thing she missed from her Optima and did not like in my Clarity was lack of panoramic roof, with that in mind I started searching, on MyEV.com of all places and found out that the Soul EV, did in fact, come with an optional panoramic roof. Unfortunately the cars we found were far and not the color we really wanted. After about a month we stumbled onto the Soul we purchased at a dealer in Houston, TX. We obtained all of the information over phone and email confirmed interest and planned out all aspects of the purchase contingent on test drive and my inspection of the car. We drove down the Niro and traded it on the Soul the next morning. We did decide to still ship the car home so we drove back in a rental. Early that next week the car arrived at home. Since delivery last year we have had a few snags, about a week in the panoramic roof had a tilt lever fail, when we took it to the dealer we confirmed that could work on it they told us they couldn't touch an EV model when we went to drop it off. Believe me my wife was given a hard time over the now broken must have feature
. We ended up getting it fixed down at Southwest Kia in Dallas. Fast forward to 4/29/2020, I was having a rough day and took the Kia out to get away and had low charge to start ~28mi. After some spirited driving I managed to drop the battery below 20% and received the Low Battery light (low fuel equiv) I started to head back to my house but when I got down to 14miles of range left and 16% the car Illuminated the Power down light (turtle light) and the Ready light started flashing. The car then refused to respond to the accelerator at all and rolled to a stop. after thinking a while I shut off the car and turned it back on and was able to do this about 4 time and limp it to a blink charger that was less than a mile away. I then was able to get it home. It went to the dealer this week and they found that cell 87 had failed (SOH was still 98.5%) and the battery will be getting replaced. This will be the second HV battery the car will had had and it's less than 40k life, it has also had a new steering rack, On-Board Charger, AC compressor and i think something else. There are also a few electrical ghosts I need to have them look at when they have it, the fun part of the Sun and Fun package (that gave the pano roof) had LED speaker lights and the switch has a short in it so they will turn on when the switch is in the off position. We still love it though but likely won't keep it after the EV warranty expires.2018 Honda Clarity PHEV
2016 Kia Soul EV+
10.1kw dc SunPower Solar
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