Mercedes 240D or Prius or both? A refined analysis.

softdown

Mercedes used to build automotive tanks that were built to last forever. They not only lost their way in the 90's they are now pioneers in the race to automotive madness that has currently reached into the hallowed executive hallways of Toyota and Honda. The good news is that one can still procure vintage diesel powered Mercedes with less than 400,000 miles. But likely well over 200,000 miles. The old diesels literally required no electricity at all. Making them EMP/Carington Event/false flag survivors of the first magnitude. 

Old Toyota Prius with over 200,000 miles are also readily available for a couple thousand dollars. So they are in need of a $4000 battery pack? An energetic soul can simply replace bad cells with good cells ~ annually for a few hundred dollars - or so. This seems to be a rather simple exercise for those sufficiently versed in elementary electricity. 

Any why not add to a collection averaging over 200,000 road miles and over two decades of hard living? Would it not be more impressive if the average mileage > 250,000 miles? 

I have now gone completely mad. It was a short yet satisfying trip.

BB.

I don't think it is a great idea for old diesel Mercedes...  Diesels in general are pretty dirty and old ones are horrible for the environment.

The older diesel fuel lines (rubber and such) may need to be replaced if using biodiesel (lines fail).

And Mercedes and other cars always seemed to require quite a bit of maintenance too.

Also in California, decades ago, we went to low sulphur diesel, which had much less lubrication properties. Our old diesel rabbit blew an injection pump seal 1 tank of low sulphur diesel later. Replacement pump and could never get it to stop smoking.

Preparing for an end of the world situation and bring alone (no local community), is probably not sustainable.

Bill

softdown

I don't prepare for an end of the world scenario. I do prepare for the day when we no longer live like kings off of borrowed debt. Why? Because no other nation in recorded history has ever succeeded in long term living off of debt. 

Most of those "sustainable communities" will consist of the haves taking care of the have not's. For awhile. Communes are another novel idea that has never worked in recorded history. They will enjoy lots of good feels and back rubs until they find that a few offer almost everything and most offer almost nothing. Same reasons that communism has never worked in recorded history. 

This harsh reality will get attacked of course. Because blue skies and puppy dogs are nicer to think about. 

icarus

Want bang for your buck in your Mad Max world?  Buy a fleet of old VW Rabbit diesels and warehouse them for their spares.  Try to find a VW Caddy Pickup for the fleet.  The little diesel will run on all kinds of strange oil including waste kitchen oil, soybean oil, other bio-blends as well as good old fuel oil or diesel fuel.  You can get them for ~$1000 in running condition, while the MB starts around $5k in running condition.  MB probably a nicer ride to the end of the world though!

Way more of them and simpler than the MB 240D.

softdown

"Mad Max world"  

Because fuel and food could never be used otherwise. I would have never considered the 240D without some board input.

Once Ingsoc tosses out a label I guess it tends to stick with so many "enforcers". Millions. 

softdown

Off gridders may be more interested in mpg and electric cars than most. Any good system is capable of partial electric car battery charges on a sunny day. Plus the Prius gets amazing mpg simply by using the 3 cylinder engine and putting along. 

But something else must be considered. Our top selling vehicle is the F-150 truck. Trucks and SUVs dominate our new car sales and you  may have a rough day if 5000, or more, pounds slams into your economy car. Government crash tests make them look good but the real world begs to differ at times. 

Which somehow reminds me of a very curious recent event. Millions of people are congratulating Musk for producing an electric truck boasting some rather amazing statistics. Well hold on folks, put down the crack pipe. The truck is years away and many changes are likely in store. Why didn't they cover the massive trunk lid with a solar panel?

softdown

autotempest.com allows the user to peruse the availability of many of the largest sites at once. Seems pretty convenient. 

icarus

Current Prius has a 1.8 litre 4 cyl engine.  Earlier ones had a smaller (1.6ltr) 4 cyl.

Icarus

softdown

There are various models. Was just looking at a 3 cylinder model since I search for the cheapest as a rule. They have been growing. And growing. 

Body and chassis
Class	Subcompact car (1997–2003) Compact car (2003–2015) Mid-size car (2015–present)

Nothing I need to have right now.

icarus

I don’t think Prius’s have ever come with a 3 cyl engine.  

softdown

icarus said:

I don’t think Prius’s have ever come with a 3 cyl engine.  

I was considering one yesterday. Unless the owner mistyped the info - which is quite common.

icarus

Me thinks is was a typo...or ignorance on the owners part?  As I said, I don’t think they ever came with a 3 cyl.  Always a 4 cyl atikinson cycle engine.

icarus

softdown

An enthusiast blew up their Prius motor with a small "50hp" injection of nitrous oxide gas. Aside from no tolerance to nitrous, the Atkinson engine would seem to offer tremendous gas mileage and longevity. 

The enthusiast is youtuber "Hoovies Garage" - who has carved out a reasonably successful niche via one major car investment blunder after another. Seems that people love to watch others blunder. In reality he is a bright guy with a pretty great personality. Perhaps no self discipline however. 

On the other hand, while he talks of bankruptcy it is likely that family wealth will sustain him. For example his grandma gave him a new Mercedes 500 SL when he turned 16. With over 250 youtube videos often garnering over 300,000 views, his advertising revenue is substantial. Youtube pays their stars pretty well. But he often loses over $10,000 on a single car investment. The exotics are quite risky.

softdown

Anybody found a good source for Prius cells? With an ~ 15 year old car it may make sense to employ slightly used cells when replacing bad cells. 

softdown

I have seen 3-4 Prius sellers claiming "brand new battery" in the past couple days. How could they not realize that is a pretty misleading statement. Perhaps that is the intent? I would guess that it is more often than not. 

Good source for Prius cells? Seems they want to sell a batch at a time. I'd rather replace bad cells over bad groups. 

icarus

The web is full of folks selling new Prius batteries.  Assuming that they are new and not rebuilt, why wouldselling a Prius with such a battery be misleading?  A little research on venders will reveal whether they are used/rebuilt/or new batteries.  

softdown

icarus said:

The web is full of folks selling new Prius batteries.  Assuming that they are new and not rebuilt, why wouldselling a Prius with such a battery be misleading?  A little research on venders will reveal whether they are used/rebuilt/or new batteries.  

Geez - they are not going to sell an ~ $4000 battery on a $2000 car. They are referring to the starter battery. Pretty sure of that.

Even if they bought a reconditioned EV battery, that is not a "new EV battery". A lot of reconditioned batteries are quite marginal - at best.

Bit like replacing a window motor and claiming car has new motor. 

icarus

I take your point...

Estragon

FWIW, I've seen at least one vendor selling the batteries at different prices depending on what length of warranty you want. 

I don't know if they're just counting on the extra $ from selling the long warranties to cover failures, or the extent to which the  warranty can be relied on.  It's at least possible they test and sort the cells, then price them accordingly?

softdown

Estragon said:

FWIW, I've seen at least one vendor selling the batteries at different prices depending on what length of warranty you want. 

I don't know if they're just counting on the extra $ from selling the long warranties to cover failures, or the extent to which the  warranty can be relied on.  It's at least possible they test and sort the cells, then price them accordingly?

This is what all of them do: Replace the worst of the worst and cross their fingers. Why should I pay them to do something that I am over qualified to do myself? Replacing bad cells is not quantum physics.

I listen to a lot of Scotty Kilmers podcasts on youtube. He has 42 years of experience as a mechanic. He often says that extended warranties are not worth the paper they are written on. Yes - I know that exceptions exist - if a reputable  manufacturer is warrantying their own product you may be in luck.

Replacing the worst cells is realistically an annual job. My gear guy (axle gear guy for Ingsoc purposes) said it is easy to replace the bad cells. But I think I want individual cells - not packets of used cells.

Here you see ~30 modules comprising the battery. I would prefer to replace individual cells over modules. Then again, that may not even be realistic.

 I think individual modules tend to measure ~7.75 volts. So maybe six 1.2 volt cells measuring 1.29 volts/each.

LOL - Windows 10 calculator at work: 7.76/6 = 1 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I kid you not. The idiots are now in charge. 

Estragon

Was the win10 calculator in "programmer" mode by any chance?  IIRC, it may not be doing floating point.  If so, the integer answer is (sort of) right.

softdown

Estragon said:

Was the win10 calculator in "programmer" mode by any chance?  IIRC, it may not be doing floating point.  If so, the integer answer is (sort of) right.

It was in the preset position I believe. What kind of computer user can't handle fractions? I've literally never before seen a calculator that didn't deliver fractions. Until Windows 10 - which stands accused of being designed for 6th graders. 

Replacing bad cells may not be ideal. Replacing bad modules winds up being a significant chore. Here is a pretty comprehensive video with about 10% "fluff" (unneeded nonsense though he is friendly about it). 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5ey4QX6L_8

He convinced me this company in southern California are excellent: https://www.electronautomotive.com

Now I wonder a good number of modules, there are 28, to replace. Tearing into the battery for measurements appears to be half the work of simply replacing the bad modules.