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eat808

New member
Joined
Jul 15, 2019
Messages
2
Location
UK
Hello all fellow I-MIEV owners

I purchased a 2011 I-MIEV on Friday 12th July 2019 with 6.2K Miles on it, hardly been used. Super clean underneath no signs of any rust, Ex pool car on a collage campus, plastic wrapped (Fairly well) in corp colors (White & Purple)

Had a coolant leak from the AC whilst using the "Rapid" CHAdeMO charger on the way home (100 mile journey) but luckily this has not caused any other problems, it is already booked in for a service and to resolve this leak issue, the MITSI service station also advised me of a fairly major recall on the passenger airbag that takes a whole day to do plus a couple of other minor recall items (which I forget right now) booked for next Tuesday, the Service was fairly reasonable at sub £200 for what I assume is an out of warranty car, but this is for a basic service, it does not seem to have been regularly serviced however, glaring holes in the service record, hopefully there is nothing that I cant just catch up on now.

Love the way this car drives, always wanted one of these since they first arrived here in the UK but could never afford one until now, picked mine up for 5K which for a clean EV with just 6.2K on the clock is great value IMHO.

Still appears to have the capability to charge to 100% and complete a long range journey of approx 100miles with just a single rapid top up charge needed to complete, a good first test drive IMO.

This will be my fourth EV (1st - Honda Beat ICE Conversion in 2013, 2nd Mia Electric in 2015 (Slowly failing due to battery imbalance issues) 3rd Kia Soul EV (fantastic EV) also in 2015 (my partners) been (exclusively) driving EV's since 2013 fossil fuel free since 2015 when my partner finally ditched her diesel fat fryer.

Could never go back to Petrol or Diesel now (don't do hybrids), buying pure BEV's sure makes buying a car a heck of a lot more difficult though, especially as now it seems that everyone wants a piece of the EV action.

The future looks bright and electrified ;-)

Graham
 
Graham, welcome to the forum. Your transition to fossil-free BEVs is in line with many of us. Congratulations on your new purchase, and with such low mileage as well! Interesting that the demand for used EVs has risen, although around here, for example, there are still plenty of inexpensive Leafs available, but few i-MiEVs.
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/cta?query=nissan+leaf&sort=priceasc&srchType=T

Fun looking up a Mia electric as I had never heard of it.

Service, what's that? Other than an outright battery failure (replaced under warranty), the only time my cars have been in the shop is for a few recalls, such as the airbag one you are referring to. Otherwise, what's there to service and spend money on? Presumably they will give the car a comprehensive look over in which case perhaps it may work for your peace-of-mind. There's a cabin air filter that might need replacement, which just takes a couple of minutes.

In my case, had I noticed a coolant leak I would simply poke my nose under the car to find out where it's coming from as the problem might be very simple to take care of. The only significant coolant leak on an i-MiEV that I have heard about was a puncture of the radiator about eight years ago when some Frenchmen were driving their C-Zero around the world.

You might consider updating your profile to show your location, as without mentioning the £200 for all we know you could have been in the US (elsewhere, kilometers would be the giveaway). Here's how:
http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3196

In any case, welcome and wish you many happy driving miles in your almost-new i-MiEV.
 
Hello JoeS

Thanks for the Tips on my profile, now updated with my location, profession and interests.

Yes the Service is merely to introduce myself (and the I-MIEV) to my local Mitsi dealership, check they are happy to service EV's and get some peace of mind, the car has been sitting unused for years and has very little supplied service history, the air con fluid leak did push me into getting the service check, I read on this forum several users who have had failed coolant pumps, this may be due to loosing all the fluid and running the pump dry, not something I want to repeat on my I-MIEV as the pumps are not cheap to replace.

My I-MIEV also has a kenwood (aftermarket?) nav system in the console but is is non functional at the moment, something else I will need to tinker with.

It also appears not to have any radio or stereo, but it does have speakers? I am guessing that the Kenwood NAV console may also double as a stereo when it works, it does have a Bluetooth symbol on it so I guess it may route audio from a smartphone to the speakers as the Soul EV does.

Would you happen to know if the Fast (not Rapid or Quick) Charge ever kicks the Aircon in for cooling? Say on a hot day for example, My Soul EV does this if the battery gets warm during charging even on a Fast (not Rapid) charge on a hot day when parked/charging in full sun for example.

But AFAIK the I-MIEV only uses the Aircon pump for Rapid/Quick charging, is this correct?

I am only charging using the slow Type 1 charge cable at the moment until the fluid leak is sorted (booked in for next Tuesday), purely because I don't want to break anything until I can be sure the Type 2 (Fast) charge wont try and use the leaky Aircon system.

Also is there somewhere we can load a picture of our beloved I-MIEV's on this forum?

I may also need to get the alignment checked for "Toe In" as this also seems to be a common issue and there does seem to be a little wander when cornering or accelerating/decelerating hard, albeit very minor.

Are there any other checks you think I might need to do on an I-MIEV that has been sitting around unused for 5 years or so?

Sorry for all the questions.

Graham
 
Graham, let me briefly respond to your questions -

1. The i-MiEV came with a very good audio system with radio/CD player. Few people have improved upon the sound quality although there have been a number of aftermarket alterations. I don't know what the i-MiEV UK stock audio configurations were.

2. AFAIK, using CHAdeMO kicks in both the aircon and the battery blower. The strange thing is that this usually turns off at around 60% SoC as the car is charging, although I have had it continue running while charging on very hot days and a hot battery pack. When driving in hot weather we can manually divert the aircon lower duct to feed the battery (there are a number of older posts discussing this).

3. Yes, the aircon compressor is a very expensive part and it seems a number have failed, especially up in Canada. Wise to get that checked.

4. To upload photos you need to have them accessible on some website and provide a link to them. Here's the discussion: http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1626
You might post your photos on this thread as we do not have a dedicated showcase/gallery for members' cars.

5. The i-MiEV has zero toe-in/out (as compared to most other vehicles having a slight toe-in) which makes it very slightly wobbly on grooved pavement. With such low mileage the ball joints and other suspension items on the car should be perfect unless someone hit something.

Enough, others might have further hints for you.
 
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