New owner in West Michigan!

[DutchBrad]

2012 SE Premium - only 2550 miles on it!! I go pick up this car Tuesday. Also has the rear park assist sensors, cargo package and wheel locks! Picked it up for $8200 out the door (6% sales tax). SUPER HAPPY!

Pictures:

http://i742.photobucket.com/albums/xx66/Dutchbrad/2012%20IMiev_zpsrynqsys2.jpg
http://i742.photobucket.com/albums/xx66/Dutchbrad/2012%20IMiev4_zpsgq6kktfk.jpg

 

[Don]

Welcome to the forum!

Heck of a buy!! - That car had a sticker of near $35K when it was new. We bought a similar one (SE Premium with 3900 miles for $8700) about 6 months ago . . . . just to keep our original SE company

Don

 

[DutchBrad]

When I look on the Mitsubishi website, it says the 3/36 warranty goes through 3/29/17?? That means this car was put in service in 2014? All the warranty coverage's date back to a 2014 in service date. Does the 2nd owner get all the original warranty coverage?

 

[Don]

Yes, I believe that's correct - The warranty does transfer o subsequent owners. Our second car still has the factory warranty until January

Don

 

[BenBrown]

Yeah!!! Another West Michigan owner!!! Congratulations!!! The very best to you... if you are not too far from Kalamazoo, perhaps we can meet... I occasionally go to Grand Rapids...

Ben Brown

 

[DutchBrad]

Ben - we could meet sometime. I want some time to get to know the car and the range I can expect. Starting out with range anxiety already! LOL. Most of my driving will be in Holland, I work only 5 miles from home. But I want to slowly learn how to hypermile and extend the range. My Dutch gene is pushing me in that direction!! LOL

i cannot wait until Tuesday, I pick up the car that day. Have a 500 mile round trip to El Paso, IL to pick it up. Sounds like Normal, IL is quite the EV hotbed..... El Paso, IL is around 20 miles north of Normal.

DutchBrad

 

[BenBrown]

Brad... THE best source for info on your car is on this forum and among your manuals. Range anxiety is human...based largely on not knowing what to expect, but its not an eternal monster waiting for you each time you drive. I have found I can often use my range as an asset... but that is another post for another day...

Joe and others on the forum have written some good info for getting comfortable with your range and charging... Even so... people do have their own learning style. Myself I understood forum advice much easier when I was keeping a careful journal the first couple of weeks...

I continue to learn things almost everytime I come to the forum to make driving a progressively better experience...

Don't wait until you are perfect until we meet.. I'm excited for you and would love to look at the car... VERY cool car!!!

Ben...

I want some time to get to know the car and the range I can expect. Starting out with range anxiety already! LOL. But I want to slowly learn how to hypermile and extend the range.

i cannot wait until Tuesday, I pick up the car that day. Have a 500 mile round trip to El Paso, IL to pick it up. Sounds like Normal, IL is quite the EV hotbed..... El Paso, IL is around 20 miles north of Normal.

DutchBrad

 

[wmcbrine]

I have found I can often use my range as an asset... but that is another post for another day...

This I gotta hear.

 

[ed5000]

i cannot wait until Tuesday, I pick up the car that day. Have a 500 mile round trip to El Paso, IL to pick it up. Sounds like Normal, IL is quite the EV hotbed..... El Paso, IL is around 20 miles north of Normal.

DutchBrad

That's interesting because my car was originally from Normal, IL. It's a 2012 silver ES that had 2000 miles when I found it on a lot here in Northern California. How it got way out here I haven't a clue but I'm glad to have it.

 

[rgalvinmi]

Welcome to the forum fellow Michigander! Bob in Port Huron. Enjoy your GREAT deal!

 

[DaveMiller]

Did you get the car home? What are your first impressions?

Just curious,
Dave

 

[DutchBrad]

I trailered the car home two weeks ago. Been driving it every day since. I love it! Still learning how everything works, but very happy. My employer has charging stations, so I am driving for the cost of insurance and plates. LIKE that. It is a torquey motor. Fun to drive.

 

[Aerowhatt]

I trailered the car home two weeks ago. Been driving it every day since. I love it! Still learning how everything works, but very happy. My employer has charging stations, so I am driving for the cost of insurance and plates. LIKE that. It is a torquey motor. Fun to drive.

Congratulations!! The 'i' is my favorite car that I have ever owned or driven. I've driven a bunch of different vehicles in my 40 year driving history. Ironically, it promises to cost the least of any of them while I have it!

Aerowhatt

 

[Don]

I trailered the car home two weeks ago. Been driving it every day since. I love it! Still learning how everything works, but very happy. My employer has charging stations, so I am driving for the cost of insurance and plates. LIKE that. It is a torquey motor. Fun to drive.

Congratulations!! The 'i' is my favorite car that I have ever owned or driven. I've driven a bunch of different vehicles in my 40 year driving history. Ironically, it promises to cost the least of any of them while I have it!

It's among my very favorite cars too and that goes back more than 40 years

As to cost . . . . I'm not so sure. We bought our first iMiEV in May of 2012 for $30K less the $6K we got in Federal credits, so call it $24K. Two years later it was only worth about 1/3rd of what we paid for it - We took advantage of the HUGE depreciation on these cars and bought a 3,900 mile SE Premium about 6 months ago for $8,700. I'm not sure even that one will turn out to be a financial win once we have 100K on it and look back. Replacing a battery pack after the warranty expires would amount to a higher cost than buying 100K worth of $2 gasoline for a compact 35 or 40 mpg car. The resale value on a 10 year old iMiEV would be very close to ZERO, so there's no recouping anything we paid for the car

I can think of several other cars which turned out to be much cheaper to drive in the long run - If you had bought a '64 Mustang convertible new and put 100K on it and sold it 20 years later, you'd have got back every dime you spent on it a couple times over. I read an article about a guy who bought a used Sunbeam Tiger for $2,500 to use as his college car. He ended up keeping it for 10 or 12 years (until his law office was up and flourishing) and sold it for $25K. An antique iMiEV will likely never be worth 1/10th what we paid . . . . unless it's for parts for someone to home-build a car. Cheapest car I've ever owned? I've had a couple that I sold for more than I paid for them already and as much as I love both of our EV's, I don't think they're never going to rate as the cheapest to drive of the cars I've owned

Don

 

[Aerowhatt]

Yes like making the comparison between it and classic (they turned out to be and no one knew when they were new) cars is a fair comparison.

However when comparing apples to apples the iMiEV comes out on top, easily. Current MSRP is $23,000 minus $7500 tax credit. The 60,000 mile fuel savings using electricity instead of gas is 8,750 (according to the EPA) take it to 100,000 miles and add another $5800.00 in fuel savings. That doesn't even include the cost of radiator flushes and oil changes saved over keeping up an ICE for 100k miles.
Bottom line $23,000 - $22,050 (total savings) = $950 plus insurance, tires, etc., which both "apples" will need relatively equally and can be excluded thusly. It doesn't need to have any resale value to wipe the floor with the economics of any sub $25,000 ICE (which doesn't turn out to be a classic collectors car down the road).

Actually, as an aside. The iMiEV has higher than average potential of becoming a highly valued collectors car in the future (not that it needs to). First real production EV in the world for instance. Keeping in mind that the odds of any car becoming a collectors item are slim to none.

Back on topic - Good to have you aboard DutchBrad. Welcome to the club and I hope you stick around the forum in the future.

Aerowhatt