What vehicle do you drive?

ToeMissile said:

MKBD's auto youtube channel had a quick walk around with Scaringe and a few of his comments added/alluded to a little more info.

Off the top of my head; cheaper materials on the interiors of R2/R3, smallest battery will get 270mi range, NACS charging port, R3 base price under R2.

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I'm pretty impressed, still a lot of money, so, not sure I'll bite, but I'd say they nailed the interior. I'm glad they didn't go full Tesla retard and eliminate the turn signal stalk.

Side note: With all these companies going all-in on glass roofs, I need to invest in a Safelite franchise.

Foler said:

Thanks. I’m looking at this product potentially

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b40071617/

TBH you might be right. This door panel is the only interior item that maybe a reseller would want to replace before selling and it costs $500 for OEM GM new.

Looking at auto trader I think private sale I could get 22-24k for it. I’ve been reading peoples experience doing private sales and it sounds pretty awful. I think id rather get 3k or so less from a reseller to not have to deal with that.

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That might work if you still have the plastic relatively intact. In my case, it's turned brittle and crumbled into a bunch of small pieces.

I would also want to be careful in your case since I wouldn't want to permanently bond the switches to the trim since they need to come out to access some of the screws holding the door trim in place.

I don't blame you on the private party sales, too much hassle these days. I've got better things to do than waste time providing test drives, haggling, and avoiding scams. I just wish I would have sold my truck at peak covid since those online services were getting really stupid with their offers.

Foler said:

Looking at auto trader I think private sale I could get 22-24k for it. I’ve been reading peoples experience doing private sales and it sounds pretty awful. I think id rather get 3k or so less from a reseller to not have to deal with that.

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I've never had a problem with doing private sales, and I've done a lot of them.

Don't put a penny into fixing that seat and door panel if you're going to sell it to a company, it won't make any difference because they will just give you whatever number their system spits out and some minor wear and tear is priced into that. The only thing that's going to really ding the value to them is damage beyond what is typical, i.e. accident damage, bad repairs or excessive sun damage. I'd just clean it inside and out and go.

You can also offer it to a used car dealer directly, I've sold a few cars that way and that usually got me 500-1000 more than I was offered for trading it in. Most used dealers buy stuff sight unseen on auction sites so getting to see the car in person before deciding if they want to buy it is already a plus to them. You'll be amazed how quickly they will make a deal compared to how much time they like to waste when they want to (up-)sell you something, I usually had either a "not interested" or a firm offer within 5 minutes of driving onto the lot. Some of the times they didn't even test drive the thing.

If you trade it in at the dealer they subtract the dollar amount you get for the old truck off the new truck when calculating sales tax. So if they give you $20k for the trade in and sales tax is 7%, you save $1400 in sales tax off the new truck.

Wasn't aware of that because it's not like that here. Looks like it depends on your state/country. Some places (like California) you pay full amount regardless.

Generally with those types of incentives, the dealer knows this and will pocket it one way or another. There's a €3k government grant you can get here if you buy a used EV, but only if it was under a certain price when it was new. So for some cars, the same year/model might qualify but only if it wasn't a higher spec model. When I was shopping for one, it soon become obvious that all the cars that qualified for the grant were more expensive than ones that had been just barely above the cutoff price when new. So cars with more options were selling for basically the same or less because they were less appealing to buyers that were only shopping for one that they could get the grant for.

Foler said:

Truck finished production and is OTW. ETA is end of month.

Anyone have tint and car bra/ceramic suggestions?

For tint I think I’m sold on Llumar air80 for front windshield and then llumar formula one stratos all around.

For bra I’m thinking of just having the front of the truck done and roof. I’ve heard mixed things on bras - some people complaining about discoloring, taking off paint when removed, etc. I’ve read folks on several forums say to wait at least 5-6 months after paint to apply bra. That may be superstition.

Then there’s ceramic coating. Is it even worth it? It seems like the ultimate protection is bra and then ceramic.

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I really liked ceramic on my last sports car but you do have to maintain and reapply it after a while. Since I don't regularly hand wash my normal daily drivers I don't bother, just use wax from the carwash tbh. I used to use I think optimum rinse less on the ceramic and it was like glass.

Though honestly if you're trying to make it pretty rather than just protected you probably need to take it to a place that will do paint correction and properly strip any wax and shit before applying.

Llumar is the best tint - all my cars have been it and I take them a while away to this Asian dude my wife knew to do it lol - it’s been perfect.

as for other stuff - ppf protects - ceramic looks awesome - both is the best of the best- but find a certified installer for whatever product you choose

Palum said:

I really liked ceramic on my last sports car but you do have to maintain and reapply it after a while. Since I don't regularly hand wash my normal daily drivers I don't bother, just use wax from the carwash tbh. I used to use I think optimum rinse less on the ceramic and it was like glass.

Though honestly if you're trying to make it pretty rather than just protected you probably need to take it to a place that will do paint correction and properly strip any wax and shit before applying.

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Ceramic coating is certainly the most difficult to do properly but even the "cheap" ones should last 1 - 2 years. The good ones (done professionally) can last up to 5 years, I think. I've used the ceramic coating from Feynlab, because it was supposed to be one of the easier coats to apply and it was "cheap" enough that if I didn't like it, I could go back to Zaino or another AIO.

While I think Zaino had a deeper wet paint look once you get 3+ coats deep, it also needed a new coat every ~3 months or so. So the ceramic coat lasting over a year is probably worth the trade off, for a bit less luster.

Different ceramic coats also produce different shines, or so says some dude obsessed with detailing his vehicles, on a video I watched years ago that I can't find anymore.

Couple videos of professionals applying a ceramic coat in my view history(I didn't use any power tools):

Burns said:

Ceramic coating is certainly the most difficult to do properly but even the "cheap" ones should last at least 2 years. The good ones (done professionally) can last up to 5 years, I think. I've used the ceramic coating from Feynlab, because it was supposed to be one of the easier coats to apply and it was "cheap" enough that if I didn't like it, I could go back to Zaino or another AIO.

While I think Zaino had a deeper wet paint look once you get 3+ coats deep, it also needed a new coat every ~3 months or so. So the ceramic coat lasting 2 years is probably worth the trade off, for a bit less luster.

Different ceramic coats also produce different shines, or so says some dude obsessed with detailing his vehicles, on a video I watched years ago that I can't find anymore.

Couple videos of professionals applying a ceramic coat in my view history(I didn't use any power tools):

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Oh yea it's great but get professional on a new car and it's definitely worth it. I'm skeptical on the cheap Amazon shit on top of car covered in trash from 5 years driving put on in the driveway though.

Palum said:

Oh yea it's great but get professional on a new car and it's definitely worth it. I'm skeptical on the cheap Amazon shit on top of car covered in trash from 5 years driving put on in the driveway though.

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Proper prep is certainly recommended by everyone. At a minimum, if your paint looks mostly ok, you should use a claybar, then evaluate whether you can live with the current chips/imperfections. If you want to go further, then you can start with paint correction using something like Dr. Colorchip. You're not going to do any extra damage by skipping any extra paint correction process; it's just that you cant really correct them after the ceramic coating is put on, until it degrades away.

As for doing it in your driveway garage (direct sun is bad during application and rain/water is bad before it fully cures over 48h), the retail Feynlabs coating is simplified for the enthusiast to do themselves so it dries slower, but it's still a ceramic coating that goes on just like the professional versions (unlike those spray bottles that say they contain ceramic magic, or some such). I think there are a handful of retail ceramic coating products that are legit from the same companies that make the stuff the pros use (with some different properties).

If memory serves, that C. Quartz in the video above is one of the products on the edge of being an advanced user/pro coat, that they will sell to anyone. I think it may also be one of the highest gloss coats too, but it's been a while since I researched it all.

If your going the do it yourself - I recommend Adam’s products - I did the “semi permanent” ceramic and it latest longer than The Last Coat or f11 and chemical guys coating products.

I've seen a lot more reviewers now mentioning EV efficiency with kwh/ mile or whatever.

I'm wondering if there's a nice place that might have a calculator to put your electric rate plus rough car efficiency to figure out if it might be worth grabbing a few year old ev at heavy depreciation as a appliance daily and save the wear on my truck/ sports.

I feel like my electric is decently high or that's just how un insulated my house is, but not sure which would win a 30mpg shitbox vs a model 3 / Y

Sludig said:

I've seen a lot more reviewers now mentioning EV efficiency with kwh/ mile or whatever.

I'm wondering if there's a nice place that might have a calculator to put your electric rate plus rough car efficiency to figure out if it might be worth grabbing a few year old ev at heavy depreciation as a appliance daily and save the wear on my truck/ sports.

I feel like my electric is decently high or that's just how un insulated my house is, but not sure which would win a 30mpg shitbox vs a model 3 / Y

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My real world usage after 6 months in an i3 is around 20kwh/100km, and that's driving it just the same as I would any other car, no hyper-miling shenanigans. I'm probably on the high end of average since I don't live in a city so my driving is almost all at interstate speeds.

You have to add about 10% in charging losses, so let's call it 22kw. So figure about 22kw for every 65 miles. If you know your home electric rate and your local gas price you can calculate the rest.

Lambourne said:

My real world usage after 6 months in an i3 is around 20kwh/100km, and that's driving it just the same as I would any other car, no hyper-miling shenanigans. I'm probably on the high end of average since I don't live in a city so my driving is almost all at interstate speeds.

You have to add about 10% in charging losses, so let's call it 22kw. So figure about 22kw for every 65 miles. If you know your home electric rate and your local gas price you can calculate the rest.

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Added bonus, 65 miles is about my daily commute so nice to see it in a cost/ day format

Sludig said:

Added bonus, 65 miles is about my daily commute so nice to see it in a cost/ day format

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Also you have to add in one time cost of adding the charging infrastructure in your house.