BC: Spare Tire

[Lynn McGuire]

BC: Spare Tire
https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2021/09/16

Yes !

Lynn

[pete...@gmail.com]

A lot of cars these days don't have a spare. Not even a low-speed 'donut' spare.

My Tesla doesn't, and it bugs me.

pt

[Alan Baker]

Given the frequency with which people actually experience a blow out,
I'm not sure that carrying even a temporary spare is very pragmatic.

My BMW 135i doesn't have a spare. It originally came with run-flat
tires, but I've replace them with regular tires, and carry the necessary
tire "fix-a-flat" products.

[rksh...@rosettacondot.com]

Our last two car purchases have been hybrids, a Ford C-Max and a Honda CR-V.
Both replaced the well for the spare with the battery pack and provided
a sealant/inflater kit and a toll-free number for road service instead.
This turns out not to be great in rural areas.

Robert
--
Robert K. Shull Email: rkshull at rosettacon dot com

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <2686ef02-9564-4a51...@googlegroups.com>,

Well, you could *get* a doughnut. My daughter's got one for her
Mazda, and when her left front tire blew out a month or so ago,
she called Triple A and got the nice guy to change it to the
doughnut. (Possibly she could've done it herself, but we were on a
busy highway, it was dark, and she had me in the car with her.
Both she and my endocrinologist have been heard to describe me as
"frail.")

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

[danny burstein]

In <si09jm$d1p8$1...@memoryalpha.rosettacon.com> rksh...@rosettacondot.com writes:

>Our last two car purchases have been hybrids, a Ford C-Max and a Honda CR-V.
>Both replaced the well for the spare with the battery pack and provided
>a sealant/inflater kit and a toll-free number for road service instead.
>This turns out not to be great in rural areas.

Agreed fully. We lurve our c-max but when we hit some
highway debris and smashed our front tyre, it was a multi
hour wait for a tow.

Fortunately, there was a shop just off the next exit
that was still open and could replace it.

(Any interest in selling your c-max? )


--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

[J. Clarke]

On Thu, 16 Sep 2021 21:29:16 -0000 (UTC), danny burstein
<dan...@panix.com> wrote:

>In <si09jm$d1p8$1...@memoryalpha.rosettacon.com> rksh...@rosettacondot.com writes:
>
>>Our last two car purchases have been hybrids, a Ford C-Max and a Honda CR-V.
>>Both replaced the well for the spare with the battery pack and provided
>>a sealant/inflater kit and a toll-free number for road service instead.
>>This turns out not to be great in rural areas.
>
>Agreed fully. We lurve our c-max but when we hit some
>highway debris and smashed our front tyre, it was a multi
>hour wait for a tow.
>
>Fortunately, there was a shop just off the next exit
>that was still open and could replace it.
>
>(Any interest in selling your c-max? )

I just drove slowly to the tire store. The tire wasn't salvageable
but I don't think it was salvagable after the pothole anyway.

Personally I'm not happy with mine. Leave it plugged in for a month
and it won't start because the battery's dead. Not the big battery,
it has a little tiny 12v battery that doesn't get charged unless it's
"running".

I'm tempted by an F-150 Lightning, but I keep remembering that it's an
electric Ford. And besides it has that tiny little bed.

[rksh...@rosettacondot.com]

danny burstein <dan...@panix.com> wrote:
> In <si09jm$d1p8$1...@memoryalpha.rosettacon.com> rksh...@rosettacondot.com writes:
>
>>Our last two car purchases have been hybrids, a Ford C-Max and a Honda CR-V.
>>Both replaced the well for the spare with the battery pack and provided
>>a sealant/inflater kit and a toll-free number for road service instead.
>>This turns out not to be great in rural areas.
>
> Agreed fully. We lurve our c-max but when we hit some
> highway debris and smashed our front tyre, it was a multi
> hour wait for a tow.

My wife was with her friend and friend's young son. They had driven through
a state park and something cut the sidewall as they were headed back to the
highway.
It was a Friday evening and took about three hours to find someone who would
come and get them and another couple of hours to find someone else who could
replace the tire.

> (Any interest in selling your c-max? )

We traded it in for the Honda...my wife has a roughly 100 mile roundtrip
commute and the C-Max was our oldest "daily driver". Excellent vehicle.
We got a bit nervous because the transmission failed about 500 miles before
the end of the warranty (she never hits the time limit). It was apparently
an unusual enough occurrence that Ford had the replaced parts shipped to them
by the dealer and it was the only issue we had with the car. With about 200k
miles on it I was still able to get over 50 mpg on city streets.

[rksh...@rosettacondot.com]

J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Sep 2021 21:29:16 -0000 (UTC), danny burstein
> <dan...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>>In <si09jm$d1p8$1...@memoryalpha.rosettacon.com> rksh...@rosettacondot.com writes:
>>
>>>Our last two car purchases have been hybrids, a Ford C-Max and a Honda CR-V.
>>>Both replaced the well for the spare with the battery pack and provided
>>>a sealant/inflater kit and a toll-free number for road service instead.
>>>This turns out not to be great in rural areas.
>>
>>Agreed fully. We lurve our c-max but when we hit some
>>highway debris and smashed our front tyre, it was a multi
>>hour wait for a tow.
>>
>>Fortunately, there was a shop just off the next exit
>>that was still open and could replace it.
>>
>>(Any interest in selling your c-max? )
>
> I just drove slowly to the tire store. The tire wasn't salvageable
> but I don't think it was salvagable after the pothole anyway.
>
> Personally I'm not happy with mine. Leave it plugged in for a month
> and it won't start because the battery's dead. Not the big battery,
> it has a little tiny 12v battery that doesn't get charged unless it's
> "running".

We saw this at the start of the pandemic...it was the first time the car
had gone more than a weekend without being driven (typically 500+ miles
per week).

> I'm tempted by an F-150 Lightning, but I keep remembering that it's an
> electric Ford. And besides it has that tiny little bed.

I'm doing a wait-and-see on electrics, especially trucks. We own land in
a fairly rural area and the last time I checked the closest place to get
better than 15-amp service near our land was an RV park about 50 miles away
that offered 50-amp on their pull-throughs. Also we have an F-250 diesel
that I'm in no hurry to replace (2008 with 35k miles).
I do like the Teslas, but a coworker of mine (who is a serious Tesla
fanboy) had a number of fit-and-finish problems with his Model 3. Made me
nervous to see that in a $50k vehicle even though Tesla's service was stellar.

[danny burstein]

In <ool7kgd8ek3bu06tg...@4ax.com> J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> writes:


>I just drove slowly to the tire store. The tire wasn't salvageable
>but I don't think it was salvagable after the pothole anyway.

>Personally I'm not happy with mine. Leave it plugged in for a month
>and it won't start because the battery's dead. Not the big battery,
>it has a little tiny 12v battery that doesn't get charged unless it's
>"running".

There are some serious issues with the 12V system
on a bunch of the model years. We actually retrofitted
in a kill switch so I wouldn't have to unscrew the
grounding connector bolt..

Is yours the standard c-max or the "energi" (plug in) version?

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 02:28:51 -0000 (UTC), danny burstein
<dan...@panix.com> wrote:

>In <ool7kgd8ek3bu06tg...@4ax.com> J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>>I just drove slowly to the tire store. The tire wasn't salvageable
>>but I don't think it was salvagable after the pothole anyway.
>
>>Personally I'm not happy with mine. Leave it plugged in for a month
>>and it won't start because the battery's dead. Not the big battery,
>>it has a little tiny 12v battery that doesn't get charged unless it's
>>"running".
>
>There are some serious issues with the 12V system
>on a bunch of the model years. We actually retrofitted
>in a kill switch so I wouldn't have to unscrew the
>grounding connector bolt..
>
>Is yours the standard c-max or the "energi" (plug in) version?

Obviously the energi since I left it plugged in.

In fairness Jeremy Clarkson's Tesla did the same thing to him. So
it's not just Ford.

[danny burstein]

In <4lv7kg5eo77q1agr8...@4ax.com> J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> writes:

>>
>>Is yours the standard c-max or the "energi" (plug in) version?

>Obviously the energi since I left it plugged in.

That's what I figured.. but wanted to make sure.

I got a bit twisted in the threading here. Do
you still have it, and if so, interested in selling?

[pete...@gmail.com]

The thing is, you can almost certainly get 50 amp, 240 V service at home.
That's what your laundry drier uses. I have a Tesla charger on that kind
of circuit, and it gives my car about 30 mph of range.

I only visit other chargers if I'm on a long trip.

Pt

[danny burstein]

In <36997708-0947-444d...@googlegroups.com> "pete...@gmail.com" <pete...@gmail.com> writes:

[snip]

>The thing is, you can almost certainly get 50 amp, 240 V service at home.
>That's what your laundry drier uses. I have a Tesla charger on that kind
>of circuit, and it gives my car about 30 mph of range.

Ditto if you've got an electric stove.

Note: Chances are if your house is set up this way,
wiring in one of these circuits should NOT max
out your total home capacity. But if it's close,
then simply don't run your dryer when charging
your car...

On the Ford C-Max, the "convenience" charger (the
one you carry in the car) is a 12 amp, 120VAC
unit that you just plug in. Gets you about
five miles per charge hour.

If you've set up a "Level II" 240V charger,
it's ten miles or a bit more/hour

(Total "plug in" mileage is 20-25 depending
on driving style and air conditioning, etc.).

In other words... each full electric charge
"saves" about a half gallon of gas. On a purely
eonomic basis [a], the extra cost for the plug
in EV version wasn't worth it when new, but
as to used... at least prior to Covid and chip
shortage price increases... it made sense

[a] of course, there are folk who choose this
to get away from buying from the Big and Evil
fuel oil corporations and instead buy elecricity
from the Big and Evil utility...

[Lynn McGuire]

Another reason why I drive a F-150 4x4 with a full size spare. I was
surprised to find out that my wife's 2019 Highlander has a full size
spare as she blew out a tire last week. She now has four new tires.

Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

The electric clothes dryer is 30 amp. The electric cooktop and electric
stove are 50 amps each, or 50 amps in a free standing stove.

Lynn

[Default User]

J. Clarke wrote:

>Personally I'm not happy with mine. Leave it plugged in for a month
>and it won't start because the battery's dead. Not the big battery,
>it has a little tiny 12v battery that doesn't get charged unless it's
>"running".

I bought a NoCo trickle charger for the battery in the Venerable
Bronco. With the combination of no longer being a productive member of
society, and a reduction in trips last year, I had the battery go dead
a couple times.

There's probably some parasitic leak that only shows up with these
conditions. Anyway, the charger keeps it full and supposedly desulfates
as well, claiming to extend its life.


Brian

[rksh...@rosettacondot.com]

The problem is not the house, it's when we're at the rural property, which
is 260 miles from where we currently live. We don't have electric (or water,
for that matter).
I can get electric installed, but anywhere except right at the edge of the
land I have to pay to have the poles and line run...$25 a foot when I last
checked, or about $25k to where we we would want it.

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 09:06:25 -0000 (UTC), rksh...@rosettacondot.com
wrote:

You're getting into solar roof territory.

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 02:42:28 -0000 (UTC), danny burstein
<dan...@panix.com> wrote:

>In <4lv7kg5eo77q1agr8...@4ax.com> J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>>
>>>Is yours the standard c-max or the "energi" (plug in) version?
>
>>Obviously the energi since I left it plugged in.
>
>That's what I figured.. but wanted to make sure.
>
>I got a bit twisted in the threading here. Do
>you still have it, and if so, interested in selling?

Are you anywhere near Connecticut and how much are you offering?

[rksh...@rosettacondot.com]

Given the small size of the house we'd probably build and the location
(southwestern Oklahoma) we might be better off with a wind turbine, battery
and generator for backup.

[Scott Lurndal]

For $25k, you can get a 7kw solar roof + battery. And get 25% back
on your federal taxes.

[danny burstein]

In <n%11J.75937$z%4.4...@fx37.iad> sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:

[snip]

>For $25k, you can get a 7kw solar roof + battery. And get 25% back
>on your federal taxes.

A 7kw array (if that's its real output) gets you 600 to 800 or so kw-hr
per month (depending on your location in the US [a]). Which, umm, yeah,
is getting to the "adequate" numbers...

[a] rule of thumb: Solar cell output times 3 or 4 (hours) gives
you roughly the daily total. Higher number in the south, lower
in the north.

[Paul S Person]

Or the car never really turns off. Which might arguably be "parasitic"
but, provided it's doing something intended, not necessarily a "leak".

Is there anything that has to be reset after it dies? Clock time?
Radio button selections?
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

[Scott Lurndal]

danny burstein <dan...@panix.com> writes:
>In <n%11J.75937$z%4.4...@fx37.iad> sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>
>[snip]
>
>>For $25k, you can get a 7kw solar roof + battery. And get 25% back
>>on your federal taxes.
>
>A 7kw array (if that's its real output) gets you 600 to 800 or so kw-hr
>per month (depending on your location in the US [a]). Which, umm, yeah,
>is getting to the "adequate" numbers...

7kw array (~6kw peak production after microinverter losses) covers my
annual usage, with a few kwh left over. PG&E doesn't
pay more than $0.03/kwh for the excess at this time, so it's worth sizing
the system based on your last few years of usage around here.

My old house had a 3.5kw array which also covered the annual usage.

Neither home had air conditioning or electric heat (other than the
waterbed heater :-)

The 7kw array (installed 9 months ago), looks to return about 12% per anum
in income (lower bills). My electric bill is $10/mo, and any excess kwh at true-up
will offset that as well. Should pay for itself in about 6-7 years.

[danny burstein]

In <eW21J.107024$lC6....@fx41.iad> sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:

>Neither home had air conditioning or electric heat (other than the
>waterbed heater :-)

One "got'cha" to watch out for: The defrost heater
in your "frost free" refrigerator/freezer.

It's kind of invible unless you look for the numbers/measure
carefully... but ...

Our medium sized, standard, kitchen unit pulled
something like 100-150 watts when the compressor
was running [a], but...

... but when the defroster kicked on, it was
way up there at 600 or so. Half a kw and
then some.

Over the course of a month it isn' tmuch, but
it can cause you grief if your circuitry doesn't
account for it.

(We had the overhead lights in our temple mysteriously
shut down. It turned out that... our Licensed And
Insured Electrician had, when installing a new outlet
on the main floor for use with, well, a refrigerator...
had wired it into the overhead lighting circuit.

Took a _lot_ of head scratching to figure out what
had happened.)

[a] probably a bit of a starting surge, too, but we
didn't have the equipment to measure it, it would
only be for a very short time, and... our refrig is
an "inverter" one so probably not too horrendous.

[Lynn McGuire]

But not Solar Battery. Tesla Powerwalls are $8,000 each. I don't know
if that is the installed price or just the purchased price.

Lynn

[J. Clarke]

20K gets you 4.25KW worth of solar panels and one powerwall,
installed.

[Lynn McGuire]

Where ?

Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

I was quoted $65K for three Powerwalls and the associated panels,
installed. I passed and bought a regular 38 kw Generac, liquid cooled
(quiet), natural gas fired, for $25K, installed. It ran nine hours on
Tuesday after hurricane Nicholas passed over us, and three hours
Thursday when they had to rerun the 20 kV distribution line for my
neighborhood. Totally automatic, I did not even know that the generator
was running.
https://www.winsim.com/generator_corner_finish.jpg

Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

On 9/17/2021 6:22 AM, Darryl H wrote:
> On Thursday, September 16, 2021 at 7:47:42 PM UTC-5, Mark Jackson wrote:

>> On 9/16/2021 3:08 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>> BC: Spare Tire
>>> https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2021/09/16

>> Spare yes; tire no.
>>
>> --
>> Mark Jackson - https://mark-jackson.online/
>> Poverty is a choice made by governments not individuals.
>> - Fiona the Unemployed Bettong (Andrew Marlton)
>
> Turtles were early tires?

All terrain tires with four lugs.

Lynn

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 16:48:49 -0500, Lynn McGuire

Tesla.com.

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 16:53:14 -0500, Lynn McGuire

Quoted by who? You can certeainly run it up that high on the Tesla
site.

[Lynn McGuire]

Local solar dude installing Powerwalls with somebodies panels. I got
his quote over the phone and said thank you very much, no. He was all
about the tax credit and the payback but I figured that the payback was
20+ years.

And then I found out that the batteries in the Powerwalls have to be
replaced every ten years. My luck with UPSes is not good, I have bought
40 or 50 UPSes over the years. I currently have 8 or 10 UPSes in the
office and three at home. I have never gotten them to last more than
five years.

Lynn

[Paul S Person]

I was once in a situation where my computer was on the same circuit as
the refrigerator (not self-defrosting, BTW).

Every time the fridge started up ... the computer rebooted.

Now /that/ was exciting!

[Default User]

Paul S Person wrote:

>On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 05:53:14 -0000 (UTC), "Default User"

>>There's probably some parasitic leak that only shows up with these
>>conditions. Anyway, the charger keeps it full and supposedly
>>desulfates as well, claiming to extend its life.
>
>Or the car never really turns off. Which might arguably be "parasitic"
>but, provided it's doing something intended, not necessarily a "leak".

I couldn't say. It's an older vehicle, 1995.

>Is there anything that has to be reset after it dies? Clock time?
>Radio button selections?

I installed a new stereo system in spring. It does require some resets
after disconnecting the battery, but I don't recall if a dead battery
does. However, I don't use the radio because this has a USB port so I
have a stick plugged into that and it plays MP3s.

That sort of device does have a small current use. I didn't start
having problems until about six months after installation though.



Brian

[Paul S Person]

So maybe -- just maybe, who can say? -- not a leak but definitely a
parasite.

[Default User]

Paul S Person wrote:

>On Sat, 18 Sep 2021 19:00:26 -0000 (UTC), "Default User"
><defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>>I installed a new stereo system in spring. It does require some
>>resets after disconnecting the battery, but I don't recall if a
>>dead battery does. However, I don't use the radio because this has
>>a USB port so I have a stick plugged into that and it plays MP3s.
>>
>>That sort of device does have a small current use. I didn't start
>>having problems until about six months after installation though.
>
>So maybe -- just maybe, who can say? -- not a leak but definitely a
>parasite.

For modern vehicles, you can look up the expected resting current draw.
It's small but non-zero, because of electronics that have memory.

It seems something changed in the fall. I've retired since 2018 and cut
my driving substantially, then of course it was furture reduced in the
spring of 2020. I didn't have problems for another 4 months or so. The
cold weather probably contributed, but the first time the battery went
dead it was diagnosed as bad, so I had a new one installed. That went
dead in about four weeks of my usual driving, a couple of short trips
to the store each week.

At some point I will get motivated to check it out, but it has a more
serious situation with the rear window not rolling down that I would
tackle first. It's really a two-person job, so I will hit up my
brother-in-law for that.


Brian

[rksh...@rosettacondot.com]

We're planning on doing the same thing in the house we're remodelling,
although 18kW should be plenty for us. My parents had the house for 19 years
and in that period they had the usual storm-related outages (a few hours) a
couple of times per year, for which solar would be fine. There were also at
least three ice storm related outages that lasted 5-10 days. The 18kW generator
system is less than $10k installed and given that we're going to completely
redo the wiring anyway...
(The Tesla site suggests a Solar Roof with three Poweralls at $110,700
before "potential incentives" for 9 days backup.)

[J. Clarke]

On Tue, 21 Sep 2021 15:58:29 -0000 (UTC), rksh...@rosettacondot.com

Did you check the "Solar panels" option? The Solar Roof replaces your
entire roof with glass shingles, with some of them providing solar
power. The "Solar Panels" option provides conventional solar panels
elevate above the roof.

[rksh...@rosettacondot.com]

Yes...I don't have good historical numbers for their house, but scaling down
for size from ours gives an estimate of 17kW + 4 Powerwalls giving 4 days for
$64,167 (83% overall replacement). If we got lucky (no clouds, no ice/snow on
the panels, temperature not too low, etc.) we could probably shut down
everything but the heat and make it through a lengthy outage. But an outage
during an extreme cold spell would burn through four Poweralls in hours...our
average power draw for the worst day last winter was 13.57 kW (325.56 kwH
in one day) and would have been even higher if we hadn't spent the next two
days mostly blacked out (10-15 minutes on, 30 off much of the time). That's
about one hour per Powerwall.
In any case I have a hard time making it work out financially. The cost after
incentives is $47,483. Even if I finance that on 30 years (assuming I can) the
payment is somewhere in the $200 range. The "smart hours" rate for electricity
from their utility company is $.05/kWH, or roughly $135/month average. Running
a generator on gas is considerably higher than that, but would be limited to
a few hours in an average year, a week or two worst case.

[pete...@gmail.com]

I came within the skin of my teeth to having a Tesla Solar Roof. Literally hours
before tearoff was due to start, Tesla finally looked at photos they'd had for a
year, and decided that the bowing in my 180 year old roof 'needed to be repaired'
since the roof wasn't flat enough.

But the point is, I got pretty deep into the numbers.

* The Solar panels generate about 3x as much power per square foot as the
root tiles.
* There are *huge* subsidies and incentives available for the installation:
* Federal tax credit.
* State tax credit.
* Utility subsidy.
* Tesla discount for installing solar and powerwalls at the same time.
* My house needs a new roof anyway - so I can add the cost of that to the benefit.
* Interesting recurring revenue from letting Tesla store power in my PWs, and
draw from it (within limits) during peak times - effectively, being a peaker power
plant.

All of this literally cut my installation cost (9 kw + 2 PW) from 63k to 34k, plus the
value of a new roof.

pt